Category: Hindsight 2020

The Looming Battle Over ESG

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It is very interesting that the very people who “just want to be left alone” are the same people who bitch and moan about things like “environmental, social, and corporate governance” scores. If the free market thinks ESG is something to strive for the what’s the problem?

The “leave me alone” people who otherwise think the we should leave everything to the hand of marketplace, suddenly get all freaked out that that very thing is happening. And, what’s more, these are the same people who get REALLY upset over “woke” corporations.

So the very people who think the state should stay out of the way are the very people who would support a Federal ban on ESG scoring. The issue is, of course, that lulz, nothing matters. The siren call of fascism is so powerful in American politics that the obvious hypocrisy involved in wanting the state to intervene with the work of the free market is a lulz.

It just doesn’t matter.

The fascist concept of the “corporate state” is growing in popularity amongst people who should know better. There’s no going back. It definitely seems as though my prediction that we will face the existential choice of autocracy or civil war.

‘The Rumor’

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

This is a totally baseless rumor as far as I can tell, but I’ve had a bit to drink, so I will share what I saw on a very dubious Tik-Tok some time ago: there may be a Kamala Harris sex tape.

I’m sure this is total, complete bullshit. But just the idea that one MIGHT exist is enough to give me a serious case of hives because as today’s abrupt and unexpected firing of Tucker Carlson today proves — we may be entering a very strange election cycle.

My fears about this totally untrue rumor go something like this — Biden shuffles off this mortal coil between now and election day 2024. Harris becomes POTUS and she’s forced to resign because we all see her doing the nasty. The rumor I heard is she does it with her old beau Montel Williams. Anyway, THEN, we end up with a President MacCarthy.

It would be a head spinning series of events.

Again, I think all of this is total bullshit. But it definitely would make a lot of sense if it did exist. Harris is a very attractive woman and she seems like she was something of a wild child in her younger days.

I still believe the 2024 presidential cycle is shaping up to be completely fucking bonkers in ways that none of us could possible imagine.

Is Tucker Carlson Going To Run For President ?

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The firing of Tucker Carlson by Fox News has the potential to be far more historic than you might think. The way is cleared for Carlson to run for president in 2024. He apparently hates Trump and what better way to get his revenge than to cockblock Trump’s fascist dreams?

And, yet, Carlson is a coward and a bully — a total chickshit — so it seems possible that he’ll just pop up on NewsMax and that will be that. But the absolute stranglehold that Carlson has on the MAGA base is rivaled only by the big olde orange ding-dong himself Trump.

As such, Carlson has the means, motive and opportunity to run for — and win — the presidency in 2024. Carlson is everything that the MAGA base thought they were going to get with Trump but didn’t get because he’s a lazy idiot. Of course, Carlson doesn’t have any practical governing experience so, lulz, he probably will be a total disaster like Trump, but he’s young enough that he could definitely learn on the job.

Do I think Carlson will run?

Probably not. There’s too much money to be made being a NewsMax talking head. But the next few months could be very…interesting. It’s a least possible that the 2024 election will be far, far more unpredictable and unstable than any of us could have possibly predict.

I’m getting a strong 1860 vibe off of 2024. Though, I have to admit that I’m beginning to think all my hysterical predictions about a civil war are just that — “hysterical doom shit.” I think we’ll just get a Republican POTUS and slip gradually, and peacefully, into a Russian-style autocracy.

Republicans Are So Blinded By Their Anti-Abortion Rights Fervor That They’re Willing to Burn The Country To The Ground

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It definitely seems as though SCOTUS is going to outlaw one of the two major abortion pills — responsible for most abortions — this Friday. This would be horrible politics for Republicans, but, lulz, they don’t care. Such a decision by SCOTUS late on a Friday would be yet another H-bomb dropped on the American political system.

But, again, Republicans just don’t give a shit.

Because of the rot in our politics, Republicans know that they’re ascendant and they’re going to get what they want soon enough: a total ban on not just abortion, but any form of birth control.

And when that happens?

Because abortion rights are at their heart an economic issue, the continued restriction of such rights would be very, very corrosive and would increase how Red and Blue states are receding from each other at an alarming rate.

But here we are — all the momentum is with the most extreme elements of the Republican Party. So, lulz, either we have some sort of National Divorce or we turn into an autocracy. Who knows which choice we’ll make.

America Is Careening Towards A Very Dark Fate In Late 2024, Early 2025

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The two sides are set. No amount of wishful thinking is going to change that on a systemic basis America is very, very fucked. The cancer of fascism has consumed the Republicans to the point that, by definition, our next Republican POTUS will be our first autocrat.

Republicans go out of their way to to make it clear that they don’t believe in American democracy at all. Your establishment Republican will tell you point blank that America is a “constitutional republic” not a democracy.

The issue is — it doesn’t matter if Trump is the GQP nominee or not, America will peacefully transition into autocracy if 2024 – 2025 unless something unexpected happens. What that “unexpected” event might be, I don’t know. But America at the moment is an autocracy without an autocrat. All we need is a Republican as POTUS.

I just don’t have any hope about America’s future. We need to accept that we are careening towards an existential choice of autocracy or civil war in late 2024, early 2025. I can’t predict the future so obviously something might happen to allow us to punt our political problems down the road another election cycle…but I have my doubts.

Liberals Really Need To Stop Thinking Their Outrage Over Rightwing Hypocrisy Means Jack Shit

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The die has been cast — the conditions now exist for either autocracy or a civil war starting in late 2024, early 2025. I suppose there is a minor chance that somehow we punt our problems down the road one more election cycle, but I’m not feeling too confident.

I say this because no matter who wins in 2024, one side or the other could very well feel compelled to leave the Union at the state level. And it really all depends on a combination of Trump and how bad things have gotten on a systemic basis within the Republican Party.

If Trump somehow magically manages NOT to steal / win the 2024 election, it’s easy to imagine him ranting about secession, even if it’s obliquely. That, unto itself, could be enough for Red states to begin the process of secession, probably starting with Texas. Though, of course, Texas might defer to South Carolina out of a sense of history. (Anything is possible.)

Meanwhile, if Trump wins in 2024 — which he could very well do, given that pretty much 40,000 swing voters in five states decide everything — his incoming agenda could be so God awful radical that Blue states are faced with the choice of bending a knee to autocracy or leaving the Union. If that choice did occur, my bet is that Blues will ultimately bend a knee because it’s too easy for all the smug Twitter liberals who would otherwise be the leadership of Blue America to simply decamp to the four corners of the world.

There is the chance that a Not Trump Republican wins the nomination and the 2024 election and such an outcome would grease the wheels of our transition into autocracy such that, lulz, we wake up in 20 years to the US invading Canada free it of the “woke cancel culture mob.”

I wish I was kidding.

Anyway, the key thing for me of late is liberas on Twitter continue to think fascist MAGA Nazis care one lick about hypocrisy. For instance, Clarence Thomas could have eaten someone as a kid, Yellowjackets style, and there would not be a peep from the Right about him needing to resign. MAGA Nazis are so craven, so power hungry, that they’re willing to accept any crime, any hypocrisy….ANYTHING…from someone on their side if it furthers their MAGA Nazi agenda.

So, lulz. That’s all I got, folks. Get ready.

‘Maude:’ Pop Culture in The Post-Dobbs Era

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Gradually, since there was an abortion storyline on the primetime TV show “Maude,” the issue of abortion became extremely taboo in pop culture. Even when, all things considered, it made a lot of sense for a story to broach the subject, TV and movies did everything in their power to dodge the issue.

So, when the Amazon Prime TV show Daisy Jones & The Six prominently featured abortion, I started to wonder if things have changed because of the Dobbs ruling. Is it possible that now that abortion is again a political football that it’s ok to address the issue?

If this is true, it would be very paradoxical. You would think that while abortion was legal that it would be ok to talk about it frankly in pop culture. Nope. In the years since Maude — and Roe V. Wade — it became nearly absolutely impossible for fiction — especially TV and movies — to even so much as get anywhere near the topic.

And, yet, here we are in an new era where abortion rights are receding and you have a mainstream work of pop culture like Daisy Jones & The Six talk about in a very direct manner.

Maybe I’m overthinking things. It could be that lulz, nothing matters and nothing has changed. But I do think the long-term effects of the Dobbs decision on pop culture aren’t known yet.

Well, They Have A Point

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’m a big fan of the New York Times Pitchbot Twitter account, so when I saw the following, I felt a bit sheepish.

He made a point of referencing his tweet above, then pointing out this real hot take, below.

I feel rather sheepish because, lulz, I’ve made a similar point on the blog of late. I usually mention this when I get annoyed not so much at the Trans movement, but the meta element of it all — they are so touchy about people conforming to their media narrative orthodoxy that they really do drive a lot of well meaning Traditionalists into the arms of fucking MAGA fascists.

I find the complaint of the otherwise stellar New York Times Pitchbot a bit murky. The issue of overzealous liberal-progressives is a real problem (at least with the Traditionalists in my life) so I don’t quite know how to address his complaint.

Anyway. What do I know.

‘None Dare Call It Treason,’ MTG Edition

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’ve given up trying to grok what the hell is going on within far Right circles where they are so partisan that they actively embrason treason if it fits their narrative. I suppose it all has something to do with how Trump is, at least in “vibe” terms a traitor so they feel they have to defend him via proxy whenever they can.

All of this is even more bonkers in the context of the legacy of Ronald Reagan. The fact that MAGA fascists would be “hard” on “wokeness” and amazingly soft of on treason and espionage is simply flabbergasting. Not only is it all very difficult to process, but if our partisan divide has gotten that bad, then it’s just a short jaunt to a National Divorce.

Now, remember, some — maybe most — of MTG’s bullshit is performative. She’s so craven that she’ll say whatever necessary to “own the libs” and stoke the base. I do think that she has the means, motive and opportunity to be America’s true autocrat by way of being ding-dong Trump’s second term Veep. She’s an idiot, but she’s definitely not so dumb that she couldn’t become what is marketed as America’s “Iron Lady” when the time comes.

There are about a dozen would-be autocrat waiting in the wings to do the final consolidation of power once Trump is out of the way. I still wonder if the tradition to autocracy will be peaceful or not. It really could go either way. The point is –we’re entering a very unstable moment in America’s political history. MAGA Republicans, on a systemic basis are chomping at the bit to establish permanent white Christian rule and the only question is if Blues bend a knee when they strike or if they bounce out of the Union in protest.

But, let me be clear — I can’t predict the future. I have no idea what is going to happen.

‘Another Drop of Blood’ — #lyrics to a ‘woke’ #Pop #Rock Song

Another Drop of Blood
lyrics by @sheltgarner
please give credit if you produce or perform

you tell me your gun
has only two problems
rust and the liberal
we’ll I think you’re a fool
I sure do
’cause
our children are dying

your gun is getting rusty
rusty from the fresh blood
of the innocent
rusty blood
rusty blood
can you fire off another round
rusty blood
rusty blood
or are you down for the count

another day another drop of blood
the streets run red with it
(or at least it seems)
but tell me again, Mr.
how can’t handle a little control
is your weapon slippery with all that blood?

your gun is getting rusty
rusty from the fresh blood
of the innocent
rusty blood
rusty blood
can you fire off another round
rusty blood
rusty blood
or are you down for the count

(bridge)
all we want is a little peace
a little peace and quiet
a little peace and quiet
a little peace and quiet
but as long as we cling to our guns
we’ll get neither I’m afraid

your gun is getting rusty
rusty from the fresh blood
of the innocent
rusty blood
rusty blood
can you fire off another round
rusty blood
rusty blood
or are you down for the count