Category: The Resistance

The Need For Pop Art To Address The 2016 Election & Its Consequences

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

I am writing a scifi novel and as I do, it’s gradually becoming not only something a personal critique of the Trump Era, but also allegory of the 2016 presidential campaign. I have set the events of the story during a presidential campaign for no other reason than it seems what happened in 2016 is ripe for pop art to address in some manner.

Pop is how we process recent history. For me, at least, I find myself looking around as I work on this novel and seeing that what happened in 2016 is something so fucked up and dramatic that it’s perfect for the work of mass, pop art I hope to produce. I want to write a rip-roaring yarn that not only has action and adventure but is thought-provoking along the way. As I mature as a fiction writer — which, to be honest, is a much bigger process than I ever imagined going into this — I begin to understand why it’s so difficult to address something as culturally potent as the 2016 election directly.

Pop art has to deal in allegory because on a basic level because talking about something like the 2016 election directly is kind of like staring at the sun on a creative level. It takes time for passions to subside enough that you can entertain people talking about something as divisive as 2016’s presidential politics.

But as I get closer understanding what this novel is about, I realize I really want to use the conditions of the 2016 presidential campaign as a framing device of sorts. It’s the major subplot of the story is what I’m trying to say. I thought about making the entire novel an allegory, but I realized that’s not what this novel is about.

This novel is about what would happen if you forced a group of people to make some basic decisions when the stakes could not be higher. What would happen? The presidential election taking place is something influences the main plot, but it’s not the main point of the story. I have to say, however, that I find myself being really influenced by such a hodgepodge of other works of fiction as Stranger In A Strange Land, The Girl Who Played With Fire as well as the most recent Mission: Impossible.

Regardless, the novel I’m writing is really, really ambitious. I’m giving myself 200,000 words to work with because my favorite recent first novel, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo is about that size. I really like the middle book in that series, The Girl Who Played With Fire. I wish I could come up with a character as special and unique as Lizbeth Salander, but she’s a one-in-a-generation creation. One thing I’m really interested in with this novel is representation. So, in that sense, this novel is kind of my personal globalist cuck equivalent of Alas Shrugged.

What I mean by that is just as Alas Shrugged really is an explanation of Objectivism, my novel aims to explain the moderate liberal worldview in a pop art manner that is easily to digest to the average mass market reader. I am no where near done with this novel — I’m just a month in to seriously developing at this point — but the process is a lot of fun and I can’t help by talk about whatever is going on in my life and right now what’s going on in my life is I’m writing a novel.

Anyway, no one is paying any attention to me. I’ll be pleased if I can get one person I don’t know personally to read this book I’m writing and demand to know what happens next. If I happen to explain my personal worldview — and give people a thought-provoking beach read along the way — all the better.

Shelton Bumgarner is a writer and photographer living in Richmond, Va. He may be reached at migukin (at) gmail (dot) com.

‘Executive Time’ — #Lyrics To A Rock Song

Just screwing around, trying to tell a story in verse.

Executive Time
lyrics by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls
please give credit if you produce or perform

whenever I want to chirp in dismay
I sit in an oval
tell my aids to go away
sometimes you just need
executive time

executive time
it’s my peace of mind
it’s no lie
it’s no lie
it’s no lie

we’re all in this together
unless you’re a shade too dark
then you’re off the mark
I’m the guy who makes the rules
I make my rules during
executive time

executive time
it’s my peace of mind
it’s no lie
it’s no lie
it’s no lie

[bridge]
maybe I’ll be king for life
wouldn’t that be a delight
don’t mean to give you a fright
but it just mind happen, alright

executive time
it’s my peace of mind
it’s no lie
it’s no lie
it’s no lie

V-Log: Why I Think #Trump Will Serve A Full 8 Years As President

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

Idle rambling about Trump’s political fate.

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.

Trump & The ‘Petite Singularity’

by Shelton Bumgarner
@sheltbumgarner

I have struggled for some time to articulate the significance of technology in aiding and abetting the the rise of Trump. I thought maybe one might called it a “Creeping Singularity,” but Singularities, by definition, are not something that happen over time. But having said that, it definitely seems we’re feeling the influence of a “Petite Singularity,” if nothing else.

A series of long term technological trends are crashing into each other. Things like VR, AR, crypto, AI and automation are all going to come to a head probably within the next, say, 5 years. Of course, it’s something much more prosaic than that which has given rise to Trump — social media. But social media is definitely a precursor to the Petite Singularity. It’s a forerunner to a world that is likely to be transformed dramatically in ways we can barely begin to comprehend.

When all those low training, high wage jobs transportation jobs like semi truck driver vanish in the coming age of automation, that is likely to cause any number of significant political shifts that we can only barely begin to comprehend. One of the central issues of the day is while Trump is making a mockery of our political traditions, he’s pulling a huge fast one on us. He’s pretty much fucking ruining everything we hold dear while we’re running around struggling to understand how such an asshat as he is could be our “leader.”

And, honestly, there simply isn’t anything we can do. Trump is an avatar for some titanic, tectonic shifts in the American political system and he — or someone like him — was obviously inevitable. Really, his only saving grace at this point is he’s really old, really bad at his job and completely devoid of an ideology. As such, I am more worried about what happens when someone who doesn’t have those problems is president than I am Trump, no matter how completely horrible everything about him is.

But back to the Petite Singularity. It’s likely being the asshole demagogue that he is, Trump will exploit the social displacement of the Petite Singularity rather than see any political harm from it. I’m not feeling very optimistic at this point. Makes me want to leave the States as quickly as possible and never fucking come back.

Idle Rambling About Kavanaugh & Usenet

by Shelton Bumgarner
@sheltbumgarner

Now, I did a quick search of Google’s Usenet archive and I didn’t find anything to indicate Brett Kavanaugh used Usenet while in college. So, that’s pretty conclusive evidence that my barely-a-hunch that he might have used it while he was in college didn’t pan out.

I guess what made what made that whole thing a least a little bit interesting was the fact that if you could find Kavanaugh Usenet posts from his college days, it would be a unique snapshot of his mentality during the period of time everyone is concerned about. Usenet was pretty free wheeling at that moment in its history and the conditions, at least, are there for us to get some sense of his drinking and other behavior.

But, like I said, doesn’t look that my hunch paid off. The only way I could possibly see it panning out would be if you were with a major news organization and you could talk to Google directly about its archive and see if maybe they could find any archive evidence from Yale specific newsgroups. That might be something that might have a greater likelihood of panning out. But barring something pretty dramatic, this definitely seems like a dead end.

There’s just no there there.

But it definitely was an interesting idea for a moment or two. If you could have found Kavanaugh Usenet posts, that could have really changed the game. It would have been pretty dramatic.

The Fate Of The Republic Hinges On Apoplectic Women

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

This is just my personal back-of-the-envelope observation about the coming 2018 mid-terms, but it seem as though things have grown significantly more dicey for The Resistance since the Brett Kavanaugh hearing on Thursday. The MAGA base is stoked now in a way they weren’t previously and they could come to the polls in significantly higher numbers than were expected. There might not be a Blue Wave — or at least not enough of one to flip the House — and America continues it’s lurch towards autocracy.

Honestly, my only hope at this point is women are angry. Really angry. That’s it. If it wasn’t for that, I would give up hope entirely and simply try not to watch any news between now and November 6th. Women are in a historic rage about Republicans not believing Dr. Ford and so there’s at least a minor possibility that their excitement to make a statement at the polls might be enough to at least match the MAGA people who think Kavanaugh is getting a raw deal.

And, remember, this all boils down to Republicans wanting a 30 year 5-4 lock on the Supreme Court. It’s a win-win for Republicans. It doesn’t really matter what happens at this point. If Kavanaugh is confirmed, they get a 5-4 lock on SCOTUS. If he isn’t they probably keep both houses of Congress and continue to ram through tax breaks for the 1%.

Really, the only way I could see anything of note happening at this point is if Kavanaugh is not confirmed and somehow The Resistance gets the Senate. THEN I will have some hope. But that is extremely, extremely unlikely to happen. In fact, I would be flabbergasted if it happened or even came close to happening.

We’re in the darkest timeline and there’s nothing, in real terms, we can do about it.

We Need Immediate Massive Protests If We’re Going To Delay The Kavanaugh Vote

by Shelton Bumgarner
@sheltbumgarner

I have all but resigned myself to Brett Kavanaugh being approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee. In that, there’s not much w can do. Really, at this point, the only possibility of even delaying his vote and ultimate confirmation by the Senate is massive, spontaneous protests across the country this weekend.

And even that is kind of tricky. The Senate could very well vote on Saturday and that would make even protests problematic. Whatever was done would have to be done immediately and massively. How you would actually pull something like that off, I can only begin to imagine. I think Move On is planning on some sort of protest today, Friday, Sept. 28th, but I doubt it will be enough.

The fix is in and Senate Republicans simply don’t care. They’ve done a cost benefit analysis and they’re willing to take any short term pain as long as they get the long-term reward of a 5-4 majority on the Supreme Court for the next 30 years. That’s their political calculus and, really, it’s difficult to refute. The American Constitutional system is so broken at this point that we’re careening towards a scenario where the entire system freezes up and there is a real risk of very unfortunate violence.

How that would play out, exactly, I don’t dare begin to attempt to fathom.

But honestly, this has been building for several years now and the systemic, structural reasons why this was inevitable in some respects are too tragic to recount. Regardless, immediately, at least, while the Republicans are going to get what they want for their long term, strategic goals, things may get a little bumpy a little bit longer down the road.

There’s a decent chance that there might be a little bit of an uptick in support for The Resistance at part of the 2018 mid-terms because of all of this, and yet maybe not. It all boils down to women. If women are collectively repulsed at how all of this was handled, there might be some consequences for Republicans. And, yet, if there was any sort of Blue Wave, Trump will claim the election was hacked by the Chinese and actively work to discredit the results for the rest of his time in office. This is a perfect way for him to dispute his impeachment and even conviction should that occur.

So that’s where things stand. We’re heading towards a little bit of a bumpy ride in the next few days, but Republicans are so craven — and Democrats so reluctant to play by the “new rules” that Republicans have established — that barring something pretty astonishing (like massive nation-wide protests) I just don’t see Dr. Ford getting something as basic as an FBI investigation. This is yet another step towards the United States being a quasi-autocratic state.

The main problem is there are long term societal trends playing out right now and so while we can quibble about the details and timing of how all of this plays out, long term (or at least for the next 20 years until the youngest of the Baby Boomers finally begin to die off) the Republicans will continue to have the upper hand. They are well on their way to completely transforming the Judiciary and by the time the process is over, it will take decades for the pendulum to begin to swing by the other direction.

I say this with the following caveat — Trump is really bad at being president. So bad, in fact, that while he will probably be pretty successful discrediting any Blue Wave among his base, at least in the short term of the next two years, a Blue Wave would unleash a Pandora’s Box with no obvious end game. But it’s something that would have to be done if there is any hope of saving the Republic. We have to have a check, any check on Trump’s creeping tyranny. I’m prepared to let slip the dogs of chaos in the guise of a Democratic Congress if that’s the only way to reign in Trump’s — and the Republicans’ — bloodthirsty quest for power.

What I’m trying to say, I guess, is there are historic trends that aren’t going away. The Republicans are, in general, going to only grow more powerful over the course of the next 20 odd years before demographics slowly begin to chip away at their blood supply of old codgers. But they believe that if they make it as difficult as possible to vote while transforming the Judiciary into their partisan fiefdom that they potentially moot even that.

Really, though, if we could somehow organize protests, like, now, we might have a chance at something pretty historic. But I just don’t see that happening. I wish it would happen, but it won’t.

Shelton Bumgarner is a writer and photographer living in Richmond, Va. He may be reached at migukin (at) gmail (dot) com.

V-Log: A 2018 Mid-Term Issues Deep Dive For Sept. 19th, 2018

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

I really want to start a podcast about the 2018 mid-terms, but for the time being, I’m going to just do a scope or Facebook Live about where things stand each day leading up to election day. I don’t know what I’m going to call this, but I was thinking maybe Daily Mid-Term Deep Dive or something like that. I don’t know when I’m going to do these little videos, but probably later in the day to account for breaking news.

I keep vowing to myself that I’m going to tune out from politics until after Nov. 6th, but I fear that’s just not going to happen. So I might as well wallow in politics and angst if I’m not going to be able to get myself off the grid.

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.