Category: Tsar-A-Largo

We Have To Begin Thinking About The Possibility That Trump Is Getting CIA Agents Killed


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I was listening to Pod Save The World recently when they said something strange — a top secret memo was leaked from the CIA saying agents all over the world were being rounded up and killed.

Both elements of this are strange. It’s strange that we would know about such a top secret memo in the first place and it’s strange that CIA agents are apparently dying at an alarming rate.

There are probably of plenty of non-Trump related possible explanations for this happening, but there is also the very real possibility that Trump has something to do with it.

Either because of his actions while in the White House or because of what he’s been up to post-presidency. But it’s one of those things that barring something unexpected, we’ll probably never know. Trump always — ALWAYS — gets away with shit and I question even if anyone would care if we learned he was selling off our on-the-ground intelligence off to the highest bidder in an effort to make a quick buck.

It definitely sounds like something Trump would do. And he’s such a greedy blabbermouth that it’s easy to imagine him agreeing to give Putin a list of all our agents in an effort to prove to Putin how powerful he was.

Trump really is a clear and present danger to American security in the long-term.

Stephanie Graham & Trumplandia’s ‘Banality of Evil’


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

One thing that never ceases to amaze me is how it’s become commonplace for ex-TrumpWorld toadies to write a book then try to get validation in the liberal media as part of a book tour.

Why is this happening?

The latest person to do this is, crazy enough Stephanie Graham who was notorious for not only never holding a press conference as White House Press Secretary, but being very, very close to First Lady Melania Trump. Those two for years were extremely tight.

But, here we are.

She’s doing a book tour and she’s saying everything people like me believed to be true during the four years of Trumplandia hell we went through, only after it doesn’t matter anymore. The fact that she might get some sweet, sweet cash from selling books probably has something to do with her changing sides. But here’s something interesting that Olivia Nuzzi write about this whole situation.

All I can think of is how, post WWII, the actions of the Nazis were described as, on a practical basis, as pretty banal. In fact, there’s even a phrase, “the banality of evil” to describe the situation.

And, I think, that’s what’s going on with Trumplandia. A lot of people who should have known better acted in their personal best interests instead of the interests of the nation and grew so drunk in their access to power that they didn’t care at all about the damage they were causing. In, fact, I would say that was what was really going on with the extended clusterfuck that was the first Trump impeachment — the administration was so spinning out of control that everyone began to completely ignore not just norms, but the law. It was only when they got caught that they started feeling bad and quitting.

It definitely looks as though barring something unexpected that Trump is going to run again and “win” in 2024 because of Steve Bannon’s 20,000 “shock troops” fucking up the actual administration of elections on the local level. And, really, it could be that all of Trump’s bullshit is nothing more than a prelude to the main attraction of someone like Mike Flynn, or Ron DeSantis, or Josh Hawley, or Mike Pompeo or…the list goes on….being an American Putin once Trump cues them up to be his fascist successor.

At the moment, I think we’re going to slip peacefully into autocracy, but for the unknown of Trump. He’s such a fucking idiot that he, unto himself, could be the very thing that pushes into an otherwise avoidable civil war.

Red October: Of Fiona Hill’s Warning


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Top Russia expert Fiona Hill said recently that, essentially, Russia’s present may be America’s future. I totally agree with her on that. And, yet, I would like to make some observations about what she said. Because, she’s right, it’s just there are some reasons why we may not slip peacefully into autocracy.

The Guns Of Red October
The thing that Ms. Hill may be underestimating is how much the MAGA New Right wants political violence. How much they want even the barest excuse to run around, murdering people like me in cold blood for political reasons. As such, the thing that would otherwise happen –we slip peacefully into autocracy — doesn’t happen because the MAGA New Right is so wrapped up in the glory of violence that they feel liberals are “forcing” them to commit, that they totally miss that they could get everything they want peacefully if they’re just patient.

Trumplandia Part Duh
Another quibble I have with her prediction is it doesn’t take into account what an abject, complete and total fucking idiot Trump is. He always says the quiet part out loud. He also takes the most stupid, lazy path to get what he wants and, as such, it’s easy to imagine that through sheer idiotic incompetence, Trump is personally responsible for a Second American Civil War.

American Self-Perception
There’s a chance that when Steve Bannon gets what he wants, Steve Bannon gets what he wants. In other words, there’s a risk that the moment Bannon strangles American democracy with his “20,000 shock troops,” that is the moment the average non-MAGA person in the United States is so startled at what he’s managed to pull off that the country buckles and we have a civil war.

So, yes, Ms. Hill is right. But the verdict is out as to how peaceful everything will be.

Are Steve Bannon & The MAGA New Right Making A Fatal Strategic Miscalculation About The 2022 Midterms?



by Ender

It’s occured to me that I may be so wrapped up with my “hysterical doom shit” for what might happen in 2024-2025, that I’ve totally missed something: Steve Bannon’s plans to end free and fair elections in the United States will ready by 2022.

It could be that Bannon’s plan is to strike not in 2024, but in 2022.

I could see this making a lot of sense to Bannon because if he can pull it off and nothing of note happens because of it, then no matter how idiotic Trump is in 2024, our peaceful transition to autocracy will be a foregone conclusion.

This if that was his plan, it’s high risk, high reward.

It’s high risk because it would be something of a sucker punch, and, as such, it’s possible not even the corporate shills of Morning Joe (or whatever) would be able to calm the populace down should it become clear that the will of the people has been obstructed through extremely brazen corruption of the system.

I don’t know how exactly it would play out, but Bannon gets his way and on a systemic level there is wide spread nullification of Democrat wins because of “corruption” then…oh boy. That would really up the ante on political violence which would, in turn, be something the new MAGA GQP New Right Congress could use to go after the Biden / Harris Adminstration.

Or something.

The point is — we have to stop assuming it will be 2024-2025 that we have to worry about. The Fourth Turning might happen a lot sooner than we think.

Fuck The MAGA New Right, Or — Untangling The Rhetorical Knot That Is Their COVID19 Talking Points


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Ok. This is going to take some brain power. But, here goes. When it comes to COVID, I think the MAGA New Right thinks (I use that term loosely) that it was designed in a lab in Wuhan and, as such, we should PRAISE Son Of God Donald Trump for the vaccine, but we shouldn’t take it to own the libs.

And, lib, you never know, it’s possible this is all a “plandemic” in the sense that it was big pharma who was funding the “gain of function” research in Wuhan and you don’t KNOW that Dr. Fauchi isn’t profiting personally from it, now do you? Something something something Jewish space lasers

.

Any change in behavior — however minor — to manage the pandemic is a brutal attack on lady liberty because “my body, my choice” and also you’re excited that Roe is going to be overturned soon.

To take the free vaccine would would somehow be a win to the libs and to Red China, so take Regeneron or horse dewormer instead. There can never be “Vaccine passports” or, God forbid, a vaccine mandate, even though there are a variety of existing vaccine mandates that have been on the books for generations.

The difference is mumble mumble mumble the politics are different mumble mumble and fuck you, lib.

Nothing short of reparation from China will do when it comes to COVID. And, if that doesn’t work, then nuke them and let Trump ride one of the bombs like Slim Pickins in Dr. Strangelove.

And, in the end, it’s all about “personal responsibility” and if the fucking lib still won’t shut up, just tell them “no it won’t” and claim that all the facts that they use are “bogus.”

Oh, by the way fuck Jesse Kelly.

A Scifi Explanation For ‘Havana Syndrome’


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Here’s a free scifi concept for you, Hollywood. The reason why diplomats around the world are having their minds fried by some unknown device is there’s some industrial strength “digital telepathy” going on.

The point of being targeted is a digital mindreading device is draining their minds so intensively that they suffer intense side-effects.

Money please!

America’s Politics: A Status Check


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Some rando on Twitter told me to “calm down” today after I said my usual thing about how America faces the choice of autocracy or civil war in the near, near term.

Let’s do a back of the envelope status check on American politics. I’m not getting paid to do this and the people of VOX think I’m a crank, so lulz, you get what you pay for.

What makes doing this so difficult is, while in general terms I know we’re fucked, those fears a pretty much abstract. Going forward, it’s difficult to figure out what is important and what isn’t. But let’s have a go.

The first thing that comes to the forefront of my mind is the Republican Party is now fascist. It has been completely consumed by the rancid populism of MAGA. The Republican Party is dead and now is the Trump Party in everything but name. It has no ideology other than what whatever Trump wants at any particular moment.

As such, the question is, will it be Trump or one of his would-be successors who push us to the breaking point where we face the existential choice of autocracy or civil war. For the time being, Trump is in complete control of the Republican Party and any success or failure the party has in its objectives will be the direct result of Trump’s personal ability to achieve those goals. So, it’s easy to imagine a situation where Trump being lazy and stupid is handed power AGAIN through some sort of nullification crisis in January 2025 and he’s just too stupid to shepherd the country peacefully through what would otherwise be an inevitable transition to autocracy.

So, we have a civil war and bomb each other into oblivion because MAGA can’t bear to even think of the word “liberal.” Who wins in that situation, I have no idea.

If it’s not Trump, but someone like Tom Cotton, Mike Pompeo or Josh Hawley, then I doubt we’ll have a civil war because they’re politically adept enough to avoid one. The media will be purged, ICE’s camp infrastructure weaponized and I get pushed out a window because I refuse to fucking shut up about how much I fucking hate MAGA.

There are other things floating around our undead political system that are unnerving. The glorification of political violence by MAGA along with the rise of paramilitary groups is not exactly the sign of a healthy political system. The interesting thing about this is Trump — to date — hasn’t had the guts to go transactional. So, in that regard, Trump is definitely no Hitler. What Trump loves to do is dog whistle violent acts that he would like, but he simply has never been direct about it.

But if, say, Cyber Ninjas gets his hopes up by “proving” he “won” Arizona, that might change. He might go transactional and tell MAGA’s paramilitary arm to start doing specific things to facilitate his “reinstatement.” Or not. It’s possible he’ll continue to be a big old wussy (on a political basis.)

Yet, the issue is, what does this mean going forward? Do I need to “calm down” or am I right that we face an existential choice of autocracy or civil war at some point between now and January 2025.

Nothing is set in stone, however. It’s possible that we’ll drift into some sort of “lite touch” autocracy where it’s just Conventional Wisdom that the only way a Democrat can become POTUS is if Democrats also control Congress. Liberals will vent in the media while MAGA welds hard power and that will be that for a few cycles until someone like President Mike Pompeo finally has had enough and goes full autocrat because there’s no one to stop him anymore.

2012: The Year Everything Changed


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It used to be that there were all these predictions about how the Mayan calendar predicted the End Of The World in 2012 for some reason. Well, that obviously didn’t happen, but something did happen – 2012 was the year that white people in America began to reach a tipping point with their abstract fears about the changing nature of the country.

So, let’s think about what, exactly, happened in 2012 that caused the political hellscape that we currently enjoy. The most obvious thing is, duh, Obama won a second term. And I think the reason why there was a cascading effect from that event was a lot of Republicans thought Obama was some sort of political fluke caused by the perfect timing of the Great Recession right before the 2008 election.

When it became clear that Obama was actually the first wave of what everyone knew was coming — the advent of America being a minority majority nation, a lot of white people freaked the fuck out. It was the 2012 election that was the last election where Republicans were willing to work within the democratic norms that we all have come to enjoy for the last 240 odd years.

Something about what happened in Obama’s second term facilitated the rise of Trump, MAGA and the Republican Party becoming fascist. It was the high speed social transformation of Obama’s second term that really caused the Republican Party to pretty much be accurately represented by Trump.

If I was, like, smart and stuff, I would be able to give you a itemized deep dive of the specific events that caused conservative white people to freak out and fall into the arms of ding-dong Trump. But, I’m not that smart — and, as such, will never write for VOX, natch.

But it is curious. I think what may have happened is at some point between 2012 and 2016 Republicans realized they had lost the culture wars and, as such, they had to strike back with someone who was a “fighter.” After that happened, the rest took care of itself. Trump was a deranged lunatic, but the Establishment eventually realized he was not only hugely popular with the base, but he could win the 2016 election. So they lulzed everything for young hack MAGA judges and a plutocrat tax cut.

I love alternative history, so I often struggle to think up a way whereby we could have avoided the rise of MAGA and Trump. All I can think up is Al Gore winning the 2000 election. Even then, Obama is such a singular figure in our nation’s political history that it’s easy to imagine him winning anyway and causing MAGA to arise in response.

If you read the book The Fourth Turning, you would say that Someone Like Trump was going to pop up at some point between 2016 and, say, 2024. The demographic trends were going to cause someone like Obama to get elected and then, in turn, someone like Trump would get elected in reaction.

One last thing I think we don’t really appricate is how the introduction of the iPhone may have also sealed our fate. Once social media was no longer tied to our PCs, then things like “cancel culture” and the mainlining of things once seen as freaky was going to happen one way or another.

Anyway, the ultimate end game of this clusterfuck is a complete mystery to me. I have no idea what happens. I do know, however, that we’re going to face a choice of either MAGA autocracy or a civil war. Which one we will pick, I don’t know for the time being.

DeSantis: The Autocratic Next Time


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

All macro political trends indicate that the United States is drifting — maybe careening — towards a transition into an autocratic managed democracy like is found in Russia. The man who could very well be the once to tip the balance is current Florida governor, Ron DeSantis.

He’s the political creature that we’ve long feared: Trumpism without Trump.

So, it’s easy to imagine he becomes POTUS and makes autocratic rule palatable enough that it won’t be until Tom Cotton, or Josh Hawley or Mike Pompeo inevitable become POTUS that the ICE infrastructure is weaponized and loudmouths like me start to get pushed out of windows. But for the duration of the DeSantis Administration we’ll see a dynamic whereby hard power is weld by MAGA and cultural soft power continues to exerted by liberals in the media.

We’ll just drift into a Russian-style government so by the time the media is purged and ICE pushed me out of a window we won’t even think about it. About 50% of the population won’t even notice or care that the United States is no longer a liberal democracy because they will, at last, “just be left alone.”

That, at least, is one option.

But there are two other scenarios to think about when feeling bad about how dark America’s future is right now.

One is, Trump is so stupid and craven that he completely fucks up what is otherwise a done deal. He either kneecaps DeSantis out of envy or he somehow bungles our transition into autocratic managed democracy by embracing the “24 or before” slogan and everything goes wrong. In a sense, this would simply delay the rise of fascism in the United States, not stop it.

Meanwhile, the other option is, well, a fucking civil war.

I hate violence and I don’t want a civil war. But if you look at the United States on a macro historical level, we’re very similar to the America of the late 1850s — there may come a point where we have to chose between continued domination by Slave Power (MAGA) or we are forced to slice this particular boil once and for all.

But there are no assurances that the “good guys” would win in such a situation. So, I don’t know what to tell you. We’re fucked.

The Duality Of Maggie Haberman — And Speculation On Why She’s Enraging Trumplandia Right Now


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The thing about “Trump Whisperer” Maggie Haberman is she is, at the same time, both way too close to Trumplandia AND a great journalist. So the Twitter liberals who defend her no matter what and the populist pitchfork crowd on Twittter who hate her both have vaild arguments.

Recently, however, Trumplandia “thought leaders” like Sean Hannity are freaking out about her, apparently out of the blue. It makes you think maybe she’s up to something that she’s asking questions about and they’re doing a pre-emptive freak out to prepare to base for whatever bombshell she’s about to drop.

What I HOPE she’s going to tell us is exactly why Trump was so absolutely desperate to remove 1/3 of America’s troops from Germany right before the 2020 election. I have yet to get any explanation for this directive on Trump’s part and, as best I can tell, the whole thing was off the books to begin with.

Trump just started demanding it happen, without going through any proper channels at all.

This was and is very suspicious.

At the time, I kept ranting about how I thought it was YET ANOTHER quid pro quo between Trumplandia and Russia — Trump removes a big chunk of our troops from Germany, the Russians hack into our election systems.

But…the Russians this go round strangely sat on their hands, even though Trump did everything in his power to give them a major geopolitical windfall in Europe.

But, I’m just a hayseed rube in the rural part of a flyover state. Though, if I guess that this is what Maggie Haberman is about to drop, well, I take back all my snarky comments about her being an “access journalist” and will want to buy her a beer.

Ms. Haberman, however, has to produce the goods. It could be whatever she’s looking into isn’t nearly as momentous as the scenario I’ve proposed. But I will note that my 2020 ranting about this topic is beginning to get just a tick of traffic out of the blue, as if other people, out there in the aether are thinking about what I was thinking.