Category: Cold Civil War

A Mobilization & Organization App For The Resistance As ‘Twitter Killer’

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

Things are kind of dire, folks. The reason why I suggest we design a mobilization and organization app for The Resistance now is we need it to exist now for one the real fights — the fights we dare not even begin to imagine — are thrust upon us. So maybe someone, somewhere is already working on what I suggest, maybe they aren’t.

All I know is we really need one right now.

In my imagination, the app I want would could be a stepping off point for a Twitter Killer. The alt-Right already has Gab, why shouldn’t The Resistance have it’s own site / app? The thing about Twitter is it’s completely useless and will grow ever more so in the coming days.

So why not someone in The Resistance design an app that not only addresses the existing issues people have with Twitter, but also is designed from the ground up to facilitate people getting involved in democracy on a personal level. It can’t possibly be that difficult to think up a basic feature set. There is growing momentum in The Resistance for direct action and if you had an app that channeled that energy productively, I think you’d have yourself a hit.

The obvious question is why not just use existing apps to organize? Well, they’re too easily manipulated by foreign powers. Bots are a real problem on Twitter just as fake accounts and trolls are a big problem on Facebook. I have a pretty complete vision for an app / site in my head and it wouldn’t be too difficult to repurpose it for the specific vision.

Of course, there is the issue that if the center-Right uses Gab and the center-Left uses the app I suggest that we will finally be completely within our echo chambers to such an extent that there will be zero communication between the two groups. But as I said, things are really dire and we need to worry about stuff like that later.

We really need to design an app to organize and mobilize The Resistance.

Shelton Bumgarner is a writer and photographer livings in Richmond, Va. He may be reached at migukin (at) gmail (dot) com.

A Call To Arms: Someone Design An Organization & Mobilization App For The Resistance

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

Things have grown so dire in just the last few days, that we need to think outside the box. We have to be ready now for the inevitable clash that Trump is going to provoke in his rapacious quest for absolute power. If the recent change in Trump’s zero tolerance immigration policy has show anything, it’s that pretty much the only part of our democracy that is working is the part where public outrage actually has some sort of affect.

Other than that, we’re on our own.

I suggest someone, say Crooked Media, design an app that is specifically invented to facilitate mass organization and mobilization on the part of The Resistance. It could do everything from facilitate people registering to vote, to ride shares to protests to how to get in touch with local Resistance leaders who might be planning a protest in the first place.

It can’t possibly be that difficult. I would do it myself, but I have no money, can’t code and don’t really want to learn. But Crooked Media seems to have the means, motive and opportunity to designed the type of app I crave.

Too bad things are going to have to get a lot worse before anyone takes me up on the idea.

Shelton Bumgarner is a writer and photographer living in Richmond, Va. He may be reached at Migukin (at) gmail (dot) com.

The Unbearable Lightness Of Trying To Work For Slate

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

So Slate has an opening I’m qualified for, but, alas, since I don’t, like, have a career in social media I have no paid job I can point to show I’m qualified. So now I think I’m going to wallow in self pity and work on my novel. I may try to think of something to explain why I think I’m good enough to work for Slate, but it’s going to be difficult.

I guess I should have done something with my life the last six years instead of dwell on the past, huh.

But while we’re on the subject of social media, I would like to note that I suspect we’re going to be hearing a lot about Gab between now and 2020. Just imagine if Trump walked away from Twitter altogether and started using Gab exclusively as a way to talk to his base.

That would turn the social media world upside down.

I don’t know how likely it is that that would happen, but it’s definitely something to mull.

A July 4th Manifesto: In Praise Of Liberal Rage

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

A sentiment I see an enormous amount of on Twitter is people tusk-tusking liberals who are these days in a near-constant state of panic mixed which what can only be described as rage. Conservatives — even many of them of who purport to be NeverTrumpers — tell me to focus on policy and to get over my Trump Derangement Syndrome.

Well, in all honesty, in the spirit of the 4th of July and the Founding Fathers — fuck those guys.

People who clutch their pearls over the liberal rage generated by Trump and his policies believe that only by meekly accepting Trump’s insane behavior and focusing on policy will we win elections. We’re supposed to let Trump lie. We’re supposed to let Trump run roughshod over Constitutional norms. We’re, in fact, supposed to let Trump do whatever the fuck he wants as long as it helps us with about 2% of the electorate who are swing voters and who are still somehow magically undecided about the dark turn the nation has abruptly taken.

Let me suggest, however, that things are so dire that we need to embrace the dark side, as it were, and let our liberal rage envelop us. The 2018 mid-terms will be about getting out the vote, about mobilizing the base. So while Conservatives are gleefully smacking their political lips at what they feel is our impeding doom caused by our outrage, I see this as an opportunity to finally fight back in a constructive manner.

I can not express properly in real terms how misguided, patronizing and condescending the Right’s constant critique of the Left’s outrage over Trump feels to me. The very thing that could really drive The Resistance into electorate success — the sheer power of the liberal base being apoplectic over Trump’s policies, the Right sees as a flaw that has to be fixed as quickly as possible.

But I feel that only by embracing our rage against Trump and using it as an engine to power activism on the part of the Left can anything change. I’m not saying there won’t be problems caused by this. Plenty of moderates might be turned off by some of the ideological froth this might cause, but at the same time plenty of people who might simply shrug at Trump’s policies might see the light if we can funnel our rage into something constructive.

The Left attacking Trump with clear eyed counter-policies, while making making members of the Right’s intelligentsia happy, would make the base of The Resistance feel disenfranchised. Trump is currently a weird mixture of an American Caligula mixed with a would-be tinpot Hitler and he thrives on the confusion his constant barrage of Twitter mindfucking generates. To say I should focus solely on dry policy matters in the midst of this enormous Constitutional crisis is rather intellectually dishonest in my opinion.

I propose we focus on curating the rage of the base. It’s not like it’s going anywhere, no matter how many NeverTrumpers tell me it should be forced to abate. If we tell people who are astonished at the sheer insanity and outrageous behavior on the part of the Trump Administration that it’s ok to be filled with political rage, then that’s the first step towards regaining power at the polls. It’s not like the Right’s base, which has been hysterical for decades now, is going to let up their rapacious attacks on the Left simply because we decide to play nice.

No, I say instead of rolling over and letting the Right continue to drive the United States into a ditch, that we wrestle the wheel away from them with all our might. I’m not in any way advocating violence. Far from it. But I am advocating the center-Left quit even trying to put up the facade that it would be in the best interests of the cause if everyone would just cool it and worry about dry policy matters.

All Trump does is stir up his base. Literally, that’s all he does. He braces the worst instincts of his base to a surreal extent, which, in turn, riles up the base of the center-Left because we look at each other in amazement that the MSM is so busy trying to be fair an objective that they are unable or unwilling to call out Trump’s lies.

So, let your freak flag fly. Embrace your inner Howard Beal. If you are mad as hell and you’re not going to take it anymore, then do something about it. Becomes engaged in the political process on a personal level. Stop trying to convince your MAGA Facebook friends of the error of their ways. Fuck those guys.

It’s not like the American Founding Fathers were cool with the abuses of King George III. If they finally had enough and decided to do something about it, maybe the center-Left should too. We need to scare the living bejeebus out of the Establishment in Washington and the only way we can do that is at the polls. If we’ve learned anything from the recent events involving immigrant children being torn from their families, the only guard rails the Trump Administration currently is willing to acknowledge is popular outrage.

That’s all we got. Thus, instead of calming down, let’s rock.

Shelton Bumgarner is a writer and photographer living in Richmond, Va. He can be reached at migukin (at) gmail (dot) com.

Dust Off Your ‘Safe, Legal & Rare’ Signs, Trump’s Probably Going To Pick Judge Amy Barrett

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

It is growing every more apparent that given what Trump has said about who he wants to put on the Supreme Court, that the extremely young Judge Amy Barrett is probably who he’s going to nominate. Now, let me be clear — I have no inside information and am no expert on her, but this is just me idly mulling the situation.

Apparently she has made it clear that in the instance of Roe, the court would have a moral obligation to overturn it, despite it’s place in established Constitutional Law. So everyone who keeps telling me there’s no way Roe could possibly be overturned are being extremely niece.

Overturning Roe has been the entire point of Republicans picking judges for the last 30 years. So it’s not like the judges they have been cramming onto the court are going to choke given the opportunity. And in real terms, there’s nothing to stop Judge Barrett from getting on the court should Trump pick her.

When she’s on the court, the real issue will be no so much if Roe will be overturned, but to what extent our basic assumptions about reproductive rights in the United States will be challenged. I have long believed that Roe serves as a firebreak to prevent the Religious Right from coming after birth control in general. Their ultimate goal is to drive a stake in anything that makes recreational sex possible in the first place.

The only thing to stand between A Handmaid’s Tale becoming all but a documentary is the enormous moral outrage on the part of American women who have long assumed Roe was there as a failsafe in the case of a worse case scenario. It’s possible, but not likely, that women of all stripes would join together in a post-Roe world to protect reproductive rights as best than can.

It could be a pretty enormous historic event if it was the overturn of Roe that was the tipping point that finally caused the average person to believe Trump had overstepped his bounds. Many women are already furious with Trump on a very personal level and this would simply throw gasoline on the flames of that rage.

But Trump hasn’t picked Judge Barrett yet. He has a list of about 15 to choose from as I understand it. But given her age and gender — and obvious inclination to overturn Roe given the opportunity — it definitely seems as though Barrett is high on the list of people Trump will pick.

Only time will tell, I guess.

It Has Happened Here: MAGA As America’s Fascism #KeepFamiliesTogether #Resist

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

Fascism has come to America. There was a novel in the 1930s entitled, “It Can’t Happen Here.” It was about the rise of a fascist state in the America. Given the Right’s to the recent “Prosecution Initiative” it is clear that MAGA has is, in fact, America’s version of fascism.

As I understand it, fascism is, as a concept, rather nebulous. Each state where it takes hold puts it’s own spin on the concept while there are some general overlapping beliefs associated with them. But talking to people who are MAGAists or sympathetic to it’s aims has left me shaken.

These people are completely devoid of simple, basic human empathy. They are devoid of that deep, visceral kick in the gut you get when you hear a baby’s cries for its parents. When I talk to them about changing Trump’s policy, they are either so busy scoring political points or talking about the need to for immigration reform, that they completely refuse to simply say, “This is enough. Change the policy back to what it was before April 2018.”

They simply can’t, or won’t, do it.

In all honesty, there’s no difference between that and being in Germany in 1939 debating with a Good German the need to finally solve the “Jewish Problem.” The difference — at least for now — is only a matter of degree. With the recent reports that Trump wants to place as many as 20,000 unattended minors on American M=military bases across the country. One you establish a system that can do that, it’s extremely difficult not to assume that such a system of mass detainment couldn’t be used for other “undesirables.”

MAGAist collaborators I’ve spoken to tell me I’m “grasping at straws” to suggest such a thing. But am I? Once you make the cognitive leap to ignore the cries of a child simply because of their lack of documentation or skin tone and lack of documentation, the pot is officially boiling. We’ve officially reached the point where we’re in a fascist state. As I keep sayings, what’s to stop MAGAists at the behest of Der Fuhrer to demand the mentally ill join undocumented people in the camps in an effort to address the gun issue once and for all. I’m not saying it’s going to happen over night and I’m not saying it won’t be difficult to implement.

But it’s officially within the realm of possibility, if nothing else. It’s not off the table.

The American Constitutional system has rotted to such an extent that literally the only thing standing between America and a Russian-style “managed democracy” is the pure, unadulterated rage of people who do, in fact, have common human compassion and empathy. People who don’t care about the finer points of immigration reform, or who quibble about the details of what’s going on at the border.

I mean, there are roughly 2,000 children missing within the system who we may never be able to be reunited with their families. But because the images aren’t there to help engage the American populace to rage against their plight, it appears as though this will fall into the typical partisan debate and nothing, really, will happen.

MAGAists simply lack basic human empathy and compassion. They are completely devoid of it. They just don’t care. And so, that, if noting else, is why MAGAists are modern day fascists. That’s what we’re up against. They completely control the government at this point for various reasons and there honestly isn’t anything we can do.

Things are going to get worse, much worse, before they get better and the only thing that may save us — and I hate to mention this at all — is simple civil disobedience. The pot is officially boiling and if we don’t hop out, if we don’t take a stand now, then the frog is cooked. I have suggested in the past that maybe someone might design an app to facilitate mass protests across the country.

Only through massive, regular protests across the country will there be anything close to an end to this. The electoral system is so completely broken that I just don’t see there being a “Blue Wave.” We have to see this as a marathon, not a sprint and we have to do some serious triage of the enormous number of problems the Trump Administration is throwing at us. I want to have hope, I really do. If I have hope, then I stay angry.

But honestly, I don’t have hope anymore. It’s just a matter of degree now. Either MAGAists push this as far as they can, or we come to some sort of stalemate. The decision, I guess, is ours at this point.

Shelton Bumgarner is a writer and photographer living in Richmond, Va. He may be reached at migukin (at) gmail (dot) com.

Power To The People: The Case For Radicalization To Defeat Stephen Miller’s Nazi Agenda

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

Given that it seems Trump has chosen the issue of immigration as his political hill to die on — at least until he can come up with a bigger distraction — it may be time for The Resistance to advocate a lurch towards radicalization. What I mean by that is on an ideological level, The Resistance’s goals have been rather nebulous and it’s leadership lacking vision.

Maybe it’s time to change that.

The thing this draconian policy enacted by Jeff Sessions proves is Trump a modern day Emperor and his actions lay bare the rot at the center of the American Constitution. Growing numbers of people from a wide spectrum of political thought are protesting the obscene policy of ripping children away from their families, and, yet, Trump — who could with the wave of his hand could end it — is, instead, holding his ground.

It takes time for protests to be organized, I know, but this could be the final tipping point needed to get people in the streets in a big way. To get rid of Trump in any meaningful way, we would need regular, massive protests in cities across the country. The only way I can think of to facilitate that would some sort of app. An app that got like-minded people together and facilitated in a meaningful way organization that would lead to regular massive protests.

Now, of course, you could say you could easily do that using Twitter and Facebook. It’s been done before in other countries. But if you designed an app that from the moment you logged on directed you to other liked-minded people and help you use whatever skillset you might have for the cause, I think it would be effective. You could even throw in advertising and the Patron payment function into the app if need be.

Take me, for instance. I’m kind of broke right now, but I’m willing to protests immediately if given the opportunity. Using the app I suggest being invented, the moment I logged on, I would be able to find not only local protest organizers contact information, but ride-share information. The app might, as a value added function, give people easy directions as to how to register to vote.

It is apparent that at this point only a massive show of People Power is going to end this nightmare. If Trump wants a fight, maybe we should give it to him.

I Need Hope To Be Angry At This Point #KeepFamiliesTogether

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

I need hope. It appears, at least right this second, that Trump and his fascist cronies have decided to wage a pitched battle on the issue of immigrant children being torn from their families on the American border. The system is such a rotting clusterfuck at this point that they feel their can stir up the base and ride that sentiment to electoral victory in the fall.

Now, we are fast approaching a tipping point in all of this where the battle lines will be clearly drawn and there’s no going back. We may, in fact, have already reached that moment. That the Trump Administration believes that they can leverage all of this to their advantage kind of drains me of any hope.

In a sense, you have to have hope to be angry and right now I have no hope. It definitely appears as though they’re going to win this one. That after a week or so of fury, they’ll concoct the latest outrage and we’ll move on to the next thing. By the time November rolls around, 30,000 children will be living on in tent cities across the country and we just won’t care.

If something happens to give me hope, I’ll go back to being furious about this. I guess what really has drained me the most of my hope and therefore anger is the reaction of the MAGA people I know on Facebook. They listen to the same ProPublica audio that I did where children are screaming for their parents and instead of being as reviled as I am, they simply shrug and say we need to “secure our borders.”

So I have no hope. I can’t be angry without hope. I need something dramatic to happen pretty quick to make this seem different than any of the other clusterfucks the Trump Administration has managed to cause only to survive. I just don’t understand how other human beings can honestly listen to children screaming for their parents and be completely devoid of common human compassion.

Scream About Trump’s Fourth Reich’s ‘Prosecution Initiative’ At The Top Of Your Lungs

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

We live in surreal, obscene times when the U.S. government feels obliged to treat the children of asylum seekers as more than animals under a policy known as the “Prosecution Initiative.” I do not feel that the name of this policy is well known enough. It’s all we should be talking about on social media.

The “Prosecution Initiative” should become something so loaded in the nation’s collective conscience that it’s mention nearly brings a conversation to a standstill. We need to use it as a rhetorical bludgeon at every opportunity. To my ears, it sounds so ominous to begin with that it wouldn’t take too much effort to attain that goal.

We’re in a crisis and we need to use everything we can find to end this policy as quickly as possible. If we repeat the term “Prosecution Initiative” over and over and over again at every turn, that would help make it clear that this is not a law, but rather a policy, or an initiative.

This is a marathon now, not a sprint, so this is part of a pitched political battle that will take significantly longer than it otherwise should. The Trump Administration is trying to defend the indefensible. We have to remind them of this at every opportunity and putting a stigma on the term “Prosecution Initiative” would further that goal.

In Trump’s Fourth Reich, Silence Now Equals Collaboration #KeepFamiliesTogether

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

Now that the pot is boiling, now that we’re confronted with the decision of if we are willing to tolerate immigrant children being torn from their families, we have to face the cold hard fact that silence on MAGA no longer equals complicit approval, it equal active collaboration.

I say this only because as few notable people who have otherwise been complacent about MAGA abuses have begun to speak up about this latest outrage, that core 44% of the electorate continues to adore Trump often times is just silent when confronted. They simply refuse to answer any question, express any opinion.

To me, that goes beyond being simply complicit, that’s collaboration. You are actively doing something — you are actively saying that you refuse to go on the record with any opinion. Your desire to follow Trump with a cult-like fervor is equal to your unwillingness to agree that on this specific issue, at least, Trump is wrong. You are actively — through your silence — giving aid and comfort to a monster.

If that doesn’t make YOU a monster, I don’t what does. To say you “don’t really follow politics anymore” and then turn around and blindly vote for MAGA politicians is an answer if ever there was one. If you had a soul, if you had a conscience you wouldn’t see children torn away from their families as some sort of weird political pawn to get your damn wall. You’d see them for what they are: scared children.

Given how fickle Trump is, he could very well read the tea leaves and tweet out a change in policy today or this week. Or he could see that as a no win for him relative to his base. He might see this as a perfect opportunity to stand his ground and hope for this all to blow over. In real terms, he has until November to make a decision. As long as he changes the decision by, say, mid-October the political costs of changing a policy so popular with the base are simply too high.

Therefore, it’s very possible we’re in for a pitched battle. One one side, there will be Trump and MAGA using the Big Lie while throwing out any number of other distractions and on the other side, you have everyone else who either get mad and stay mad or finally capitulate.

All I can suggest is if someone you know and love who is a known Trump/MAGA person, when they give you silence, keep at it. Don’t accept their silence this time. Press them on what their opinion is. Get them on the record one way or another. This could very well be pretty painful for all involved.

But the greater good is involved here. If enough people make Trump/MAGA people have to not only defend their position but think carefully about why they believe what believe. I’m not saying it will make that much of a different to you personally, but on a macro level there’s a chance we might whittle down that 44% of the electorate a little bit.

This is serious. This is really serious. We need to start acting like it.

Shelton Bumgarner is a writer and photographer living in Richmond, Va. You may reach him at migukin (at) gmail (dot) com.