by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls
Idle rambling about Trump’s political fate.
Category: Cold Civil War
If There’s A ‘Blue Wave,’ Trump Will Claim It Was Chinese Hacking
by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls
There’s a very good chance that if there is some sort of Blue Wave — which I refuse to believe is going to happen until a Democratic House (at least) is sworn in in January — that Trump will actively attempt to put doubt in his follower’s minds as to its legitimacy.
One reason why I think there isn’t going to be a Blue Wave is Trump dangled this idea out there for a day then dropped it just as suddenly as he introduced it. That leads me to believe his internal polling is showing things are fine for Republicans since the SCOTUS problem and he has nothing to worry about.
The end game to challenging the legitimacy of any possible Blue Wave is should he be impeached, Trump can scream bloody murder about how Congress has no right to do anything to him because of Chinese hacking. What’s more, in the extremely unlikely event that Trump is not only impeached but convicted, he will give himself every reason to simply ignore the Senate’s conviction. Or he’ll rally the MAGA base to come defend him at the White House.
Though one thing I think we’re underestimating: simply because you impeach a president, doesn’t mean you convict him. And given what a wily politician Trump is, I have ever reason to believe he’s going to be more Reagan and less Nixon in the sense the center of gravity for the American political system is lurching to the Right in a big way and there’s no going back. It’s going to be 20 to 30 years before the “browning of America” slowly begins to wear away at the damage Nixon — > Reagan — > Trump have done to the United States over the last 50 years.
Trump & The ‘Petite Singularity’
by Shelton Bumgarner
@sheltbumgarner
I have struggled for some time to articulate the significance of technology in aiding and abetting the the rise of Trump. I thought maybe one might called it a “Creeping Singularity,” but Singularities, by definition, are not something that happen over time. But having said that, it definitely seems we’re feeling the influence of a “Petite Singularity,” if nothing else.
A series of long term technological trends are crashing into each other. Things like VR, AR, crypto, AI and automation are all going to come to a head probably within the next, say, 5 years. Of course, it’s something much more prosaic than that which has given rise to Trump — social media. But social media is definitely a precursor to the Petite Singularity. It’s a forerunner to a world that is likely to be transformed dramatically in ways we can barely begin to comprehend.
When all those low training, high wage jobs transportation jobs like semi truck driver vanish in the coming age of automation, that is likely to cause any number of significant political shifts that we can only barely begin to comprehend. One of the central issues of the day is while Trump is making a mockery of our political traditions, he’s pulling a huge fast one on us. He’s pretty much fucking ruining everything we hold dear while we’re running around struggling to understand how such an asshat as he is could be our “leader.”
And, honestly, there simply isn’t anything we can do. Trump is an avatar for some titanic, tectonic shifts in the American political system and he — or someone like him — was obviously inevitable. Really, his only saving grace at this point is he’s really old, really bad at his job and completely devoid of an ideology. As such, I am more worried about what happens when someone who doesn’t have those problems is president than I am Trump, no matter how completely horrible everything about him is.
But back to the Petite Singularity. It’s likely being the asshole demagogue that he is, Trump will exploit the social displacement of the Petite Singularity rather than see any political harm from it. I’m not feeling very optimistic at this point. Makes me want to leave the States as quickly as possible and never fucking come back.
Idle Rambling About Kavanaugh & Usenet
by Shelton Bumgarner
@sheltbumgarner
Now, I did a quick search of Google’s Usenet archive and I didn’t find anything to indicate Brett Kavanaugh used Usenet while in college. So, that’s pretty conclusive evidence that my barely-a-hunch that he might have used it while he was in college didn’t pan out.
I guess what made what made that whole thing a least a little bit interesting was the fact that if you could find Kavanaugh Usenet posts from his college days, it would be a unique snapshot of his mentality during the period of time everyone is concerned about. Usenet was pretty free wheeling at that moment in its history and the conditions, at least, are there for us to get some sense of his drinking and other behavior.
But, like I said, doesn’t look that my hunch paid off. The only way I could possibly see it panning out would be if you were with a major news organization and you could talk to Google directly about its archive and see if maybe they could find any archive evidence from Yale specific newsgroups. That might be something that might have a greater likelihood of panning out. But barring something pretty dramatic, this definitely seems like a dead end.
There’s just no there there.
But it definitely was an interesting idea for a moment or two. If you could have found Kavanaugh Usenet posts, that could have really changed the game. It would have been pretty dramatic.
V-Log: My Only Hope For The 2018 Mid-Terms Is Women Will Save Us
by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls
Some thoughts.
Thinking Seriously About A Second American Civil War
by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls
I am not the first, and definitely will not be the last, to ponder what a possible Second American Civil War might look like. It seems pretty obvious that America is hurdling towards some sort of armed conflict for no other reason than much of the same mentality that existed in the 1850s exists today in the United States.
Really, all that blocks armed conflict at this point is that Democrats and The Resistance are still playing by the “old rules” of politics while the Republicans and MAGA are playing by the “new rules” of running slipshod over any and all opposition using white knuckled hard ball politics.
Once that changes, once both sides play chicken with the government in an absolute rage, then the entire system freezes up and we have the “politics through other means” that Mao mentioned. But what are some of the scenarios one might concoct about an actual modern Civil War in the United States?
Well, here’s the thing: Republicans have land mass, while Democrats have concentrated population. While Red States are contiguous and Blue States aren’t, the sheer concentration of people in Blue State areas will make any attempt to quell them should a war break out. I’m not entirely sure that outside of some “purple” states that there would even be any violence at all. If the two sides grow so polarized that they simply have nothing in common politically or culturally, there’s a good chance whomever is running the government when the actual split happens will do the whole “wayward sisters, part in peace” bit.
It definitely seems at this point that the trends are Blue States will leave the Union and work actively to align themselves with Canada. That definitely seems like one scenario. Again, I doubt seriously there will actually be violence if things get bad enough that individual states want to leave the union. This is where who happens to be in control of the government would have a lot to say about the outcome of these events.
If it’s a Democratic president and Republican states bold en mass, things will go a lot differently than if its reversed. Really, it could all be avoided if we had, like, effective leadership in the first place but that’s not going to happen. It definitely feels as though the United States is careening towards some sort of division on the state level, the exact nature of which is still very much in the air.
Podcast: Talk To Me Internet’s Trumplandia: Trump As A Quisling
by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls
My friend Milo and I did a pretty great emergency podcast on recent developments between Trump and the Russians. It’s kind of long, but it’s well worth your time. It’s really informative and interesting.
V-Log: Talk To Me Internet –Trump Loses Kori Schake & The American Intelligentsia
by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls
In this wide-ranging video I talk a lot — A LOT! — about the fact that we’ve entered a new era in American history equal to the French intelligentsia’s refutation of Communism after the Russians squashed the Prague Spring. In essence, I suggest that while Trump may never be impeached because of white knuckled political reasons, he has, in fact, lost the American Intelligentsia and now thinking people are beginning to memorialize publicly their opposition to Trump & MAGA.
I ramble about other interesting things as well, but this video is actually worth your time.
V-Log — Take Back America: An Anti-Trump Rant
by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls
Here’s a rambling rant against Trump and his supporters.
Why Yes, Trump Is A Quisling
by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls
I have been saying for about a year now that Trump is a traitor, or more specifically, a “quisling.” Quisling was the leader of Norway who switched sides in WWII, allowing the Germans to march right in unopposed.
I propose that Trump is a modern day equivalent of him.
So, if you really want to pound away at the traitor angle when it comes to Trump, you need to call him a quisling, because that’s what he is. It’s easy to remember, pithy and rolls off the tongue quite easily. I’ve been calling Trump a quisling on this site for a long time now on this site, as this link shows.
I would suggest we really try to connect Trump with the term quisling as much as possible. Maybe, eventually, Trump’s name will go down in the proper infamy if we try hard enough. Trump is a traitor, a big old traitor. And that he would be a traitor in the guise of the type that Quisling was is pretty self-evident at this point.
Shelton Bumgarner is a writer and photographer living in Richmond, Va. He may be reached at migukin (at) gmail (dot) com.
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