Category: Cold Civil War

The Ideology Of Radical Resistance

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

It is a tribute to the American temperament that Americans generally are extremely reluctant to radicalize. It’s not like the citizens of Washington D.C. ever rose up and declared an independent commune like the residents of Paris have been known to do on occasion.  And when Americans do get radicalized, it’s usually on a macro level because of outside forces, not because they’re just feeling ornery that decade.

So, when I talk about the formation of a “Radical Resistance,” all I mean is there needs to be an ideological framework for ending the Trump Administration via conventional political means, specifically impeachment by the House and conviction in the Senate. That, at least to me, is what I’m talking about when I say “Radical Resistance.”

And, it’s only “radical,” because, well, right now, nothing’s being done to end the Trump Administration. Nothing. Zip. Zilch. Nada. This, even though we have the Trump Administration dead-to-rights on any number of different crimes against the Constitution.

For me, for there to be effective Radical Resistance to Trump and his MAGA agenda, we have to know what we believe. The only reason, in real terms, there even needs to be a “radical” resistance is, well what we got ain’t working.

First and foremost, to be a member of the Radical Resistance is agree to follow in the tradition of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. As well as the Reconstruction era Radical Republicans. As such the Radical Resistance will use political means necessary to end the tyrannical administration of Donald J. Trump.

I am completely opposed to any form of violence and I want to destroy Trump entirely on political grounds. That’s it. I want him legally removed from office immediately and if you represent me on a local, state or Federal level, if you don’t publicly come out in favor of Trump being lawfully removed from office I won’t vote for you. I’ll support and vote for someone who will.

Additionally, the Radical Resistance should be a united front. We need great writers and thinkers of #NeverTrumpers for the specific purpose of broadening the appeal of the cause for the specific purpose of ending the Trump regime. After we get that goal, we can go back to bickering about stupid shit on a policy level. You may hate his policies, but if you could get George Will to help articulate a cogent “radical centrist” platform for the Radical Resistance, you’d have a lot going for you.

There’s plenty of broader stroke policy issues that progressives might want to glom on to the Radical Resistance rubric. That’s fine, but I see this as a matter of building the broadest group of anti-Trump forces possible. We have a specific goal — getting Trump impeached in the House and getting 67 Senators to vote for conviction at his trial.

That, at least, is what I want personally.

I just want Trump removed from office immediately and whatever I have to do on a political level to get that goal, I’ll do. Pence sucks, too, of course, but at least he’s something akin to a traditional politician who follows norms. Trump, meanwhile, is an abscess tooth that might go septic at any moment.

The urgency for Radical Resistance is growing with the possibility that Trump could go full tyrant on us by declaring a National Emergency and spending $7 billion in an extra-Constitutional manner. If that doesn’t make you want to become a member of the Radical Resistance, I don’t know what will.

Let’s do this, people. Let’s end this surreal political nightmare.

The Only Reason Why The Military Hasn’t Forced Trump Out Of Power Is, Well, That’s Not Their Scene

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

We live in surreal times. It’s a testament to the stability of the United States government that the tanks aren’t in the streets right now. It is just against everything we believe in for the military to even THINK about fixing political problems that the civilian government can’t.

Literally the only way I could imagine the U.S. Military doing anything in the sphere of governing the country directly (however briefly) would be if Trump was legally impeach and convicted by Congress…and he just ignored it and spent all day tweeting in a passive-aggressive manner.

So, I just don’t see a coup of any sort happening anytime soon. We may creep towards a sort of a very American elected dictatorship with extensive use of Emergency Powers, but even then…that’s debatable.

I guess we’re just going to muddle along like we always do. But the longer this shut down lasts, the more people might at least start to think out loud of any number of drastic measures that might be employed to end it.

So, When’s The Coup?

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

If the United States was any other country in the world, there would be open talk of a possible coup — military or otherwise — taking place pretty soon. The entire system is broken, rotting or completely frozen up so it appears as though literally the only thing stopping someone, a Man On A Horse, if you will, from seizing power is that’s just not how Americans see themselves.

I do, however, believe that there will be something pretty close to a coup of some sort within 20 years. How exactly would it break down? That’s a very good question.

It’s so outside the self-perception of the United States that something like that would happen, but I find it difficult to even plot it out. In the near term, I think you could make the assumption that should Trump ever been impeach and convicted and he refuses to leave office that the military might step in to remind him that he needs to leave.

That, in turn, would be the bent rule that would eventually pave the way for an actual coup. I think if there was a “coup” of some sort in the next 20 years it probably would be if the country finally begins to physically tear itself apart. The military is currently the only institution with bi-partisan support, and, as such, I could see a “light touch” coup happening on the part of the military that would simply exist for a few months to cool things down a little bit in an overheated political system.

Gen. Mattis would be a perfect Lord Protector of the United States in such a situation. Someone who was respect and moderate who could help force some decisions to be made as well as transition to a new, elected government.

9/10ths
a story fragment of a possible near future
by Shelton Bumgarner

August 2019

The eyes of the world were on the White House.

Just moments before, President Donald J. Trump, 45th president of the United States, had been convicted by 67 members of the Senate for a whole list of high crimes and misdemeanors. Trump had for weeks now been ranting on Gab about his case in the Senate, bouncing back and forth between threats to start a war with Iran or the DPRK and not-so-subtle hints that he might take his own life should he be convicted by the Senate.

And, now, at last, the moment of truth had arrived.

Trump legally, at least, was no longer president, but he had been oddly silent since the verdict had been announced with great fanfare from the well of the Senate. Trump’s conviction had come after months of investigations on the part of the now Democratic Congress. The length and breath of Trump’s malfeasance discovered by these hearings had rocked the nation to its very core. On more than one occasion, MAGA talking heads on cable news had been interrupted by astonishing breaking news that left them, for once, unable or unwilling to defend the president.

The hearings had ground on for months to such an extent that Trump’s approval had slowly drifted to the 20s and stayed there consistently. Trump’s support was now made up of the very rich and the very poor. Oddly, despite Trump’s near constant demands on Twitter for violence on the part of his supporters, little, if any was reported. Trump had grown so frustrated that he had all but abandoned Twitter at one point for the more receptive Gab social media platform. Though on more than one occasion Rudy Giuliani had made it very clear it was within the rights of the president to declare martial law if he deemed it in the best interests of the nation. More than one delegation of Senate Republicans had gone to the White House to explain to Trump that he was going to be convicted, no avail. Trump made it clear to them, in not so many words that his simply living in the White House made him president, a sentiment best expressed by the legal saw that, “Possession is 9/10ths of the law.”

Finally, a post to Gab came out: “My so-called ‘conviction’ is the work of the Deep State and as such illegitimate. I remain president.”

This set off a chain of events, the likes of which Americans had never seen. Suddenly, everyone on Twitter became a Constitutional scholar as everyone studied the exact wording of the Constitution as to what happens if the president is removed from office by the Senate. The wording is quite clear: he or she is no longer president and that’s it.

Nowhere in the Constitution did it explain what to do if the president simply decided to ignore the Senate. What’s more, nowhere in the Constitution did it state what to do with the nuclear launch codes should a president be removed from office and he refuse to accept the decision of the Senate.

The next few hours were chilling as they were surreal for millions of people not just in the United States but around the globe. The issue of Trump’s physical access to America’s nuclear launch codes was suddenly at the forefront of everyone’s mind. Though it was finally announced that while the nuclear football remained in Trump’s possession, Sec. of Defense Mattis had ordered the American armed forces to stand down for the duration of the crisis.

Trump, on Twitter, was as defiant and unhinged as usual.He threatened to kill himself. He threatened to start a nuclear war. He vowed to declare martial law.

The usual suspects on cable news did their best to spin all of this for Trump. As an anxious nation waited for the now former president to leave the White House, a cavalcade of former Republican Senators and Trump White House staffers attempted to make the former president’s case. Their final argument was that for the good of the country, Trump should be allowed to remain president, despite his lawful conviction by the Senate.

Things began to move rapidly at this point.

Vice President Pence was sworn in but Chief Justice Roberts in a dark, somber event in the Old Executive Building. Meanwhile, it was learned Trump had quietly replaced his Secret Service detail with a private security force that made it clear it was prepared to defend Trump until the bloody end.

At this point, two things happened. A final bipartisan delegation of Congressional leaders came to the White House grounds under the flag of truce. During the course of an hour-long meeting, Trump screamed at them that they had never supported him and the world would be better off if it just ended instead of allowed the forces of the Deep State to ruin America. He made it absolutely clear that he would never leave the Oval Office willingly.

With that, they left.

Next, a surreal, bizarre event, the FBI slowly began to surround the White House. There was much debate online and on TV about how long the nation should wait for Trump to leave the White House. CNN went so far as to do a deep dive into the exact amount of food the White House grounds might have available at any one moment.

Finally, shots rang out from the White House as the battle was joined. It took several hours but in the end, the FBI was finally able to secure the facility. Nearly a dozen personnel on both sides died during the course of the Battle of The White House.

In what would become ionic footage, Trump was quietly escorted from the White House grounds. He spent the remainder of his days ranting on Twitter and Gab that he was the rightful president.

The End.

Embrace The Dark Side — Take Up The Mantle Of ‘Radical Resistance’

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

It goes without saying that a lot of Blue Check Liberal Nattering Nabobs on Twitter will clutch their pearls at the notion of the currently nebulous anti-Trump “Resistance” getting a lot more radical and a lot more organized. They will say would be a boon to Trump and MAGA on any number of different levels.

I say fuck that.

We’re in a crisis and as such we need to embrace the idea that we are, in fact, radical. But as I keep saying, its more about being radical on an ideological level as opposed to, say, blowing shit up. The Resistance needs to establish a united front of anti-Trump forces then use the ideology of Radical Resistance, that using “any means necessary” to politically destroy Trump and end him as a political force is a rhetorical goal then use that as bludgeon against the alt-Right and MAGA.

As I’ve said before, this is the biggest crisis since the end of the Civil War in a way, because it’s like an abscess tooth that risks going septic. We need to stop worrying so much about what Trump might tweet about the idea of “Radical Resistance” and BECOME the Radical Resistance.

Again, the issue is having an overarching ideology. Something cogent enough and broad enough that you might be able to get #NeverTrumpers to support it on Twitter while not alienating the base of the Democratic Party, which, to date, has been, in essence, “The Resistance.”

But as I keep saying, I have very, very low expectations. If we don’t get Trump politically by August 2019, we’re not going to get him until 2021, if ever. We need to stop worrying about what may or may not happen in the Senate. The House needs to do its job and and begin actively investigating the Trump Administration on any number of different levels.

I have my doubts this will ever happen until a Radical Resistance begins to actively begin to put pressure on Establishment Democrats by threatening to primary them in 2020 if they don’t support what I suggest. The Convention Wisdom of the Blue Check Liberals on Twitter in starting September 2019 will be “let the people decide” and any talk of impeachment is a “gift” to Trump and MAGA.

That’s why we have to do it now.

We have to stop hoping and wishing that some mythical Mueller Report is going to give us the fit leaf need to somehow magically convince mouth breathing MAGA people the error of their ways.

It just isn’t going to happen.

So why bother in the first place?

Impeach Trump immediately in the House and see what happens in the Senate.

It’s Not ‘Radical Democrats,’ Mr. Trump, It’s ‘Radical Resistance’ — If You’re Nasty

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

I find it odd that Trump, the master branding and marketing guy, hasn’t figured out to call people like me Radical Resistors. It definitely rolls off the tongue better than Radical Democrats.

I am well aware that the Blue Check Nattering Nabobs, should they actual read any of these posts I’m writing here, would say “You’re only helping Trump by all this ‘radical’ talk.'”

Maybe. Maybe not.

The battle is going to be joined politically soon enough, so why not embrace the phrase Radical Resistance now instead of feeling bad when Trump inevitably stops snorting Adderall long enough to figure out its use for himself?

Meh.

As I keep saying, all my talk about being radical is strictly one of theory and ideology. I hate violence and don’t sanction it in any way for any reason. I just want Trump politically destroyed as soon as possible.

But I honestly don’t see anything happening in time for it to matter.

Trump’s going to survive until 2025.

Fuck.

Radical Resistance, The Wittes Principle & Ending King Trump I’s Tyrannical Rule

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

It is self-evident that, to paraphrase Lawfare’s Benjamin Wittes, but for his incompetence, Trump’s malevolence might be significantly more effective. As such, as part of Radical Resistance, we need some real talk.

In Trump, we’re dealing with a very American dictatorship. What the mad King Trump I wants is a “managed democracy” like Putin has in Russia. That’s Trump’s endgame. He wants to establish that so he can hand this new system off to a younger, more focused and ideological successor in 2024.

I honestly think that the only thing stopping King Trump I from going full Putin on us is, well, the American spirit. Americans, like the Romans of yore, aren’t too fond of dictators, tyrants or kings and so what is likely to happen is either we kind of drift into an elected dictatorship or sorts…or something REALLY surreal and dramatic happens.

Either the United States is torn apart ( peacefully or otherwise,) there’s a light tough coup by the military, we slowly drift into an actual theocratic, plutocratic autocratic elected dictorship…or something completely unprecedented happens.

Americans are notoriously chill relative to the populace of other nations. Since the Civil War, you can name just a very few occasions when the center was radicalized enough for there to be real change in any meaningful way. Off the top of my head, I can think of 1)Reconstruction 2) The Progressive Era 3)1919-1920 4)The Great Depression 5) World War II 5) The Rights Movement and 6) Vietnam.

So, it’s no real surprise that — especially given how well the economy is doing — King Trump I has been given an effective pass by the vast majority of the population. The average person is STILL more concerned with raising their kids, paying their mortgage and the next season of Game Of Thrones.

Hence, it’s highly unlikely that we’re going to meet our deadline of August 2019 to impeach Trump. It’s just not going to happen. And, as such, all the Blue Check Nattering Nabobs of Twitter will tell us rubes to shut up and let “the people decide” in 2020, instead of impeaching and convicting incompetent tyrant Trump whenever we finally get around to doing so.

But, as a daydream, I continue to wargame how you might meet that deadline. You could think up an app. The shutdown and No Deal Brexit might hit the economy as something of a perfect storm and, as such, Trump’s poll ratings MIGHT drift down to simply to flat Earthers and anti-vaxxers mouth breathers who aren’t self-aware enough to realize the long con that they’ve been duped by.

Also, I feel as though if we’re going to save the American Republic, the Resistance needs to begin to adopt the rules –or “new rules” — of the alt-Right. Fuck those guys. Why can’t we have an alt-Left Radical Resistance? Or, if nothing else, why can’t we at least begin to think in new, different ways should a tipping point arise when something truly extraordinary happens — say we impeach Trump, he gets convicted and…he won’t physically leave the Oval Office, but instead spends all day tweeting in a passive-aggressive manner.

It would be tragic if we lose our Republic simply because the fat cats got their tax cuts and were, like the German Industrialists of the 1930s, so content with the “booming economy” that they refused to use any of their plutocrat money to help the situation.

I guess I’m just really angry that the country I love is in limbo — and is being saved from true tyranny — simply because the avatar of stupid people is too incompetent to realize his tyrannical dreams.

It’s all very surreal. I guess, in my own way, I think we need a vanguard of the proletariat in the United States that would be ready to strike against Trump’s regime in a massively peaceful manner should the occasion arise. That’s where an app might come in handy. If we could have rolling, massive strikes around the country like May Day anti-war protest of 1971, then maybe, finally The Powers That Be in Washington might do something about King Trump I.

I can dream, can’t I. I don’t really expect anything to happen in time to prevent King Trump I from shepherding Sen. Tom Cotton to the presidency in 2024.

Nancy Pelosi, Please Answer With No SOTU Trump, STFU

By Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

Let’s do this.

Let’s force the issue. If Trump wants to get all King Charles I on us, let’s have at it. Have him charge the well of the House under the force of arms. If the optics on that is what it takes to end this nightmare, so be it

Fuck Trump.

Managed Democracy Is Trump’s Endgame — Trump As America’s Biggest Existential Threat Since The End Of The Civil War

By Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

Today, I was thinking about what, in real terms, have been the existential threats to the American Republic since 1865. Honestly, in macro terms, only World War II is arguably a bigger threat to the United States than the current Trump Administration.

Let me explain.

If you were to compare WWII and Trump to threats an individual might face in the real world, WWII was analogous to, say, a fist fight. It was a street brawl, but we had friends and they had friends and by my mid-way through the fight, we knew we weren’t in real harm of dying.

Now, let’s look at Trump.

Trump is like an abscessed tooth that is going unpulled and there’s a real risk of…uhhh…it going septic? I say this because Trump is an avatar for a multitude of things that are seriously wrong with the American political system right now. If he’s not destroyed politically very, very soon — I suggest August 2019 — he could very well kill us, the Republic.

What I mean by this is, we could no longer be even a barely function democracy. It might not even be Trump who kills the Republic, it might be a younger, more ideological and more competent successor such as Sen. Tom Cotton. As such, we’re in a crisis. We have to pull this rotten tooth now, as soon as possible.

If we don’t, there’s a real chance that the only thing that will stop us going full theocratic, autocratic, fascist plutocracy is the basic temperament of the American population. We just won’t stand for the government going full tyrant, so the rules will be bent just enough that effectively we’re a “managed democracy” like they have in Russia. That’s Trump’s goal — to turn us into a clone of Putin’s Russia.

If that’s not a call to arms, a reason to galvanize the Center into a Radical Resistance, I don’t know what is.

There’s An App For That — How A Radical Resistance Could, In Practical Terms, End The Trump Administration And Accidentally Design A ‘Twitter Killer’

By Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

The macro-level forces at work against an effective Radical Resistance, one with the single-issue goal of impeaching and removing Donald J. Trump, 45 president of the United States, are pretty staggering.

Trump is an avatar for about 37% of the elector that feels historically disenfranchised. Meanwhile, the economy is doing — in relative terms — great, so a lot of people who might otherwise be angry with Trump honestly don’t give a shit. They’re more concerned with Little Johnny’s t-ball match that the fact that the current administration is headed by a treasonous, felonious 72-year-old toddler.

So, if you wanted to politically wargame the situation on a macro level, I have — and have had — at least one suggestion: build an app.

I have proposed building a social media startup designed specifically to facilitate regular massive national protests with the intent of putting pressure on Congress to finally do something about the cancer on the Republic known as the Trump Administration.


Doing such a thing would be very complex and potentially time consuming. But if you designed an app or a site specifically from the ground up to meet the needs of this concept, then I think it would help greatly.

Regular massive protests on a national scale would have to be legal, civil and well organized. I would not want to use Facebook or Twitter because I find them cumbersome and too easily compromised by trolls, bots and MAGA haters who would want to disrupt thing.

Anyway, in my vision of things, the service would be set up like this: You would have Groups that were divided into threaded Discussions. One third of the screen — the right side — would be live text chat. If you wanted to start a threaded discussion with someone in text chat, you just hit a button and invited them into a video chat that could have up to four people in it. This would be done in the context of a Discussion (which would take up the other two thirds of the screen on the left). Below the initial video chat would be a place to write a full page blog post. The whole thing would be threaded and you could have inline editing of someone’s post.

But this is just the basic concept. As time progressed and problems arose that needed to be fixed, the service would evolve to meet these problems. Best of all, after Trump was brought down, the service would be repurposed as something of a “Twitter Killer.”

I suspect the only way to fund this site would be either an angel funder or crowd funding. I doubt you could get a traditional VC to fund it simply because they wouldn’t see how they could make money right away. I believe if you see this site as the core of a potential Twitter Killer, however, it would be a pretty cool investment.

I guess what I’m saying is if the Radical Resistance simply existed in the first place and was organized enough, it could not only maybe bring down the Trump Adminstration via an app, it might also accidently produce a Twitter Killer social media app along the way.

Deadline August 2019: Radical Resistance In The Context Of Reconstruction’s Radical Republicans & No Deal Brexit

By Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

The major difference between the Radical Republicans and the Radical Resistance is the historical context. The Radical Republicans existed, in large part because there was a lot of bent-up political anger towards the South and, as such, a small, but powerful segment of the American body politic was pissed.

Meanwhile, right now, the very idea of a Radical Resistance is more theoretical. People are generally content on an economic level because things are doing fine and they’re more busy raising their kids and paying their mortgage than they are interested in impeaching the president. But, for me at least, we have a deadline — if we don’t impeach Trump by August 2019, he’s not going anywhere until at least 2021, if ever.

So, that’s why unless something really big happens in an unexpected way, all my writing about a Radical Resistance movement is more theoretical. But there is one major event that could change a basic aspect of this equation — No Deal Brexit.

As I understand it, the UK is now lurching towards leaving the EU in March 2019 without a deal. There’s a very good chance that the global economy could get kneecapped under such a scenario and, as such, so would Trump. As I keep saying, Trump is an avatar for about 37% of the population who feel historically disenfranchised. That he may also be something of a Russian agent is also something to take into consideration.

Put another way, what might happen is I’m just going to write out my frustration with a lack of interest on the part of the House to impeach Trump until March and suddenly my theoretical ranting about the need for a Radical Resistance won’t seem quiet so much like the rantings of just another Internet crank.

There’s a really good chance that the political center will grow a lot more willing to adopt the ideology of the Radical Resistance once the bottom drops out of the global economy. But that’s just me spitballing at this point. I just don’t see us making our deadline. Trump’s only weakness right now is a macro event.

Americans generally aren’t ones to get radical in any mass way. In real terms, not even the Vietnam War did it. So, all this writing I’m doing is just for my own sake unless I might be able to get a famous person to re-tweet a link to this site.

Or something.