Category: Hindsight 2020

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.

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.

A Speculative Hot Take: What if Cynthia Nixon Wins? #NYPrimary

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

I honestly don’t think Cynthia Nixon is going to win, but the conditions are there for at least something interesting to happen. I’m seeing chatter on Twitter of reports of high voter turn out and the country’s mood is such that I could see The Resistance at least getting within shouting distance of a massive upset.

I don’t think we would fully comprehend the significance of a Nixon win. The moment is was confirmed, we would realize we were in a new era. Nixon would be catapulted into the ring of a prospective 2020 Democratic nominee for president and the anger and energy of the Resistance would be hard to deny.

But, like I said, I am not prepared to say she’s going to win. I just think things are going to be…interesting. This is going to be an example of the Democratic Establishment getting the shit scared out of it by the passionate Left of the Resistance. But who knows. It will be interesting.

A Nixon win would be a thunderclap going into the 2018 mid-terms. It would be the first concrete evidence that this year is not going to be run-of-the-mill. Washington would be in total shock and the Republicans would probably be quivering in abject fear as to what might happen to them come November.

Or maybe not. Maybe I’m sensing something that’s not there.

I sure do, on a personal level, need a unexpected upset tonight.

Pondering ‘The Pence Pivot’

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

Here is me ranting about the possibility of The Pence Pivot. That’s the idea that people who previously supporter Trump will say they voted for Pence to begin with. But we’ll see. I don’t know what is going to happen one way or another. It will be interesting to see what happens.

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.

A Personal Appeal To Michael Avenatti NOT To Use The Slogan ‘Make America America Again’

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

Please Michael Avenatti, if you really want to run against Trump and win the presidency, please don’t use the dumb slogan Make America America Again. It’s dumb, it’s derivative and it’s redundant. Meanwhile, may I propose two other options in its stead.

I suggest either:

Take Back America
or
Take America Back

Both of these are much better and I would suggest you do a poll to see which one is better. Take Back America is a looking sharper rhetorically while Take America Back has the nice abbreviation of TAB. Either one of these potential slogans gets across the idea that America has been taken by forces outside its national boundaries. Both are pithier and roll of the tongue a lot better than your dumb suggestion.

But no one listens to me.

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.