Category: From The Editor

#COVID19 #Pandemic Threat Assessment For March 24th, 2020: A Darkness At Noon

Shelton Bumgarner

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

We are so doomed.

Trump thinks he can pander to the Religious Right by getting everyone in church in some sort of Trump-As-Christ event around Easter. He thinks everything will wrap up around Easter, we can go back to normal and we want to praise him, praise him, praise him at the polls when November rolls around. That it also gives the markets some sense of security and stability by giving them a definite ending is a twofer.

I guess it might work.

It might work because the MAGA base is such a death cult that even if a few million people die because of this harebrained idea, they will simply shrug and say at least he owned the libs for them. In fact, I would say the ONLY thing that will prevent Trump from cruising into a second term is well, Trump. I could see Trump finally snapping around Easter when it becomes apparent that not only is this not going to wrap up then, but he’s going to be directly blamed for people dying because, well, they went to church for Easter at his behest.

He’s such a self-own artist that it will be Trump himself who brings down House Trump — if that is even possible at this point. Trump going bonkers is pretty much the only thing I can possibly thing of that might bring down House Trump. Otherwise, there’s nothing we can do. I don’t want him to go bonkers because, well, we could all die when he decides to nuke us to oblivion. If he did go bonkers and House Trump fell long enough for a free-and-fair election to happen, it would be rather surreal, to say the least. House Trump is so absolute in its belief that The Thousand Year Trump has been established, the Fourth Reich has been born, that if this even momentarily proves not to be the case, a lot of people are going to be gobsmacked.

The normal rules of politics will kick in with brutal force and Trump will continue to tweet from the sidelines complaining it was a combination “stab in the back” of “the Chinese and liberals” that brought him down. Don Jr. will court the MAGA base and, well, there will be talk of impeaching-and-convicting everyone necessary to get Don Jr. back as president as soon as possible.

I do think Trump will pardon about 20 people — including himself! — the moment we it’s obvious he’s lost even the Electoral College. He may not even leave the White House willingly and that will be the first crisis of the new administration. But I also think Trump’s never leaving office. For him to leave office for any reason — legal, political or self-own — something so jaw-dropping would have to happen that is simply beyond my ability to predict.

We’re stuck with The Thousand Year Trump for about 30 years until the browning of America crosses paths with the decline of the Baby Boomers and finally someone like, say, AOC, topples House Trump and we go back to “normal.”

Fuck you if you’re MAGA. You cocksucker.

I do think, in passing, however, that a lot of these older celebrities who are dying these days are dying of COVID19. Their families simply don’t want their legacy to be how they died instead of their career. I don’t think it’s any sort of “conspiracy,” I think it’s just basic human nature.

Now What #COVID19 #Pandemic

Shelton Bumgarner

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Now what.

Things are still about two weeks from getting astonishingly bad if we go the route of Italy. It’s possible that things won’t get nearly as bad as we fear because we’re acting now.

But there’s also a chance things could get just as bad as I have long feared. If the death toll in NYC and LA goes exponential and we see daily deaths in the thousands, then the effort to lock down the country will grow ever more dire. I honestly don’t know which scenario to expect. My only concern is we’re just too big a country to do an Italy-style complete lockdown until it’s way too late.

I have long suggested that we simply ignore any short-term economic issues and just do whatever is necessary to save as many lives as possible. In the short term things are going to suck, but when we finally get over this, things will come roaring back. 2021 could be pretty great, other than Roe and ObamaCare being overturned by SCOTUS, but still pretty great. A lot of babies will be born. A lot of art will be made and produced.

But we have to get to that point first. Between then and now, things are going to be very, very bumpy. Very surreal at times. And there are not assurances that the bad guys won’t win completely. There’s a real chance that in the end, all the problems we have as a nation will be solved because House Trump crushes any dissent. They already want Congress to give them the right to detain people indefinitely because of this pandemic, they could very well simply use ICE to round up people the regime doesn’t like and put them into the existing ICE camp infracture.

That’s a very real possibility.

Or, one thing to remember is history, once awoken, rarely goes in a straight line. Even if the “good guys” “win” in the end, it could definitely look as if the bad guys are going to win and it’s going to scare the living shit out of everyone.

The next two weeks could be historically dramatic in the United States as the death toll rises in major urban areas and then bouncing into Red States because, well, lulz.

The real question, of course, is what will we look like once this is all over with? Is this a New Era, or is it simply a speed bump. I would say there are two issues to think about — duration and war. The long this clusterfuck lasts, the greater its significance. Meanwhile, if wars start to break out because of the general instability the pandemic has causes, then, well, yikes.

Two places I’m worried about are China and the DPRK. China could definitely strike in the South China Sea or against Taiwan. Meanwhile, the DPRK might either implode or explode. Implode, and there’s a mad rush to seize its army and territory. If explodes, then you have a major regional war in the middle of a pandemic.

Anyway, good luck everyone. We could have had a taco stand on every corner instead of a tragically mishandled pandemic.

‘Flughazi’ & The (Fall Of The) House Trump

Shelton Bumgarner

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

MAGA is a death cult and the sooner we all realize that the better. So, in general, any notion that House Trump — The Thousand Year Trump — won’t be around for a solid 30-40 years until the Browning of America kicks in is something of a liberal fever dream at this point.

But that’s the macro situation.

It’s at least possible that “Flughazi” might knock the wind out of House Trump for at least one election cycle. Maybe. It’s possible, not probable. Trump is such a perfect avatar for the rage that white America feels about the “takers” (read: brown people) slowly taking over the country that Trump is effectively an American Caligula. He could have sex with Ivanka in the Well of the Senate while murdering a baby and it would be a lulz for Senate Republicans.

But.

It’s at least possible that some how, some way, for at least one election cycle the immutable march of House Trump to destroying the country I love so much may be at least slowed. For about two years, until the House flips, we might have a serious rebuilding moment on our hands. Of course, a lot of long-sought court decisions for conservatives (overrunning Roe, overturning ObamaCare) will happen at about the same time, so lulz. In the end, Don Jr. will be elected president in 2024 and we start all over again.

The big question for that brief moment when sanity returns to the country is how do we fix the severe damaged that House Trump has inflicted on so many levels of the nation’s government. It will be a rather surreal few months while we come to grips with the deep, massive damage House Trump has inflicted on the entire government. A real Deep State — the House Trump Deep State — will be in power and do everything in its ability to bring down any non-House Trump approved administration. That’s kind of the point of the Trump Administration at this point.

So, I guess we just have to be happy with all the babies and art that will pop out in 2021-2022. Pretty much everything else is going to suck.

#COVID19 Threat Assessment For March 18th, 2020: I’ll Give You Something To Cry About

Shelton Bumgarner

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Here are some threats on the top of my mind right now:

Continuation of Government
Now that members of Congress are beginning to get back COVID19 positives on their tests, it seems at least possible that it’s going to whip through the halls of power at a rather alarming rate at some point between now an April 1st. We could see many Senators and a few Constitutional Officers be unable to fulfill their duties (for various reasons.)

This is ominous because a lot of different things could go wrong all at the same time to such an extent that we will reach 9/11 levels of fear and terror across the country. Throw in everything from Trump going full-Caligula to some obscure Trump MAGA hack being able to appoint nearly the entire SCOTUS to Nancy Pelosi having to save the Union and we could be in for a wild fucking ride.

Or not.

It could be things work out fine and I’ll be (thankfully) wrong.

Race and Political Violence
We’re about two weeks and one Trump tweet away from Asians and liberals being hunted down and murdered in cold blood by MAGA. If Trump finally feels he might have some actual political accountable on an existential level, he’s likely to lash out and “joke” to his fucktard cocksucker base to “remind Asians and liberals of the power of the 2nd Amendment.” MAGA goes on a rampage and The Little Terror happens across the nation in a rather End of Days type of way. We come out the other side ashamed of ourselves as a nation and we endup apologizing for it all in a few decades.

House Trump: Caligula
This is one of those things that is a serious wildcard. I have no idea if Trump is going to explode or implode if it occurs to him that his handling of this clusterfuck really is his Chernobyl. He’s barely functioning as it is, and if we’re lucky, he becoming a mental puddle and we don’t see him that much. Or he explodes and whips his cock out every chance he gets. Or tweets out racist diatribes to any notable minority leader he doesn’t like. I have no idea how likely any of that is, but it’s something to think about.

Emperor Trump
Trump may eventually turn himself into an Emperor in a rather dramatic fashion. He’ll really lean into the “war president’ thing and simply ignore the Constitution even more than he already does. And, really, the only thing that would save us at that point is he’s very dumb. And he’s a self-own artist. So he might finally make the average American realize what a moronic tyrant he is and THAT would be the cause of his final undoing. But I find the idea that Trump will ever have any political unaccountably rather dubious at this point.

A New World Order
The one place I could see maybe pushing us into a totally new world order is the DPRK. It’s such a black box that if it freaks out because most of the population is sick or dying, then, well, yikes. And Trump could very well bungle the whole thing. AND, China might decide to accomplish some of its long-term geopolitical goals at the same time for no other reason than everyone else is too sick to do anything about it. There are just a lot of surreal twists and turns that might occur on a global scale if this preventable clusterfuck lasts for 18 months.

The Gray Plague
If this happens, and about a million elderly people die over the next 18 months, then, well, yikes. I’m really concerned about this as a possible future. And, yet, there’s probably a lot going on that I don’t know about. Maybe this prediction is just too dark for it to become a reality. I mean, could we really handle a few months of 10,000 old people dying every day? If we realized there was nothing we could do, but just let it play out? And remember, we’ve put a whole lot of our future on the shoulders of elderly people. It wouldn’t take too many powerful — and old — people being felled by The Gray Plague for history to change in a rather startling fashion.

The WuFlop
I only call it the WuFlop because I don’t know the scientific term. But it wouldn’t take a lot of people being recorded passing out with the WuFlop for that to spook people on a rather existential fashion.

But maybe Trump’s announcement tomorrow is a cure and we can all go back to waiting for the ICE camps to be weaponized. Good times!

Coming To America: The ‘WuFlop'(?)

Shelton Bumgarner

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I don’t know anything about anything, so you should probably ignore me. But simply empirical evidence suggests that the extremely rare (I think) symptom of COVID19, known as “the WuFlop” (I only call it that at this point because I don’t know what the scientific term is.) may appear in the United States simply because the number of people who have COVID19 will be large enough that it begins to happen.

If the WuFlop does come to America, it would likely freak people the fuck out. It’s extremely eerie if someone who is otherwise healthy looking faceplants. It’s even more surreal when they do it and start to convolse uncontrollably. It’s highly unlikely we would ever see it a recorded occurrence of this on TV, but it definitely would be all over social media if it happened in the United States.

And, yet, maybe (hopefully) I’m wrong. Or if it does happen in the States, it won’t be recorded. I don’t know. I just don’t know. It seems inevitable if 100 million Americans get COVID19, that we’ll begin to see recorded of WuFlop across the country at some point.

‘The Little Terror’ #COVID19

Shelton Bumgarner

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’m growing more and more nervous that we’re about two weeks and one Trump tweet away from unprecedented racial and political violence in the United States.

It seems as though if Trump goes bonkers because it suddenly strikes him that he may, in fact, be rightfully blamed for this pandemic clusterfuck that he’ll go transactional with his Twitter feed and “joke” that Asians and liberals should be reminded of the power of the 2nd Amendment. This would likely cause all his cocksucker MAGA dispshit followers to go on a deranged murdering spreed. Asians, liberals (like me!) and anyone else these fuckers could think of would be in harms way.

The, of course, Trump will turn around and say OBVIOUSLY we need martial law to control the situation — which, of course, he started in the first place. If that happened, Trump would be so fucking bonkers that really anything could happen. He could shoot out dickpics using the Presidential Alert System. He could just start ranting racist shit to anyone he didn’t like. He could pull out his cock at a press conference and start masturbating. Nothing. And I mean NOTHING would be off the table.

But even that wouldn’t cause us to have the political will to do anything about Trump. Or, if it did, it would only be because Moscow Mitch had finally squeezed out as many young hack MAGA Federal judges out of Trump. He’s already gotten his smash-and-grab welfare for plutocrats, so anything beyond that is a win for Moscow Mitch.

If things got insane enough, there might be a half-hearted attempt to do the Pence Pivot, but more likely Trump’s going to pick Don Jr. as his Veep. Gotta keep it in the family, you know. The Thousand Year Trump is here and not even 1 million unnecessary, preventable deaths is going to stop that. We just have to wait about 30 years for the macro demographics of the death of the Baby Boomers crossing the Browning of America so whatever’s left of America can go back to some sort of “normal.”

But by that point, of course, America will be so fucking dystopian that, well, lulz.

Prove me wrong, guys.

What I Got Wrong #COVID19

Shelton Bumgarner

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Well, we’ve reached March 15, so let’s look over in general terms my predictions about COVID19.

I got a whole lot wrong. A whole lot. But in general I did, at least, make some relevant observations. Two things haven’t happened (yet): the Gray Plague and Wuflop. Neither one has happened in the United States and maybe never will.

It’s possible that while we have a short, severe two weeks of social distancing, in the end, Devin Nunes will crow he was right. Trump will simply use all of this to consolidate power, win re-election through any means necessary and get impeached again in his second term. But by that point Don Jr. will be his veep and House Trump will be firmly established. We’ll have Trumps for about 30 years until the browning of America reaches a tipping point and AOC topples House Trump through a popular uprising.

Or something.

I did get right, in broad terms, the idea that America might buckle by the March 15. But it didn’t happen the way I thought. It’s not that everyone has gotten sick, it’s a psycho-social situation. The powers that be have decided to take “flatting the curve” seriously and, as such, the country is shutting down as a preventive measure. In real terms, the death toll, for the moment, is relatively low.

And, really, I don’t see an endgame where House Trump isn’t stronger. Either this kind of fizzles out in April and they use it to discredit everyone who freaked out, or we have something akin to the apocalypse and House Trump uses THAT to consolidate power. There’s just no stopping our inevitable slide in to the Fourth Reich. The Thousand Year Trump is going to happen one way or another.

For it NOT to happen, things would have to grow eyepoppingly surreal and dark in just the right way so House Trump was blamed for a shit ton of preventable deaths. And, I, for one, am not thrilled at the idea of 1 million people dying over the next 18 months, regardless of what Crown Prince Don Jr. may think.

Anyway, the point is — I can’t predict the future. I got the general outlines of what is happening now, but the death toll isn’t rising as quickly as I predicted. That may be an issue of it just takes time for exponential growth to pop up in the real world given how big the United States is on a geographic level.

Or something. Why are you even reading this. Go read something from someone with credibility. Wink

Ted Cruz, #Pandemic Hero?

Shelton Bumgarner

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Ugh. Ted Cruz may endup being the fucking hero of this pandemic clusterfuck. He and a bunch of other right wing nutjobs are self-quarantining because of their exposure to COVID19 at CPAC. It wouldn’t be too much of a stretch that should the US government grow incapacitated because of a massive outbreak, that it would be Cruz — and few other similar very lucky shithead conservatives — who could swoop in and save the day.

But, in a way, it’s not like some sort of fucking twitter liberal utopia is going to happen if Nancy Pelosi abruptly became president. More likely than not,there would be unprecedented political violence across the country. There might be coup attempts in states like Virginia — or even the US government itself.

So, I guess while it will make me grit my teeth and wince, Cruz is far more likely to stay within democratic norms than a lot of the other cocksucker conservative “leader” options we might have at the moment.

The Dumbest Timeline: I Fear Trump Is Mar-A-Lago ‘Patient 0’

Shelton Bumgarner

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I don’t wish any physical harm against POTUS, no matter how much I want him to spend the rest of his life in prison. He is the president and as such his physical well-being is of the upmost importance.

But we have to begin to prepare ourselves for POTUS as Patient Zero of the Mar-A-Lago outbreak. If numerous people around him are testing positive, then it seems logical that it’s not THEM, it’s HIM we have to worry about. The reason Trump isn’t getting tested — as far as we know — probably has less to do with his health and more to do with the rape case he’s facing right now. He doesn’t want his DNA floating around to be subpoenaed.

What does all of this mean? Well, if we’re lucky, nothing. He might get the sniffles and we’ll never know one way or another. But if, God forbid, the worst happens, then we’re in for some crazy times. Even if Trump simply is incapacitated for a few days because of COVID19, that would be the biggest political story of the year, even more so than impeachment. Pence might play Regent and there would be talk that it should be Don Jr., NOT Nikki Haley should be his VEEP for his second term. All Don Jr. has to do is move is legal residency to, say, Montana and the rest takes care of itself.

Any time anything physical happens to POTUS, it’s a serious affair. And, given how taunt the American political system is, it goes without saying that there will be unprecedented political violence if anything physical happens to Trump. The Far Right already thinks COVID19 is a plot between the Chinese and the Democratic Party, if something physical happen to Trump, that would be pouring gasoline on that particular conspiracy flame.

As such, I think for all considered, let’s just hope nothing physical happens to Trump in the next few weeks because of COVID19. If Trump grew ill on the Ides of March, then, well, the 2020 writer’s room really is full of hacks.

Slow Your Roll, Twitter Liberals #COVID19

Shelton Bumgarner

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Trump isn’t going anywhere. His presidency isn’t over. He’s well on his way to losing the popular vote and winning the Electoral College. Or he’ll bribe Electors or dox them, or intimidate them on Twitter. He’s going to dump Pence and name Don Jr. his VP. Or Steve King.

He’s just not going anywhere. Ever. Period.

Or, put another way, things would have to get so bad for Trump to finally have any form of political accountability that it would be a historic national tragedy of such proportions that neither side would be able to find any reason — any reason — to find any political advantage from it. For Trump’s core base of 35% of the electorate to go down in any way, we would be facing nothing short of the Apocalypse. Or it would have to feel like it.

And, really, there would have to be a very specific set of circumstances such that Tom Cotton or Kris Kobach or The Kooch or name your young fascist wannabe wouldn’t be able to somehow rise to power to do everything Trump has wanted to do but was too old, unfocused and incompetent to do. I honestly don’t even know exactly what that would look like.

In general, the current crisis is only going to accelerate and deepen our decent into dystopian authoritarianism. We may be identical to Putin’s Russia in a few months. ICE will be weaponized. Any dissent will be crushed or managed out of existence. I have no hope. It’s over. We’re in political hell.

Just trying to imagine any scenario whereby we abruptly go back to any sense of the American we had before Trump came to power is a struggle. I guess, maybe, if Trump lost his mind and started using the Presidential Alert System to shoot out dickpics to people’s cellphones on a daily basis, then maybe we might get his support down to about 30%. But his enablers have invested so much of their self-identity in MAGA that even that probably won’t phase them. MAGA is a death cult, pure and simple.

And, really, even if Trump was, say, blamed for 1 million unnecessary, preventable deaths, House Trump might get the wind knocked out of it for one election cycle. They’d come back in 2024 with Don Jr. and act as if nothing happened. Any Democratic president will be impeached the moment Republicans control the House and be hobbled politically during the second half of their four year administration.

Things would have to be a singularity of the horrific for House Trump to have any form of political accountability. It would have to be a waking nightmare. So bad that political level the entire country, both Red and Blue would feel as though they were being horrifically tortured specifically because of things we could prove House Trump did.

It would be so bad that liberals would look back and think we would have been better off if the pandemic never happened and Trump cruised into his second term. MAGA people would have to proof that they, personally, had loved ones who died directly and specifically because of Trump. But they’re a death cult, so lulz. I just don’t see a million preventable deaths being enough for them to stop worrying about the browning of America, or feminists or transgender Olympians.

And, really, they would simply gloat that they got what they wanted — a massive tax cut and young hack MAGA judges. The moment we all came to our senses after a horrific few months — if it ever came to that — they would bounce back and act like nothing happen. Or they would blame liberals, or Asians, or whomever. MAGA is all set to murder liberals in cold blood in a Little Terror if need be. They just aren’t functioning in reality anymore.

Prove me wrong.

If you think I suffer from “Trump Derangement Disorder,” you can fuck off, you shithead fucktard cocksucker. Eat shit.