Category: The Gray Plague

The Audacity Of The Coming American Autocracy


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

There is a lot going on in American politics that seems comical if you’re a Twitter liberal so wrapped up in closing on a Brooklyn walk-up that you don’t have time to take process what’s going on.

But it’s not comical if you realize this: the prospect of autocracy is popular within the MAGA New Right.

Once you establish that for a sizable portion of the electorate the center-Left’s nightmare is their dream then, well, a lot things that seem absurd and comical make a lot of sense.

The MAGA New Right Republicans have political bloodlust at this point. They want to destroy the America we assume we’ll always have and replace it with one of “blood and soil” where people like me get pushed out a window if we refuse to shut up about what a fucking cocksucker President Pompeo is. (This is just a running gag! No griping about me being obsessed with this prospect!)

As such, this is another metric to have rolling around in your head as we continue to march towards January 2025. The next presidential election cycle is shaping up to be the most significant since 1860. It would have been 2020 but for Trump being a lazy idiot and COVID19. Because of those two factors, we managed to punt the civil war or autocracy choice for America down the road four years.

That is, of course, unless Cyber Ninjas manage to start a civil war when they “prove” Trump “won” Arizona.

I guess it’s still possible that we’ll punt this particular problem down the road AGAIN. We did it in 2020, so it’s possible something I just can’t predict will so jiggle the general trends we face that my dystopian hellscape won’t happen. But it would have to be something big, big. Like China invading Taiwan or a regional war in Northeast Asia when the DPRK freaks out for some reason.

Otherwise, buckle up.

Why Is Dr. Fauci Such A Lightening Rod For The MAGA New Right?


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Any discussion of how the MAGA New Right has a craven hatred of the otherwise prosaic Dr. Fauci has to address a central issue: deep down inside, Trump craves the validation of liberal elites. It’s what drives him. It eats him away inside so much that he ran for president to force them to take him seriously.

Add to this that Dr. Fauci wouldn’t kotow to Mad King Trump and it was extremely difficult for Trump to fire Dr. Fauci and you have the makings of a battle royal.

Also, even more important to understanding all of this is every moment we’re fighting over Dr. Fauci is a moment we’re not talking about how Trump, personally, caused 600,000 excess COVID19 deaths through his rank incompetence.

As such, it’s a win-win for the MAGA New Right to turn Dr. Fauci into a boogie man. They don’t have much of a winning hand when it comes to COVID19, so they hate on him to such an extent that just the invocation of his name is so loaded as to cause a fight between a progressive and a MAGA New Right person.

If January 6th taught us anything, it’s that it’s all fun and games until someone gets hurt. So, given how much I love dystopian scenarios, this particular tragedy writes itself.

Should, God forbid, anything happen to the poor man, Republicans will be quiet for about 24 hours with vague statements about “thoughts and prayers.” Then, once they have their talking points figured out, they’ll say this is an issue of mental health and OBVIOUSLY they can’t be held responsible for the tragedy.

Fucking cowards.

We Need To Talk About Dr. Fauci, COVID19 & The Wuhan Lab


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

If you want some indication of how unstable the United States is right now just under the surface, look no further that how hysterical the Right is now about Dr. Fauci. He’s because such a lightening rod, such subject of vitriol that is its growing rather startling.

The issue for me is, we need to not poo-poo as much the idea that the biological lab in Wuhan had something to do with the first COVID19 outbreak there. The Right literally wants to murder Dr. Facui in cold blood right now as it is. They are hell bent to figure out some way whereby Dr. Facui is responsible for, or has financially benefited from, COVID19.

As such, if evidence comes to light that does connect the Wuhan lab to COVID19, there could be severe political violence in the United States in more ways than one. The reason why that link is so important to the Right is then they have a ready talking point for any and all criticism of how Trump handled the outbreak. They will be able to piviot to blaming the Chinese, or Dr. Fauci for this or that connection he may have had to the facility.

Any proven link between COVID19 and the Wuhan lab would cause such a political firestorm in the United States that it’s kind of frightening. It is now Rightwing orthodoxy that the lab was connected to COVID19 and that Dr. Fauci is some sort of nefarious, diabolical mastermind who, I don’t know, thought an outbreak was some sort of cure-all to Trump? (The exact reasoning for why he would — contrary to all available evidence — want an outbreak is one of the many dubious logical conclusions the far Right has developed.)

But we have to take this bullshit seriously. There are any number of surreal and dangerous things that might occur if any link was proven. So, as such, we need to take the possibility of such a link seriously and begin to figure out ways to mitigate the rage such a link would cause in certain parts of the American electorate

My Hot Take On The Governor Cuomo Nursing Home Deaths Debacle


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I totally think that New York Governor Andrew Cuomo deserves all the hot water he is currently in. If that means he gets impeached for his current nursing home debacle, so be it. But I’ve been forced to consume Fox News hysterical coverage of this clusterfuck and here is my hot take.

  1. I Thought All This Was a “Media Hoax.”
    We’ve come a long way from Fox News being the amen choir to Trump’s bonkers ranting about how COVID-19 was just a “MEDIA hoax” meant to hurt him politically. Now, Fox News is pretty much lost it’s fucking mind going after Cuomo. Talk about media hoax!
  2. What Cuomo Did Was Wrong. But So Was What Trump Did
    We’re now at 500,00 deaths from COVID-19 because Trump was a lazy, incompetent doofus who didn’t care about the rising death toll. He did such a bad just that that, in itself, should be enough to drive him from public life, never to be seen again.

    So, fuck you, Fox News.

‘Night Monster’ — A COVID-19 Themed Song Concept


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

As I grow more serious with this novel, I find it more and more a waste of time to write lyrics and post them on the Internet. Now that I have some sense that I can write a novel on a (potentially) professional level, if I’m going to write pop song lyrics I’m going to be just as serious with them too.

But anyway, someone needs to write a COVID-19 themed song called “Night Monster.” When (I think) I had COVID-19 a few days ago, it came out at night to make me miserable.

Here’s how I would produce it’s sound.

Start off of with song.

Then throw in this song:

Then, lastly, a little bit of this one.

No one listens to me. I need to learn how to play guitar so I start writing song lyrics seriously once I get through this novel project in its totality.

Seems like Billie Eilish would be the perfect vocalist.

Cancel Thanksgiving


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

All things being equal, we need to cancel 2020’s Thanksgiving. I’m not an expert on viral transmission, so please ignore me with extreme prejudice, but it makes sense that Thanksgiving would be national superspreader event waiting to happen.

We’re already projected, as I understand, to reach 2,000-3,000 daily deaths by mid-December, so having a bunch of people — many of them elderly — cooped up in a home together without masks for a long weekend doesn’t seem like all that great an idea.

But, of course, since we have a deranged moron as our president at least until January 20th, there’s a good chance we will have zero national leadership on this subject. Any “canceling” of Thanksgiving will happen in fits and starts and according to where you sit on the political spectrum.

So, we really are going to have a “dark winter.” By January 20th, 2021, we may have a daily COVID19 death toll reaching something close to 10,000. It definitely seems as though at a minimum we,we are going to reach the 600,000 dead of the 1918 – 1920 Spanish flu very, very soon.

Comparative Political History: Claudia Conway & Martha Mitchell


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

You know you live in surreal times when have to start wondering if a 15-year-old should be up for the Pulitzer Prize. But, here we are.

But let’s look into the person who Miss Conway is most analogous to: Watergate’s Martha Mitchell. She was called “the Mouth of the South” and loved to gossip. In 1972, she overheard her husband — Attorney General Bob Mitchell — talking about the Watergate coverup.

We’re sorry, Martha.

Her husband found out and for her troubles she was tranquilized and held captive. (If I remember the story correctly.) Because she was so outrageous and kooky, when she started rambling about the Watergate coverup, no one believed her — they thought she was a nut.

The weird thing about Miss Conway is, to date, she’s been able to speak freely on Tik-Tok (of all things.) So, the question is — can we trust her? I think so. What we can’t understand is the internal dynamic of the Conway family and how it is she can blab about such important things without fear of retribution. So, that, in itself, makes you scratch your head and wonder if any of this can possibly be true.

Anyway.

Things are weird right now.

The Darkest Scenario


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

As of right now, it seems as though Trump is going to be fine. There may be a lot of rumors about him being near-death, but just like Little Rocket Man, he’ll pull through and be fine. He can go about his work of destroying the Republic unfettered.

But, let’s imagine that doesn’t happen.

Two major issues immediately confront us — what to do with Republican ticket and any political violence on the part of MAGA-Qanon who think it’s all a Deep State effort to stop Trump from taking “total control.”

The Ticket
The few MAGA people I talk to say Pence is not for them. So, it seems as though there will be a very brutal power struggle to figure out who will lead the Republicans. Because he’s already on the ticket, Pence has the 9/10th rule on his side. But this things may grow very untenable for him politically very quickly. I could see Ivanka becoming the Republican nominee or some negotiated deal whereby Pence promises to name her veep should he win. All I know is — House Trump ain’t going nowhere.

Violence
I believe the United States would suffer unprecedented political violence from the moment the Dear Leader flew his unicorn into the sky. In fact, it could be that Trump’s legacy may be the thing that brings down the Republic and pushes us into civil war / revolution, not the living Trump.

But I just don’t see either one of those being an issue. Just because Claudia Conway says he’s “sicker” than we’re being told, doesn’t mean anything. I would, however, check with her immediately if rumors of The Dear Leader’s demise pop out of the darkness.

House Trump’s ‘Regency’ & The Fate Of America — & Humanity


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

First, let me state that I think Trump is going to be fine. But, let’s suppose he’s a “long hauler” and is incapacitated by COVID19 for a longer amount of time. What happens?

The World Without The United States.

I think we’d have some sort of Regency, then. Probably made up of Ivanka, Jared and Barr. I say this because apparently Ivanka and Jared run everything already and Barr would be the goon that inforced everything legally.

This is how “Trump” would do exactly what we all expect him to do anyway — steal the election post-election. Now, this raises and interesting situation — what if Biden clobbers Trump politically and the House Trump Regency STILL tries to steal the election (which they will.)

This is a recipe for the United States to implode.What I mean by this is our national polity goes –poof! — and we devolve into our major local and regional polities. Even the U.S. Military may not be able to keep things together if that happens. They won’t chose POTUS, because they won’t exist.

Major polities in the US below the national level are California, Texas, the Deep South, the Northeast and NYC. If we were to, God forbid, Balkanize, those would be the polities that would sort things out.

Three things of note — if you keep California in the Union, then that’s the bedrock of any “Renewed American Covenant.” Texas is a real question mark as to which direction they would go which can be summed up by the question, “Is Texas American or Southern?” Also, there would likely be massive domestic political refugees as the Blue and the Red consolidated their political positions internally.

But, remember, the entire 70 year old liberal global order would go tits up the moment the US imploded, so the very existence of humanity might be in question as China-India-Pakistan-Israel-Iran-DPRK began to attempt to get a lot of their geopolitical dreams for no other reason than they know they can now.

Do I really think that’s going to happen — no.

But is something to at least take seriously enough to think about.

The Scenario That Dare Not Speak Its Name


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I love scenarios. I also hate the idea of anything physical happening to POTUS, no matter who it is — even someone I keep calling an American Hitler like Donald fucking Trump.

The Scenario That Dare Not Speak Its Name.

Anyway, let’s run this one.

If Trump shuffles off this mortal coil, Pence becomes POTUS. But what happens to the Republican ticket? There are a number people Pence might pick. I think he goes with Ivanka Trump to “keep it in the family.” She’s moderate, she’s Jewish, she’s a woman and she a Trump. She seems the perfect veep to help Pence shore up those sweet, sweet excerb votes.

Other options are the obvious Nikki Haley and, gulp, Tom “Brown Shirt” Cotton. A long shot is maybe Eric Trump because he’s a Trump and doesn’t have the apparent and alleged drug problem that Don Jr. has.

Or, put it another way, don’t count House Trump out just yet.

Meanwhile, I would assume that the race will get far closer. Like 1976 or 2000 close. But at the same time, Pence has a traditional American pols adherence to democratic norms. So, things get a bit more tricky for MAGA-Qanon to go nuts on us.

But the key thing we have to remember is MAGA-Qanon is going to think that anything that happens to Trump is some sort of Deep State attack on the Dear Leader. They’re almost sure to blow something up or start running around murdering liberals because of this.

The point is — I want to defeat Trump politically. I want him to live long in prison with no access to the Internet and Putin and Ivanka his only visitors. Fuck that guy.