Category: Cold Civil War

Of My Novel’s ‘Tone,’ ‘James Bond’ and ‘Mission: Impossible — FallOut’



by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I am not, by nature, a very dark and serious person. In fact, the fact that I’m writing a thriller meant to be an American answer to The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo is something of a fluke. It’s just that about two years ago, I came up with a really cool plot rather out of the blue and decided I loved it so much I was willing to put the energy into it to see it to completion.

So, here I am, getting ever-closer to wrapping up development and plunging back into actually writing the novel.

I find myself drawn a lot more to James Bond and Mission: Impossible than Stieg Larsson. I guess I’d rather write really accessible spythriller stuff than dark and scary police procedural. And, yet, I have a vision and I’m sticking to it. I’m going to write something of a police procedural, even though that’s not really what I’m all that good at for no other reason than at the moment I know nothing about it.

I say all of this because I’m listening to the soundtrack to Mission:Impossible — Fallout. I like how bombastic and accessible the music is. The thing about the novel I’m working on is I want everyone to have a good time. Maybe not MAGA, of course, because they’re American Nazis and can eat shit.

But otherwise, I want everyone to have a good time.

Anyway, the point is, I want this novel to be a lot of fun. It, hopefully, will present some “big ideas” in a manner that is so breezy that you won’t feel you’re being preached to. That, at least, is the goal.

‘American Brezhnev’ — Something Is Wrong With Trump



by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Something is wrong with Trump.

And it’s not like the usual, of COURSE there’s something wrong with Trump, either. I mean, there’s something so wrong with him he needs to step down immedately, or at least let Pence be acting president.

Or something.

But it’s a testament to how fucked up the American political system is that nothing is going to happen even though his deteriorating mental and physical state is pretty obvious for everyone to see.

So we’re stuck with stuck with an American Brezhnev. He’s simply going to doter along for the next five years destroying the Republic in a daze. (He’s never leaving office for any reason, by the way.)

I don’t have any ready answer to this problem. We’re fucked.

How Trump Won



by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Autocrats never lose, and as such, Trump is going to win in 2020. Here are a few of the ways he will win.

The Insurance Policy
Trump is going to ditch Pence and name some insane person (The Kooch, Tom Cotton, Steve King, Kris Kobach) as his veep. Or someone ostensibly sane (Ivanka Trump), but actual a proxy for the person they will name their veep when Trump finally goes insane in his second term. Ivanka, in particular, is perfect to help him pull off an “upset” win (see below) because she’s a threefer: a woman, Jewish and a Trump (and moderate!)

The Quid Pro Quo
The United States is removing 1/3 of its troops from Germany after a friendly call between Trump and Putin. This is set to happen by September, just in time for Putin to directly hack into our election systems on Election Day. By the time we figure out why the polls were so wrong again, lulz, we’ve had a Constitutional Convention and Trump is a barely functioning American Brezhnev.

The Durham Investigation
This is still lurking out there, ready to pop out. This is a catch-all investigation into everyone Trump hates by this dude named Durham. The conditions are there for Biden to be indicted just about the same time as the Second Comey Letter. Lulz! Trump wins.

COVID19
It’s possible that if COVID19 will simply grow so deadly that center-Left people won’t go to the polls (the ones that are still open for them) and Trump squeezes about a victory in Michigan and Wisconsin.

Trump Sues
If the other two things don’t work, then Trump sues, claiming massive voter fraud. It goes to SCOTUS and he wins 5-4. Lulz!

The Electoral College Commission
It’s very easy to see a 1876-style commission established to figure out which Electors to allow to cast their votes. Last time, it was made up of half Republicans, half Democrats. In the divided America we live in, all they have to do is have another Brooks Brothers Riot at some point and lulz, Trump wins.

General Electoral Ratfucking
If all THAT doesn’t hand the presidency to Trump, he simply ratfucks Electors on a personal level. His criminality and insanity fuse into one. He doxxes them on Twitter, telling MAGA, Proud Boys and whomever else will listen that they and their families have to be taught a lesson about the power of the 2nd Amendment. Or he bribes Electors. Or whatever else the fuck he wants to do. Nothing matters and no one cares at this point.

General Election Violence
This is a real wild card. It’s going to happen at some point, the question is how badly is it going to get. It’s going to get so bad that it’s the biggest story of the year, bigger than COVID19. America doesn’t have any history of political violence, and so when MAGA starts murdering people like me in cold blood, well, there’s a chance that, in itself, will be enough to keep Trump in office.

The point is — TRUMP IS NEVER LEAVING OFFICE FOR ANY REASON.

He is going to get into his second term and gradually turn into an American Brezhnev with absolute power after a rouge Constitutional Convention gives it to him. His successor will be even worst than he is.

Get out of the country if you can.

Trump’s Bonkerness Be Not Proud



by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The Mad King continues to be mad and we’re not going to do anything about it. The question is, of course, if we do reach a crisis with Trump’s mental state, will we even recognize it? I don’t think we will — I think Trump’s insanity and criminality will fuse in such a way that he’s going to literally destroy the entire Republic because, well, lulz, nothing matters.

Our future?

If if the things people like me have long feared happen — like Trump whips out his cock and starts masturbating, or starts to rant about African Americans using a gratuitous amount of the N-word…nothing will happen.

Nothing
Will
Happen

Nothing.

We’re so close to the election that Trump could go way, way, WAY out of his way to start a war with the DPRK and I just don’t see there being any consequences. Maggie Haberman would coo that it was all part of Trump’s political genius. Trump could explode, not implode, mentally and we’re all just going to have to wait for Jan. 20th, 2021.

But wait, there’s more.

There’s a real chance that if Trump’s insanity and criminality merge, that his enablers will be cool with him brazenly bribing electors. Or doxing them on Twitter. Or siccing MAGA on them in the dead of night. Trump could, at last, murder someone in cold blood on FOX News and lulz, nothing matters.

His enablers are that far up Trump’s ass at this point.

And, really, in the end, if Trump’s insanity finally reaches a point of crisis, it’s not going to happen in a way that helps either side. I mean, history didn’t pick the greatest time to let leash a pandemic, now did it? Last year would have been FAR BETTER for everyone involved.

Anyway. Now what.

John Bolton’s Triangulation



by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It seems as though John Bolton did not testify against Trump when fate gave him the opportunity because, well, he hates liberals more than he thinks Trump should be removed from office.

So, in his estimation, any buck he earns from his “tell all” book on his time as part of the Trump Administration is a buck well earned (especially if it comes from liberals.) Now that, lulz, Trump is free to destroy everything, if there is a post-Trump Era, then, in Bolton’s estimation, everything will to some extent snap back into place and he can go back to “normal.” Bolton wants to triagulate liberals and conservatives in such a way that both of them hate-love him equally. This allows him to cruise back his regular roll on FOX News when the opportunity comes.

But that’s a huge amount of wishful thinking.

Trump has already likely hatched a quid pro quo with the Russians so they will hack direction into our election systems in the fall (Trump is removing about 1/3 of our forces from Germany) and, as such, lulz. Mysteriously, the polls will again be way, way, WAY off it will be some point in Barron Trump’s administration that we discover the Russians have been gleefully hacking into our election systems for decades with the direct help of House Trump.

But by that point, it will be the greatest, “Lulz, nothing matters” of all time.

Anyway, I’m going to be shocked if Bolton’s book comes out at all (or at least anytime before Trump crowns himself God Emperor of Trumplandia.

This Novel Has No Literary Aspirations


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I have a small library of books I want to read as part of the development of this story (one story, two books.) I have so much I want to read — and learn — that I’m a little nervous (but not too much) that I’m going to come out the other side over shooting my goal rather significantly.

It’s all rather amusing. Everyone — EVERYONE — thinks I suck. That’s all I hear about every aspect of anything creative I want to do: you suck. So I have something of a creative chip on my shoulder. But I’m working as hard as I can to at least not embarrass myself.

This novel pretty much wades into every major cultural wedge issue with guns blazing. My vision is to wade into a number of extremely controversial subjects in a way that is at least palatable to people from a wide spectrum of political views. Except MAGA. They can fuck off, those fucking American Nazis.

What I need is an editor. I need someone to help me figure out what’s important if I have two ideas that are of equal value in my mind. But I’m flat broke and pretty much everyone has an agenda if you’re not paying them, so lulz. It’s comical how poor I am at this point in my life and no one is going to help me unless I pay them.

And, from what I can tell, editors are extremely expensive, even to look over a small portion of a work-in-progress.

Anyway, this novel is meant to be a fun, breezy read. That’s it. I want you to be able to pick it up and read it straight through over about three days. I want you to read these two novels so fast you lose sleep, maybe get to work late. That’s my dream, my goal.

I’m nervous that if the novels accidentally get too literary that that aspect will slow down the reading experience some.

But, really, that’s just me daydreaming, pysching myself up.

Lulz!

Of Brad Parscale


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Ahhh, Brad Parscle.

The thing about ole Brad is he dresses like a dandy, but has the facial hair of a Hell’s Angel. It’s that quality of him that’s so off-putting. You can’t wrap your mind around what your seeing.

He’s a huge fucking grifter, too.

But that’s not to say he’s not great at his job — he is. He’s pretty much the brains behind the malignant tumor that is the Trump campaign. Anyway, he’s make a huge amount of money off of Trump.

Parscle is obviously smart enough, driven enough and good enough at his job that Trump is probably going to win. Though, I can’t help but continue to think about how Trump is removing one third of the US troops in Germany by September. Definitely sounds as though he’s doing that in exchange for Putin hacking directly into our election systems.

And, yet, I will be the first to admit that I can’t predict the future. Who knows what’s going to happen tonight, tomorrow or a month from now.

The Worst Case Scenarios Of The #NBCUniversal Goons At The #DCProtest


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

There are two really, really bad worst-case-scenarios with the goons I saw with the NBCUniversal guy. (If that was, in fact, who he was with.)

1. He wasn’t with NBC Universal and it was all an undercover op on the part of the authorities to monitor who was at the protest.
2. He WAS with NBC Universal and NBC Universal is in on some sort of protest monitoring operation on the part of the authorities.

Ugh.

Both of of those make me sick to my stomach with their implications.

So very curious. (The two meatheads to the left of the guy in white were with him.)

Maybe NBC Universal just thinks their guys need added security at protests. That must be it, right?

The Cognitive Dissidence Of The #NBCUniversal Goons #DCProtest


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I only keep writing about this probably very innocent event because it makes no sense. How is it possible that someone working for NBCUniversal would be hanging out with a bunch of Blackcube-looking motherfuckers.

It just doesn’t make any sense.

Or, put another way, there’s no ready answer to him having THAT much security around him simply doing B-Roll. There are plenty of ways I might be wrong. I might not have seen “NBCUniversal” on his press pass at all. It might have been something totally different and security-related.

But even then, that doesn’t exactly make me feel any better.

It keeps eating away at me, so I keep writing about it. If there was some obvious, logical explanation as to what I saw, then it wouldn’t be such a big deal.

The two goons an the left were with the guy in white.

The #NBCUniversal Goons At The #DCProtest — What I Remember Seeing Exactly



by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The first thing I remember was the huge phallic fuzzy mic the older guy was holding. Then I saw his camera. I usually enjoy chatting up journalists and was about to say hey, who you with, when I noticed the huge fucking goons who were with him.

So I got really close and eyed his badge.

“NBCUniversal.”

At least, that’s what I remember in my mind’s eye.

Then I got as close as I could without the goons noticing me. These goons were like fucking brickwalls. I think there were three of them, maybe four. Why one dude needed so much security immediately did not seem to make any sense to me.

It dawned on me that maybe I wasn’t seeing just an old journalist making some B-Roll, I was seeing something far more ominous — I was seeing some sort of undercover op that was monitoring protesters.

If I had a camera with a telephoto lens, I would have taken photos of them doing the B-Roll, but I just had my phone.

Anyway. I simply want someone with NBCUniversal to tell me what was going on so I can go back to cursing the bread and working on my novel.