Category: Hindsight 2020

Dig In For The Long Haul, Folks, This Cold Civil War Isn’t Going Anywhere

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

We really have to stop the constant outrage when it comes to Trumplandia. If you’re a member of The Resistance, you need to take a huge, deep breath and realize this is going to be a long haul. This isn’t going to be finished anytime soon. This is a epic power struggle that will be so heated that at times it will seem like it will careen into outright violence, much like the global Cold War did from time to time.

So, as I keep saying, don’t rage, engage. Use what Constitutional rights you have to make a difference on an local and individual level. The great irony of all of this is the only political solution may, in fact, be four years from now. That’s right, we may gnash our teeth, yell at the top of our lungs, and the only thing that actually fixes the problem is Donald Trump is voted out of office FOUR YEARS FROM NOW. Let that sink in. Think of all the damage he and the Vichy Republicans will be able to do.

And that doesn’t even begin to address the fact that should The Resistance be split into liberal and progressive wings or if Trump wags the dog by starting a war with North Korea or Iran, then it may be eight years before Trumplandia ends.

These are just cold hard facts. We just have to stop being constantly outraged. We need to address the more important issues of what Trumplandia wants to do to the liberal national social safety net, or whatever. Those cold hard issues are what we need to be thinking about in the forefront of our mind, not mentally masturbating about how Trump should be impeached sooner rather than later.

That just isn’t going to happen. So, get over it. Deal with the cards we’re given right now and move forward. This is a political problem with enormous consquences and not until we’re given another opportunity to vote will it matter.

So, just cool it. Save your strength. We haven’t even reached the end of the beginning yet. We’re getting there, but not yet. This is still about 1940 when it comes to a World War II analogy. We still have years and years of struggle ahead of us.

Talk To Me Internet: We Don’t Need No (Cold) Civil War

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

It’s telling how we’ve reached this period of a long, drawn out scandal with no end in sight. Someone one Twitter called it a “Cold Civil War” and I totally agree. That’s exactly what it is. This is going to go on for a long, long, long time — like four, or six or even eight years. If The Resistance is split in 2020 and the economy is doing ok, then Trump could very well win re-election.

In other words, we really need to stop being outraged over every little thing Trump does that is, well, outrageous. We need to hunker down for a really long war of politics that we may, or may not win. At the end of all of this, Trump may end a complete eight year administration and position Pence to be his replacement.

In that case, it could be that the only thing that ends this hell we’re is people simply grow so weary of all the exciting news — and Republicans in general — that they eventually vote for The Resistance for no other reason than the same one that got us into this problem in the first place: it will just be the Democrats’ time to be in office again.

Of course, given how callow the Vichy Republicans are, the Russians could hack our election again or they could wag the dog and we’re just going to be fucked. This could be a new epoch in our history. We could be in a long-term dystpian nightmare with no way out at least as long as I’m alive.

Trumplandia: Life During A ‘Cold Civil War’

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

Someone on Twitter mentioned that the United States is in the middle of a “Cold Civil War,” and I am apt to agree. I say this because I have been mulling how similar what is going on right now resembles a civil war in all but name and blood.

We have heroes, we have factions, we have shifting alliances. It’s weird how at this point there is little to distinguish the center-Right NeverTrump movement from the center-Left Resistance movement. Those two concepts now have common cause against Trump and the broader Trumplandia concept.

This works well with my personal belief that we really need to adjust to the new normal of Trumplandia. This is going to be a long, hard political fight and it may last about the same amount of time of a World War — four to six years. Let that sink in.

It is pretty obvious that the Vichy Republicans see Trump as a political gravy train and they’re not going to stop supporting him until long, long, long, long after we reach a devastatingly surreal moment in our nation’s political history. We’ve already reached that, but we’ve barely gotten to the end of the beginning of this political crisis.

It makes a lot of sense to see this as a Cold Civil War, at least in political terms. A war is easy to start and difficult to finish. And so, really, not until the base of the Democrat Party is as hysterical as the base of the Republican Party was in 2016 will anything change. We haven’t gotten there yet, I’m afraid. It’s going to take time. Probably four to six years. Let that sink in.

Remember, the only reason why Nixon was forced out of office was that there literally were tapes of him obstructing justice. Even if the pee-pee tape was real and we all saw it on FOX News, Trump would not be removed from office. And that doesn’t even begin to address the likelihood that The Resistance will be politically divided in 2020 and Trump will be re-elected.

There is just too much that could go wrong at this point when it comes to efforts to get rid of Trump through impeachment. In short, he’s not going anywhere for years. This really is a Cold Civil War and there are no assurances that the Good Guys will win.

All we can do is continue to fight the good fight.

Don’t Rage, Engage: Cool It On Trump Impeachment Talk For Right Now

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

The more I think about it, the more I realize that all the energy people like me are spending on how we’re going to impeach Donald Trump is just wasted time and energy. For the time being, it’s just not going to happen.

There just isn’t anything that Trump could do at this point that would lead to his immediate impeachment. Nothing. Nothing at all. Whatever you can come up with, that would not do it. The Vichy Republicans are so callow, so Vichy that even if Trump really did strangle someone on 5th Avenue, nothing would come of it. There is some doubt as to if you can actually try a sitting president for criminal offenses at all.

The issue is, impeachment is a political process. And, really, that’s the only way to address any sort of malfeasance on the part of the president. So, there’s just nothing we can do right now. We are going to just suffer Trumplandia. We’re just going to have to deal with whatever horrible thing Trumplandia manages to produce between now and fall 2018.

I guess what I’m trying to say is, if you consider yourself a member of The Resistance, stay energized and vigilant, but for the time being spend the energy you would exert on outrage and planning your impeachment parties on staying engaged not only politically but in your efforts to cross the political divide.

Now, roughly a year from now, things will be different. The issue will be The Resistance will have to be just as pumped when it comes to voting as Trumplandia is. Trumplandia won in 2016, in part because they were just so hysterical about eight years of Obama that they were willing to eat at any of the bullshit that a demagogue like Trump managed to feed them.

I guess one way to look at this is — the base may have to make its own leaders. It may come down to the base deciding if we ever get rid of Trump at all. It’s possible that there will be no “Blue Wave” in 2018 and Trump will not only survive but prosper. That’s a real possibility. Let that sink in.

Regardless, we have about a year before things will look up. Given that the current news cycle is about 5 minutes, that’s a long, long, long, long time to have to bide our time. And that doesn’t even begin to address Trump trying to wag the dog or new Russian interference.

It could be that we might have Trumplandia for eight or 12 years. Remember, Reagan / Bush lasted for 12 years and the Democratic Party made a lot of mistakes a long the way. It all came down to fate, luck and the historical quirk of Bill Clinton.

Something similar may happen again. It’s kind of scary at this point, but better to realize the gravity of the situation instead of burning ourselves out.

The Fire Next Time: How To Prevent The Russians From Hacking The Next Election

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

I have already proposed some fanciful Constitutional fixes when it comes to how to prevent a foreign power, namely the Russians, from hacking into our election system. But is there any more practical manner to do that? One issue is that our system is so open that it’s difficult to come up with any fix that wouldn’t cause more harm than good.

In other words, just like building a wall is applying a sledge hammer to a social issue unnecessarily, so, too, the most obvious way to fix the issue of the Russians hacking into our election system: significant increase in regulation of the Internet would too easily be abused or other purposes. And that doesn’t even begin to address the issue of how it probably wouldn’t stand up to Constitutional scrutiny.

So, it seems like we’re fucked.

In desperation, if there was real political willpower to fix this problem, we might get the government to work in tandem with Twitter to lightly regulate bots and trolls from, say, six months out from election day. Something whereby we at least made it more difficult for Russian bots to fuck with people’s minds. But given that the Republicans are so completely Vichy when it comes to Donald Trump and the Russians, there simply is no willpower to do anything at all.

I honestly can’t think of any scenario where the issue of how to prevent Russians from hacking into our election cycle will be fixed anytime soon for any reason. It’s only going to get worse. It seems as though for the foreseeable future something we take for granted — free and fair elections — are, in fact, in danger and for once the problem isn’t even self-inflicted.

It’s all deep. It’s all very deep.

A Hot Take On James Comey’s Testimony

by Shelton Bumgarer
@bumgarls

While in some ways today lived up to the hype, in other, more fundamental ways I found it rather underwhelming. I found it underwhelming because the thing I had hoped for — some sort of iconic statement that would prove the final death knell of the Trumplandia experience simply did not happen.

And, alas, it seems as though it just isn’t going to happen.

What is really beginning to sink in — yet again — is how difficult it is to get rid of an American president once he’s in office. So, as long as there are no tapes — be they of a pee nature or otherwise — I have a growing fear that Trumplandia will be a fixture of the American political landscape for at least two years, if not much, much longer.

It seems to me that we’re in for a chronic case of Constitutional Crisis that will flair up every once in a while for the forseeable future. We’ve entered the age of tribal politics and the Republicans are so Vichy, so callow, so complicit in the rise of Trumplandia that they simply won’t do anything to ameliorate the situation until they are absolutely forced. It will nearly take the hand of God himself for Vichy Republicans to look past the base and put country over party.

It’s a sad fact, but given how it seems as though the GOP is hellbent on dragging James Comey’s reputation through the mud that that is exactly what is going to happen. There just aren’t any easy answers to how to fix the problems associated with Trumplandia. We’re stuck with it.

So, while the Comey hearing was dramatic and riveting, it did not really give me the political release that I was looking for. I didn’t get that perfect moment that could be used to end the cancer that is the Trump Administration.

If anything, it reminded me that we’re barely at the end of the beginning when it comes to this scandal. And, remember, to date, most of the damage inflicted on the Trump Administration has been self-inflicted. So, even though a fish rots from its head, it is almost inevitable that Trump will eventually untangle this clusterfuck of a presidency enough to survive, if not prosper.

Really, all we need is a war with the DPRK or Iran and suddenly everything will have worked itself out and the Tsar-a-Largo problem will be put on the backburner to such an extent that we won’t even remember it. And, remember, if a hayseed rube like me out in the sticks and see that possible out, then definitely Steve Bannon sitting in the White House can see it.

Thus anyone who is getting all excited about the prospect of getting Trump anytime soon should chill out. It’s just not going to happen for at least two years. That is the bare minimum. He could be around a lot longer than that. Much longer.

Therefore, all I can say is if you really want to end the Trumplandia Era, you need to engage, not rage against people who disagree with you politically. That’s it. That’s the only way it’s going to happen. It will be tough and you’ll be called a cuck and much worse by members of Trumplandia, but in the end it will be worth it. I swear.

Vichy Republicans & The Fall Of The American Republic

By Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

Someone said on Twitter that it felt like Trumplandia was “cratering” tonight. I would strongly say the opposite. Because of the callow, craven nature of the Vichy Republicans that have essentially given absolute control to Donald J. Trump, things are only going to get worse for the foreseeable future.

Only if something really, really telling happen, like a Jeremy Corbyn win in Great Britain would I sit back, rub my beard and mull the possibility that maybe that things have gone to far. Something like that would give me some hope that maybe the pendulum is swinging back toward some form of sanity. I say that as someone who fears if Corbyn won you’d have to que the Benny Hill music when it comes to British politics. It’d be kind of nuts, if fun, if it happened.

Sorry for the noise in the background on this one.

Regardless, domestically, at least we can only take solace in the fact that it appears as though Trump has lost Twitter. Or, maybe, the Russian hackers that manipulated Twitter aren’t getting paid anymore so they’ve moved on. It used to be that you couldn’t have an actual serious conversation about Trump without whack jobs popping out of the woodwork all but demanding you bow down before Trump as Lord Zood. But that has changed in a weird way. It’s the silence that’s really weird. Trump hasn’t lost Periscope yet, so I guess he has that to be thankful for. Periscope users are still completely nuts.

I continue to be really unhappy with where things are going with Trumplandia. The Vichy Republicans are to blame for this and nothing is going to change as long as they’re in power. So, we’re stuck with Trump for a solid 18 months, at least, and that doesn’t even begin to factor in the errant power grab on his part caused by a major crisis that may happen with, or without, his approval and goading.

The Vichy Republicans are allowing Trump to sow division both at home and abroad. They are completely complicit n all of this and I pretty much think we’re on track for the fall of the American Republic. By that, I mean, like the frog in the slowly boiling pot, we may very well wake up one day soon and some pretty basic right will be gone. I don’t know how exactly it will all happen, but it will happen.

Why am I so sure? Well, the silence on the part of the Vichy Republicans is so loud and the cancer on the American body politic that is Trumplandia seems to be metastasizing so quickly that what other inevitability could there possibly be? Not to sound too much like a Debby Downer, but I really need some hope. I need something to latch on to — like a Corbyn win — to give me some indication that there will be a happy end to this dark period.

I place all our problems at the feet of the Vichy Republicans. If they would put country over party, then the system of Constitutional checks and balances put in place by the Founding Fathers would actually, like, work and stuff. But as it stands, we have a tyrannical, would-be autocratic madman at the center of the nation’s political universe. What’s worse, he keeps alienating everyone but is base through erratic tweets, pulling out of important international agreements, and generally being a monumental dick.

But because the Vichy Republicans are addicted to power above all else, and the Republican base that elected Trump and continues to support him has absolute sway over them politically, there is nothing that might induce them to have anything resembling a backbone. It’s just not going to happen until they’re kicked out of office. I’d like to think that a Blue Wave of The Resistance might do the trick, but may be deluding myself. Given that people are dropping out of Congressional races due to death threats, that pot may be a lot closer to boiling than
I would like to admit.

Really, it seems as though if power is the only thing that the Vichy Republicans care about, then the only time they may get a backbone is about a year from now should it appear as though they are going to lose “bigly” in the 2018 mid-terms. If that doesn’t seem to be the case, they won’t say a peep. But if things take a dramatic turn for the worse between now and, say, July 2018, there might, just might, be an unprecedented series of events where by the Vichy Republicans finally grow a pair and demand some accountability from the Trump Administration.

Even more interesting, as I have mentioned before elsewhere, if the Vichy Republicans lose Congress in November 2018, there might be a battle during the lame duck session of Congress between Republicans and Democrats to see who gets to impeach Trump first. The reason being, the Republicans would want the right to approve now President Mike Pence’s replacement.

And that doesn’t even begin to address my true nightmare scenario for 2019 whereby Trump would simply pardon everyone involved in Tsar-a-Largo — including himself — and hold up on the White House with the nuclear codes and dare anyone to come after him. A shoot out between the Secret Service and FBI on the White House lawn would be, uh, unique from a historical standpoint.

I guess all of this comes back to the point that we shouldn’t assume history goes in a straight line. We could very well be at the end of the road for the American Republic as we have conceived of it for about 240 years now. This could be it. The end. We could be, from now on, a semi-autocratic quasi-religious imperial system with only the assurance of an open presidential seat every eight years being our last foot hold to our republican past.

It pains me to suggest such a thing, but we can’t delude ourselves into thinking the Vichy Republicans will ever grow a backbone. We could be stuck with Trumplandia for four or eight more years and then we really would need someone to make America great again.

All I can say is what I’ve been saying — stay engaged. Don’t rage, engage is the catch phrase I’ve come up with. It’s a pithy explanation for my personal vision for how we dig ourselves out of this hole. There are no easy answers when it comes to Trumplandia.

We just have to have hope that the American spirit is stronger than a despot who would aim to inflict a “managed democracy” on us from above. Don’t take anything for granted, folks. This party has just begun.

Shelton Bumgarner is the editor and publisher of The Trumplandia Report. He may be reached at migukin (at) gmail.com.

The Trump’s Position On The Paris Accord Is A National Embarrassment

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

I tried to watch some of Nikki Haley’s opinion on the Paris Accord on Face The Nation and I got too angry. Instead of being the leader of the free world, the Trump Administration more concerned about a few thousand coal jobs in West Virginia.

So, as the world grows hotter and hotter and the weather more fucked up, Trump and his evil cohort Steve Bannon try to figure out how squeeze as many votes out of coal minders in 2020. It’s all very sad. When the history of this era is written, it would be sad if historians mark the Trump Administration as when we were all fucked beyond hope.

It wouldn’t be such a big deal if there were some sane center-Right people willing stand up to Trump. But no one will. They’re all so co-opted, all so Vichy and complicit, that there’s simply no one to turn to. And it’s not going to change anytime soon.

Trump isn’t going anywhere. He could literally kill someone on FOX News in a ritual sacrifice the talking heads of FOX News would say the victim had it coming.

So, we need to start being realistic. There will be no “Blue Wave” in 2018. The entire system is so corrupt and works against change that the only hope we have is 2024 and that’s just because they’re an open seat. But, really, there’s nothing we can do. Nothing at all. We just have to engage. We have to figure out on an individual level how to keep the American spirit alive.

Today Was Surreal, Even In The Age Of Trumplandia

By Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

We have grown accustomed to surreal things happening in this Age of Trumplandia, but today was even more surreal than usual. The big news, of course, was Donald Trump’s decision to pull out of the Paris Climate Accord. In a Rose Garden address, he gave a pretty bullshit filled explanation for why he did it. It’s my impression that he, as usual, use the opportunity to explain how great and wonderful his administration has been to date. I don’t know this for a fact because I couldn’t bear to watch the address and so I got my information about it second hand from Twitter.

Generally, Twitter was aghast at Trump’s decision. One thing I’ve been reminded over and over again of late, however, is that just because Trump’s lost Twitter — at least the portion of it I follow — doesn’t mean he doesn’t still have a lot of hardcore followers — Trumplandia, if you will.

So the people of The Resistance on Twitter can circle jerk their anger at Trump all they want to, if they want to effect change, if they want to do anything about Trumplandia, they’re going to have go outside their comfort zone and wade into the surreal crazy waters where Trump is still popular. I say that to myself as much as I do anyone else. It’s tough though, really tough.

Meanwhile, in other surreal news, Devin Nunes, who allegedly had recused himself from leading the House investigation into Tsar-a-Largo, apparently issued some subpoenas not to get to the bottom of that problem, but of another problem dear to his heart — the notion that there was some evil “unmasking” that took place on the part of the Obama Administration. It really is enough to make you say, “Oh, for fuck’s sake.”

Put these two events together and you really have a surreal day. We can laugh all we want to at covfefe, but the time for laugher or rage is over. We need to start getting a lot more serious about how we act towards Trumplandia. We need to realize that there is a very real chance that Trump will eventually manage to mitigate, if not overcome his staggering malfeasance to such an extent that he is able to take the damage he’s inflicting on the nation at home and abroad to the next level.

There are alarming signs that he may be able to do just that sooner rather than later. No enormous bombshells have gone off for a few days and he continues to mull a major shake up of White House staff. As people keep saying, a fish rots from its head, so there is also the possibility that Trump can shake things all he wants and his personal inability to be a good president will get in the way.

One thing we can not assume, and that’s the Trump is going anywhere anytime soon. He’s not quitting and he’s not getting impeached. And even if he did get impeached, he’s probably not going to be convicted. We’re stuck with him. We’re stuck with him for at least a sold two years, and I only mention that because the 2018 mid-terms are the first opportunity The Resistance has to do anything about Trump.

But history does not go in a straight line. Russians could hack into the election system again. Trump could wag the dog in the DPRK or Iran. Any number of different things could happen would allow Trump to ease on past the 2018 mid-terms and sprint to 2020 and beyond. That’s why we have to stop raging and start engaging. That’s why we have to stop laughing at Trump and start taking his policies seriously.

The sooner we do these things, the sooner we can put Trumplandia behind us and get to work making America great again, the greatest it had before January 20, 2017.

Let’s Face It, Trump Probably Isn’t Going To Get Impeached

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

A cold hard fact of modern American politics is the Republicans are so complicit, so Vichy in their support for the possibly treasonous administration of Donald Trump that we’re stuck with Trump for a solid two years, if not longer.

The conditions that have brought us to this point are so complex that they probably would require a few fairly long books to fully detail. The United States is so politically polarized — and the Right so well organized when it comes to a culture of faux victimization — that even if it’s proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that Trump personally colluded with the Russians, he just ain’t getting impeached anytime soon.

And I am not one who believes there is any assurance that there will be a “Blue Wave” in 2018. It could be that there will be a lot talk but for various reasons nothing will happen. That two, four, six years from now we’ll still be talking about how if only this or that thing happened Trump will be impeached.

What’s more, remember that even if Trump was impeached by the House, it doesn’t mean he would be convicted by the Senate. That’s something that’s never happened in our nation’s history and since Trump will never resign, his conviction would be the only way to get rid of him.

We’re entering a surreal time in our nation’s political history where we’re so polarized that while about half the nation is openly talking about collusion, treason and impeachment then conviction, the other half think it’s just an evil plot by unpatriotic loser liberals who are looking for a reason to explain their unexpected Electoral College loss.

It’s all enough to leave you bewildered.

Even worse from my point of view, there’s no reason to believe Trump won’t right his personal ship of state and not only survive, but prosper. He may very well serve out his term and manage to use his weirdly adroit political skill to get Mike Pence elected as his successor.

A lot of my worry about this possible scenario comes from the division and weakness of The Resistance. The Democratic Party is split between the liberal Hillary Clinton wing and the social democratic Bernie Sanders wing and it’s easy to imagine that rift opening up to such an extent that a major center-Left independent candidate would run in 2020 and we’d really be fucked.

History rarely goes in a straight line, so there are any number of different ways things might play out. An unexpected strong candidate out of left field like Jon Stewart might throw a lot of my personal assumptions out the window.

But my main concern is that the United States isn’t a liberal democracy anymore. That we’ve entered a new epoch in our history where the only thing that prevents us from being a semi-imperial autocracy is the fact that there’s an assured open presidential seat every eight years. When the final political history of the United States is written that quirk of our Constitutional system may be seen as the thing that made it more difficult for us to realize that we had finally evolved out of our traditional republican roots.

The really scary thing about the Trump Administration is there is a real risk that it will do irrevocable harm to the country in ways that may take generations to fix. Our decades old reputation as the moral leader of the free world may be gone for good. It might require some exceptional leadership on the part of future presidents to bring that back and the system we have now is so corrupt that it’s unlikely that is going to happen anytime soon.

If it weren’t for that particular aspect, the Trump Administration wouldn’t be so scary. The thing about Trump is it’s too easy to fall into the trap of falloning him when he tweets something like covfefe to such an extent that we totally lose sight of him leaving the Paris Accords or appointing psychopathic Federal judges or whatever. The amount of damage Trump can inflict on the republic is so wide and deep that it is breathtaking.

What’s even more disheartening is there is really no recourse other than being politically engaged. As I have begun to say at every opportunity: Don’t rage, engage. Do your civic duty on an individual level to help, even in a small way, the continuance of our civil society. Don’t assume that just because someone disagrees with you that they are trolling you. Vote. Protest. Speak out when given the opportunity. Call your Representative and Senator on a regular basis.

The strength of American civil society is pretty much all we got at this point. It may take generations for the full impact of the Trump Administration to be fully understood. But don’t have any regrets. Don’t look back and realize you didn’t do your part to prevent a dystopia from being not just the thing of fanciful dreams, but a very cold, hard reality.

Shelton Bumgarner is the Editor and Publisher of The Trumplandia Report. He may be reached at migukin (at) gmail.com.