Category: From The Editor

V-Log: Some Brief Words On How To Solve The NRA Problem

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

Here you go. Enjoy.

How People Power Can Defeat The NRA #BoycottNRA

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

Sometimes, it seems as though the NRA is so powerful that the average person can’t do anything. I disagree. As history has shown us with what happened with the Anti-Masonic Party in the early 1800s, if the electorate decides collectively to do something, change can happen.

The party was founded in the aftermath of the disappearance of William Morgan, a former Mason who had become a prominent critic of the organization. Many believed that the Masons had murdered Morgan for speaking out against Masonry, and many churches and other groups condemned masonry. As many Masons were prominent businessmen and politicians, the backlash against the Masons was also a form of anti-elitism. Mass opposition to Masonry eventually coalesced into a political party. Before and during the presidency of John Quincy Adams, the United States endured a period of political realignment, and the Anti-Masons emerged as an important third party alternative to Andrew Jackson’s Democrats and Adams’s National Republicans. In New York, the Anti-Masons supplanted the National Republicans as the primary opposition to the Democrats.

Really, the closest modern thing I can compare what I suggest to is what MADD was able to do in the 1980s, but that was a lot easier for various reasons. I live in Virginia and the NRA ran attack ads against the Democratic gubernatorial candidate saying he had an “F” rating with them. I was like, “Wow, I’m voting for that guy!” So, if you really want to do something about the NRA, if you want to combat their power, vow to yourself you will never vote for anyone with an A Rating from the NRA. It’s a small, but powerful decision.

You’re going to have to kind of ignore the enormous power of the NRA propaganda. You’re going to have to say fuck that. Nothing they say or do will get you to vote for someone they support. Absolutely. It doesn’t matter where you live, if enough people take this pledge, eventually things will change.

I guess the point is, we have to take things into our own hands. Politicians live off the vote and enough people, on principle, refuse to vote for someone with an A Rating from the NRA eventually after a lot of bitching and moaning, Washington will get the picture.

But this won’t come easy. The NRA has a lot of power and the Trump Administration seems hell bent on imposing some sort of weird dystopia on America. But I still believe in American democracy, I still believe that we ARE a democracy.

I would also suggest you try to support the efforts of the teens protesting the NRA by not giving your kids grief if they walk out of school. But that is maybe a bit much for some people.

It’s times like these when I wish John Lennon was still alive. We really need him right now.

The Anti-Masonic Party & How To Defeat The NRA

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

Dire times call for drastic measures and I think maybe we can learn a lesson from the origins of the Anti-Masonic Party in New England. Essentially, as I understand it, the people of New England got fed up with the shenanigans of the Masons in New England and vowed not to vote for anyone who was a member.

So, one could argue that America is ripe for a nation-wide political boycott of the NRA. In essence, if the populace simply collectively decided to not vote for anyone who took NRA money, maybe the pols in Washington would sit up and take notice.

Now, of course, this would not come easy. It would take just the right political moment. It does seem, however, that we’re careening towards just that type of moment. You can’t stymie the political will for as long and as absolutely as the NRA has without there being a folk backlash at some point. People on a individual level might eventually get fed up so much that they actually evoke real political change.

I don’t exactly have the highest hopes that this will happen. But you can always hope.

V-log: Of #Hollywood, #Screenwriting & #Storytelling

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

In these two videos, I go into great length about my personal views on Hollywood, screenwriting and storytelling. These videos are meandering and rambling, but pretty good, all things considered. It’s too bad that people aren’t willing to watch videos.

But, in short, I talk a lot about how Hollywood establishes traditional gender rolls and then plays with them for dramatic effect. I also talk about my movie concept that would be a homage to The Big Chill. Like I said, these two videos are really interesting if you’re into storytelling.

V-Log: Dwelling On My Recent Trip To #NYC, While Eyeing A Trip To #LA

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

I went to NYC recently and had a blast. In this V-log, I talk about what I did as well as my thoughts on maybe going to LA soon as well.

Mulling A Quick Trip to #Miami

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

It’s cold here in Richmond, and my 45th birthday is coming up, so I thought I would do something interesting like take a quick trip somewhere hot. After a lot of mulling over different places, I think I’ve come to the conclusion of where I want to go: Miami Beach.

V-Log: A ‘Drama Queen’ Speaks Out About Victor Cha #DPRK

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

I am a little upset about what’s going on with the DPRK and here are some words on the matter.

Sean Hannity’s Twitter, ‘Form Submission 1649’ & The Trump Base As Cult #Resist

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

So, the latest weird, surreal conspiracy theory is something to do with Sean Hannity’s Twitter account vanishing after tweeting something about “Form Submission 1649” three times. Apparently, this has something to about theft of government property. Or something. Though, I have to say, it Hannity may have come up with a new type of rage quitting Twitter, whereby you say something really dramatic and then quit, leaving people to focus on the last thing you tweeted.

This is mysterious to say the least, but at this point, Trump has so proven himself to be a monster — if an incompetent one — that I’m fed up with any arguments about how we should “lock her up.” Clinton lost. She’s not president and likely never will be. So, in a sense, the numbnuts of the Right have won that particular argument. And, yet, because they can’t in good faith defend the actions of their God-king Donald Trump, they bob and weave, they rhetorically shadowbox every which way in an effort to avoid directly addressing what a shit person and president Trump is.

What’s worse, sometimes instead of shadowboxing, they pull the most ridiculous argument out of their ass. In my view, that’s the most dangerous aspect of all of this. It’s like the Trump base is a cult. That’s the only word for it I can think of. It’s a cult. The Trump base is so completely detached from reality that there’s no debating anything with them. They simply refuse to admit any flaw with their God-king and they’re willing to take the entire country down with them in an effort to see their agenda implemented.

Something pretty epic is going on in American politics that we are lurching towards a Russian-style authoritarian “managed democracy” so quickly. I just don’t get it. I just don’t get what’s going on. One possible explanation is the Great Man theory of history. That all of this is a fluke caused by some extraordinary circumstances. It is very similar to what happened with Hitler, sad to say. While Trump is a strangely adept politician, he’s really shitty, really incompetent at governing. So right now that’s the only thing protecting us from a bull-bore fascist take over.

This is happening because all of the usual suspects on the Right who would otherwise scream bloody murder are completely co-opted, completely complicit. The entire system is out of whack. It’s really sad. It’s really tragic. There are no easy answers. I don’t know what happens next, honestly. Even if Mueller manages to find actual wrong-doing on the part of Trump, America is so divided that I honestly can’t see any scenario that includes Trump resigning or being impeached and convicted. So, as such, we’re fucked. We’re stuck with him at least four, if not eight years. The only question is, what will be his ultimately legacy?

Either the next president is a real leader and cleans up this mess, or the entire process is officially broken and we’re never going to have another free and fair election, at least as long as I’m alive. That seems like a very real possibility, sad to say. Remember, the Reagan Revolution lasted for 12 years and only then ended because Bill Clinton was such an expert politician that he was able to slip through using the Third Way political ideology. So, there is a real possibility that because of the quirks of the Electoral College the Trump Revolution could last at least as long as that.

Again, I just don’t know what happens next. The Trump base has some legitimate complaints, but they take what they’re willing to do to address those problems with the modern world to completely bonkers lengths. It is a very real possibility that instead of the usual ebb and flow of politics on a macro level that we’ve entered a new age where there’s no longer free and fair elections and there will be a complete disconnect between the will of the people and the government. It has already happened with the smash and grab tax cut the Republicans passed, so there is no reason to think they won’t do it with everything else they want in the future.

The Trump base is such a fetid, rancid thing on an ideological level that it was inevitable that they would gain power and fuck things up. It is up to all of us, now, to see what we can do to mitigate the damage they inflict on the nation before it’s too late.

V-log: Trump Supporters Are An American Embarrassment

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

I could go on at great length about how angry Trump supporters make me, but here’s a video that does just that. Trump is tearing this great nation of ours apart and there doesn’t seem to be anything we can do about it. It’s all very sad. Very tragic.

Far Worse Than Watergate, My Ass: How I Quit Worrying & Learned To Love Fuckwits

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

For otherwise grown adults, the Republican Party sure does collectively act like a bunch of little kids. They know the only way to get anyone’s attention is to cry and say this or that dumb conspiracy theory is “far worse than Watergate.” Republicans know they will catch liberals attention by invoking Watergate, even if it, in fact, has nothing to do with what’s going on.

I had a long, painful and weirdly insightful discussion with a Trump supporter recently that at first left me seething and now leavings me somewhat resigned. Talking to him about Trump was a textbook case of gaslighting and rhetorical shadowboxing. Even when I landed punches, he wouldn’t admit it. It was extremely frustrating.

But I did learn something about how to debate a Trump cult member. You have to give them specifics. You have to be prepared. If you’re going to engage, not enrage a Trump cultist, you need to be prepared. This is a really big mistake I’ve made in the past. Just because it’s self-evident to you that Trump and his ilk are bigoted, racist misogynists, doesn’t mean you’re not going to have to prove it to a Trump cult member.

The sooner we admit to ourselves that Trump supporters are in a deluded cult, the sooner we will better understand how to address them. They don’t see the fetid, rancid ideological dumpster fire of MAGA as that at all. All they care about is that the economy is “humming” and that ISIS has been largely defeated. It’s really weird that otherwise conservative people would embrace moral relativism in their efforts to support the Dear Leader, while a liberal like me has to stand on principle to get anything done.

Anyway, I guess the point is if you’re going talk to a Trump supporter, you can’t just yell at them the way you want to. You’re going to have to have cold hard facts — lots of them — at your disposal that you can throw at them. They will shadowbox, they will rhetorically bob and weave, but find your hill and die on it. Don’t get distracted by what a target rich environment MAGA is. Find a specific thing that really pisses you off about Trump, learn as much as you can about it and attack, attack, attack.

But we’re all doomed. I need some hope.