Category: Tsar-A-Largo

Some Idle Biden Era Predictions


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Biden Will Be Impeached
The moment the House flips, Biden will be impeached over simply being Biden. That’s an absolute at this point.

Kamala Harris Will Face Pressure To Use The 25th Amendment
As we grow accustomed to the Biden Era, Biden will set the tone of his era, just like Trump did. And, as such, we’re going to notice that he IS a little bit senile. The FOX News bullshit echo chamber will latch on to this, and turn it into a regular Benghazi 2.

President Harris?
I have high hopes for Biden, but he’s old as hell. I wish him a long life and eight years in office, but he IS 78. So, somehow, some way, I just don’t see him lasting through his first term. I hope I’m wrong. I usually am. Harris will be a great president that will really shake things up — and, as such, get her into a huge amount of political trouble.

A Jarring Transition
We’re just not prepared for the Biden Era. It’s going to be a bumpy first few days and weeks after Biden is sworn in. We’re just not going to know what to do.

The Trump Deep State
One of the biggest problems for Biden will be The Trump Deep State. All those MAGA hacks now “burrowed” into the Federal government are going to come after Biden and his policies in a big way. By July, that could be what we’re all talking about.

Runaway Jury?
If Trump doesn’t play his cards right, his second impeachment trial in the Senate may serve the purpose of a Trump Era Truth and Reconciliation Commission in the sense that before we know it, folks like John Bolton and Don McGahn will be testifying at it in a new political Trial of The Century. The whole thing will drag out as each side throws more and more firepower at the issue.

Comparative Political History: The Paris Commune And The American Capitol Riot Of Jan. 6th, 2021


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I barely know anything about the Paris Commune, but I know enough to know that it may be the closest comparison one can think up when it comes to the Capitol Riot of January 6th in Washington.

But there are some pretty big differences.

If you look back at what happened on January 6th, we were extremely lucky for a number of reasons — the riot didn’t really have any leaders and it didn’t really have any long-term agenda or ideology. It was just a smash-and-grab coup attempt.

But imagine if there had been some sort of leadership on January 6th. They could have established a security perimeter around the Capitol. They could have taken hostages and they could have formed a “government” at the Capitol building.

If they had had any organization or forethought, they could still be there right now, hold up at the Capitol in their own “commune.” I doubt they would have called it a commune, but that’s what it would have been.

They had a very specific historic opportunity and — thankfully — they completely blew it. They “caught the car” and then didn’t know what to do with it. There won’t be a next time.

Any coup-like event that occurs in the future is going to require a shit ton more work by those involved. I still think given macro trends that while there may still be significant political violence in the coming years, it’s the 2024-2025 period we need to keep an eye on.

I Just Don’t See A Second American Civil War (Or Revolution) Anytime Soon


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

We have every reason to be nervous. It definitely seems as though the United States is about to have some sort of civil war or MAGA revolution pretty soon. But I seriously doubt it…for now.

It may happen at some point around 2024-25, but not right now. The people who would be doing a civil war or revolution need to organize and marinate in their hate a few more years before they can actually pull it off.

Right now, it’s all abstract. Right Wing nutjobs in vague terms want to burn it all to the ground, but…they’re all talk for the time being. What made what happen on January 6th such a wake up call was they weren’t all talk for once and, what’s more, POTUS was the guy who pushed them over the edge.

Trump right now seems pretty chill. He’s almost in hiding.

So, unless he snaps in a rather unexpected fashion, I think we’re fine for the next few years. But, as always, anything can happen, I guess.

#CapitolRiot: What Did Trump Know & When Did He Know It?


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Trump just can’t keep a secret. So, given his public comments leading up to January 6th, it’s beginning to appear as though Trump may have known a lot more about what was going on than we now know.

Usually, during a Trump Era scandal, this is the point when an audiotape of Trump saying something incriminating happens. We all get upset for a few days, then we move on.

But, for the time being, this moment in time feels different and so if something like that did pop out, Trump would face some severe political consequences. Even if he’s got one foot out the door.

I have a general sense at this point that Trump probably knew a lot more about the details of the Capitol Riot than you might think. I doubt he was involved in the specific planning — he can’t keep a secret, after all — but he knew how big the event was going to be and that he might be able to stage a coup using the existing infrastructure that was being built out.

Yet for the time being, I think Trump is going to escape justice yet again. He’s almost out of office and even his extra-political, extra-legal or extra-Constitutional options are kind of limited right now. He could maybe do something in a spasm of panic, but he’s done none of the hard work of autocrat.

My fear now is he’s going to grow extremely passive-aggressive to the point that we start to think he’s a danger to himself our us.

Taking Stock Of A Nation On The Brink


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

One of the conditions for a civil war – revolution in the United States is there already: the positions of the two sides are beginning to harden. What isn’t there yet is Trump going transaction or there being enough rolling political violence across the country that there are significant domestic political refugees.

Those last two things would be the last stages before the country buckled. And, really, with Trump still president for 10 days, that’s actually not a unlikely as you might think. All Trump has to do is snap — even more so than he already has — and goad people into taking up arms against anyone they feel isn’t MAGA and the other part takes care of itself.

Once America’s transportation system is clogged with Blue people from Red states and Red people from Blue states fleeing for their lives, then, well, we’re going to to show.

But that is so dystopian that I’m just not prepared to believe that’s going to happen. While Trump is going to continue to do everything in his power to destroy the United States, MAGA just isn’t organized enough — or bloodthirsty enough — to leap into the void. At least not yet.

Give them four years to marinate in their hate and I think they will be.

Or, put another way, the great irony of all of this would be if Trump — whose appearance in 2025 was probably about as early as his type political rise was going to happen — squashed what might otherwise be an extremely destructive political movement because he demanded they strike too soon.

But all this could be Trump’s beerhall putsch and he — or someone like him — will be victorious in about a decade. (Which makes a lot of sense.)

The Prospect Of A ‘MAGA Revolution,’ Reassessed


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I have long suggested that any MAGA shithead cocksucker touting the idea of a “MAGA Revolution” was an idiot. And they are. They’re idiots for a number of reasons. One is, generally revolutions at least start off with a Leftist bent and also, well, any such “revolution” would likely be a civil war, not a revolution.

But, given the events of January 6th, let’s do a reassessment.

The only time I can think of that there was the prospect of a Right wing revolution was in the early days of the Nazi take over of Germany. The SA were a lot more radical than the the rest of the Nazi movement and they were quickly squashed with they got a little too uppity. The SA wanted a far more radical transformation of Germany life than Hitler was prepared to enact. So Nazism remained a somehow bland version of fascism for a lot longer than it might have otherwise. The really nasty parts didn’t pop out until a few years later.

As I understand it, it was the viciousness with which Hitler got rid of them that made people sit up and take notice that he was not the clown everyone thought he was.

So, is it possible there may be a “MAGA Revolution” sometime soon?

After January 6th, I have to say my answer is now a firm “maybe.”

The key to any such “revolution” would be Trump. If he really leaned into going transactional as he really began to lose his mind, then, yes, there might be significant rolling violence across the country that might be marketed as a “revolution.”

But the United States is a big, big country and the while things might get bloody and scary for a while, the moment Biden is in control of the U.S. Military, the dynamic of things changes rather dramatically. I guess the difference between a “revolution” and a “civil war” would be how much of any significant action on the part of MAGA had the thin veneer of legality to it and how much didn’t.

If it was a revolution, rather than a civil war, then at its onset, there would be some sort of SA / SS attacks on state capitals across the country. This, sadly, has already begun to happen. But, like I said, the United States is a big country both in geographic size and population, so while you probably could pull of a successful MAGA revolution in, say, North Dakota by simply seizing the a few cities, if you attempted any such “revolution” in a Southern state, all you would do is incite a race war.

Not that a lot of Turner Diaries reading Proud Boys wouldn’t want that, but a revolution, by definition, is even more radical than a civil war and a lot of conservative-but-not-MAGA people would likely blanch at the atrocities that MAGA “revolution” would entail from day one.

As such, what might happen is a combination civil war – revolution. In the sparsely populated Red States of the heartland, you might have secession, while in the South, you just have a regular old race war in conjunction with a “revolution.”

But all of that — at least for the time being — is rather dystopian even for me. A lot — maybe all of it — depends Trump. If he really and I mean REALLY loses his mind, then his followers may get their revolution – civil war sooner rather than later.

I still think it’s more likely to be closer to 2025.

So, as Mitt Romney would say we have to all “hold our breath” for a few more days to see which way things will go.

Of Trump Potentially Using The ‘Presidential Text Alert System’ Instead of Twitter


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’m pretty good, in a vague way, of calling what Trump is going to do in the Final Days. I pretty much called the significance of January 6th, though I didn’t call anything specific — just that it would be important.

But anyway.

One interesting thing is Trump still hasn’t snapped like I thought he would. I thought he would get into a logic trap and go REALLY CRAZY. But he’s still the usual olde crazy. One sign we would get that he was totally off the reservation would be if he started to do a quick succession of things that did not really help him as the House rushes to impeach him — again.

One of those things would be to use the Presidential Text Alert System — usually reserved for, like, announcing nuclear war — as something akin to a replacement for Twitter now that he’s lost that account.

There’s a lot to take into account on this front.

Remember, in real terms, Trump’s era is over, so he would have to do something that slowed time down significantly for there to be a even more of a mad rush to get rid of him. Trump has yet to do something REALLY FUCKING CRAZY like incite sedition using the Presidential Text Alert System to shoot out a tweet to everyone in America’s phone. In, fact, he seems pretty chill compared to what I expected he would be at this point.

Something would have to change, and change fast — like in the next 48 hours. Yes, he’s supposed to have a press conference at the Alamo, but, really, even if he went Howard Beale at such a conference, he only has less than two weeks in office.

The Final Days of Trumplandia.

Trump would have to go transactional — start a war, tell his followers to overthrow the government in a specific type way or, say, use the Presidential Text Alert System to do any number of really crazy transactional things.

But him just blabbering at a press conference wouldn’t be enough. He’s been doing that for some time now — four years — and it was only when he went transactional in front of a crazed hoard near the Capitol that it mattered to anyone.

So, really, while Trump is, in fact, a massive self-own artist, as of right this second, he’s going to escape justice, just like he always does. Only time will tell.

Trump, As Always, Has His Fate — And Ours — In His Own Hands


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

So. Trump has less than a fortnight in office and if he simply plays golf — or stays catatonic — he’s safe. He will cruse into retirement and that will be that. But this is Trump we’re talking about, so it’s possible that at any moment Trump will really fucking flip out.

But I’m beginning to think maybe he’s not going to freak out. I think that now that he’s lost his Twitter account that he’ll just stew in juice quietly and that’s it.

And, yet, as Mitt Romney suggests, we may just have to “hold our breath” for the last few days of Trump’s time in office. There’s really no way to know one way or another at this point.

I dunno. It definitely seems as though Trump is going to escape justice — again — because he just isn’t going to do anything more to cause problems. It’s less than two weeks. He really is going to have to freak the fuck out before anyone in the Republican Party thinks seriously about getting Trump out of office before the 20th.

MAGA Trump Deadenders Are The Future Of The Republican Party


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Trump is probably going to be a modern day Watergate for the Republican Party. Its entire center of political gravity will shift so Trump is its be-all and end-all. I say this because that’s what Nixon became after Watergate.

Reagan was pretty much a Nixon deadender and he almost won the nomination in 1976. So, it makes sense that the Republican Party will either split into a pro-Trump and a lukewarm Trump factions, or Trump will simply consume the whole thing now. It’s also possible that if the Trump faction doesn’t take over the Republican Party that it will bolt into its own party. The Patriot Party, maybe?

So, I would keep an eye on people like Jason Miller as to the future of the Republican Party. If Trump or Ivanka aren’t the nominee, it could be someone like him who gets a lot closer to the nomination than you might think.

Or, maybe Miller will run for Senator. Or Governor.

I guess what I’m trying to say is things are a lot more up in the air than you might think.

President Chauncy Gardner #ETTD


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I called it. I said Trump would likely go bonkers around the time Congress counted Electors and I was right. And, in a more vague way, I predicted that we were careening towards something of a “political 9/11.”

And so here we are.

The conundrum of where we are now is we have only a fortnight left in the Trump Era. That’s it. Two weeks. If we can just make it through the next two weeks, then we lurch — maybe are pushed — into something quite unexpected: a true autocracy without an autocrat.

Our democracy is obviously so fragile that if Trump really was “the guy from The Apprentice” then, well, we wouldn’t be talking about Biden coming into office. Trump would have done the hard work of stealing his second term, he’d have a thin veneer of legality and that would be that.

And, yet, for all my endless speculation that Trump would do this or that autocratic thing, it turns out he really is just a deranged version of Chauncy Gardner from Being There.

TRUMP LITERALLY IS CHAUNCY GARDNER FROM BEING THERE.

Our president.

What this means is, we were all so busy assuming he was an autocrat that we missed that while he may have autocratic impulses, Trump is such a ding-dong that he can’t — or won’t — do the hard work necessary to actually become an autocrat.

As such, all the conditions and tools for autocracy are just laying around in our politics and society, waiting to be picked up by Josh Hawley (or whomever.) So, we’re probably going to just drift into the Biden Era and be in neutral until Biden gets inevitably impeached.

But.

Trump is so fucking bonkers right now that he could self-own in such a spectatular fashion in the next two weeks that the political 9/11 that we had to day could actually be a series of pollical 9/11s that absolutely FORCE us to act to push Trump out of office for no other reason than we’ve come to think he’s a threat to himself — or us.

I have no idea what is going to happen.

But it’s going to be weird.