Category: WuFlu

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.

2020 Will Be A Replay Of 2016


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’ve seen enough, as they say — Trump is going to win the Electoral College and lose the popular vote (rather significantly.) America’s liberal democracy will finally die. But why do I think this?

The Durham Investigation
Barr’s “preliminary summary” of this investigation will play the role of the Second Comey Letter. Not only is the whole thing bullshit, but the summary will be bullshit too. A lot depends on how stupid and or greedy Trump and Barr get. If they’re smart, they’ll simply insinuate in general terms that Obama and Biden are criminals who will be prosecuted after the election. If they get greedy, they might really pull shit out of their asses in a way that is so brazenly false as to make people mad. But I think if they are pretty vague and open ended in all of this, that they get what they want — a replay of 2016.

The Russians Hacking Directly Into Our Election Systems
Just like with the polls in 2016, mysterious, the polls will be wrong in crucial states. Just enough to push Trump over the top in the Electoral College. We’ll all blame the Durham Investigation or the power of the “boat voters.” But soon enough, we’ll have to accept the results. The fact that the Russians fucked with our elections as part of a quid pro quo for Trump removing 1/3 of our troops from Germany will be like Who Really Shot JFK. After House Trump Republicans keep winning and winning and winning and winning the presidency, people might get woke. But by that point it will be way, way, WAY too late. Could be 40 years.

Trump Fucking With The Postal Service
This is more cover for the Russians. It gives Nate Silver a non-bonkers explanation for why the polls were wrong again.

News of a “Vaccine”
At some point in late October or very early November, the news will be full of breathless reports about a vaccine being approved. Boomers will have a “permission structure” to vote for MAGA-Qanon Trump again. In reality, all of it is bullshit and just more cover for the Russians to get away with the Crime of Century.

Trump Is An Autocrat
Orange Man is simply going to throw as much money and abuse of power at this particular situation so he “wins,” no matter what. All the momentum and logic is on his side because of that. He will “win” but only because he’s an autocrat. I just don’t see Americans having it in them to do anything about it.

But….

Ok, now that I have that out of the way, let’s talk about what could go wrong for Trump. Well, at this point, the only thing I think that might go wrong for Trump is, well, Trump. He has Barr, yes, but Trump is such a fucking massive self-own artist that there might come a point that even Barr struggles to control the situation post-election.

The thing that would have to happen — Biden winning by an absolutely massive landslide simply isn’t going to happen. And even if it did, Trump would go nuts and tell his supporters he “really won.” The thing about all the “things go wrong for Trump” scenarios is they all point to one thing: unprecedented political violence in the United States.

Everything from Trump taking “total control” (through Barr) at one end of the spectrum to an actual massive fighting civil war involving WMD on the other end of it.

Nothing I see indicates that people are willing to do what is necessary to defeat Trump in the real world. So, Trump wins. And, yet, we have to go back to the surreal, craven and bloodthirsty rhetoric swirling around the Righwing echo chamber. It’s possible that they would be so stupid that they were the one to start some sort of civil war and, as such, they take away one crucial piece of the political equation that has helped them and will continued to help them — apathy.

If MAGA-Qanon go nuts and start blowing shit up and murdering people in cold blood, a lot of center-Right people who enjoy Trump’s policies (tax cuts) but aren’t exactly thrilled with him as a person might get woke in a surprising fashion. But that’s extremely iffy.

What I’m really saying is if Trump and Barr are too heavy handed in their craven quest to turn the United States into an autocratic managed democracy, there might — just might — be a reaction with a cascading sequence of events they can’t control. Remember — it is possible that on a political level we could be an autocratic managed democracy but for the average American nothing would really change. Or if it did chance, it would continue to change like it has over the last four years — in fits and starts while Trump distracts us by being a racist, bigoted, misogynistic moron.

Or, let me put it another way — as long as the United State’s gently drift towards a Russian style autocratic managed democracy without things getting out of control and we go full Nazi, then House Trump is fine. The more I think about it, the more I realize what’s going to happen is our particular brand of managed democracy might be it’s own thing. It might be that Trump (at least for the time being) doesn’t do a lot of most dire abuses that I keep fearing.

So, in a sense, for the first few years of Trump’s second term not a lot will change for the average person just raising their kids. But as we approach 2024, Trump is going to make good on his demand to get “12 more years” and that will be the next major milestone.

But that point we’re really going to realize the United States is no longer a liberal democracy and House Trump can — and will — do whatever the fuck it wants.

How Trump Wins The 2020 Election


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

  1. A COVID19 “vaccine”before the election.
    It doesn’t matter how real it is. All he needs is to allay the concerns of the elderly.
  2. The Durham Investigation
    At a minimum, it has the potency of the Second Comey Letter in that it implicates Biden (and Obama?) in criminal activity. Even though it’s all a lie.
  3. Trump’s fucking with the postal service
    This, in itself, is enough to shave off a few points off Biden’s lead
  4. The Russians
    The Russians are going to hack directly into our election systems as part of a quid pro quo for Trump removing 1/3 of our troops from Germany.

So Trump wins on election night. If he doesn’t, Barr does a massive power grab. Either we do something about that en mass, we don’t. Good luck.

Life After COVID19: A New Era Is About To Begin (One Way Or Another)



by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Since the end of WWII there have been a number of major eras in the United States. They go something like this:

1945-1963
1963-1974
1974-1981
1981-1991
1991-2001
2001-????

The argument could be made a new era started either in 2009 with the Obama Administration or 2017 with the Trump Administration. And, yet, several of those post-war eras ended or began with a rather dramatic extra-political event that happened totally out of the blue without warning.

As such, a pretty strong argument could be made that no matter what else happens in the near future, the COVID19 pandemic, in itself, marks the delination between eras. And, yet, given the political instability in the United States right now, you could also make the argument that not until we finally figure out who POTUS is will the actual new era begin. No matter what happens with the election, we’re in for a new era.

If Trump wins (which he will by brazenly stealing the election), then we’re REALLY in a new era because, lulz, any and all pretense of America being a “free” country will end. We’re going to be nothing more than a managed democracy like they have in Russia and a new, darker era will have begun. Or, actually, if you wanted to be more technical about it, in hindsight, we’ll say that the “new era” began when Trump was acquitted by the Senate and everything else was simply us catching up to what happened.

Things grow far more complicated if Biden somehow miraculously wins despite Trump throwing everything including the kitchen sink at the election to steal it.

I say this because then the macro trends that have led to us finding ourselves in this clusterfuck to begin with will be momentarily paused, or at least become less obvious while we all sigh a huge sigh of relief. We’ll probably have a few months to enjoy a return to “normal” before House Trump strikes back in some way and fucks everything up again.

When, exactly, the over due “new era” begins will thus be far more muddled and difficult to pinpoint at the time. We’ll mark the “before times” of before the pandemic, but it won’t be until House Trump comes roaring back in some way that the thing that was going to happen anyway — fascist America — happens.

I still contend that the only way House Trump doesn’t formally establish Trumplandia is something so unexpected and tragic that no one, regardless of political point of view, will be very happy about it. Whatever it is would have to be jaw dropping. Something along the lines of President Ivanka screwing up a war with the DPRK and being blamed for millions of deaths. (That may very well happen with her dad in his stolen second term, but, lulz.)

Anyway, the point of all of this is America is a fascist state and we’re deluding ourselves for a few months while we wait for Trump to steal the 2020 Election.

Most of my posts to this blog these days begin with hope then simply return back to a very dark reality — the moment Trump was acquitted by the Senate, he attained absolute political power in the United States and there’s not a goddamn thing we can do about it.

I say this in the context of knowing Trump is a huge self-own artist and he’s literally the only person who could somehow screw up the absolute certainty that the United States becomes little more than a vassal state of Russia.

What Fresh Hell Will August Bring



by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

August is the worst month of the year, in large part because all the “powerful people” are out to lunch on vacation. So, as fate has it nearly every year, some huge breaking news happens while they’re sipping margaritas somewhere remote and secluded that forces them to pay attention again.

Slate has an article they re-publish every year about this very thing. They propose abolishing the month altogether it’s so bad.

Anyway, let’s think up some bonkers scenarios for August.

War
While Trump is obviously going to ultimately steal the election in an extremely brazen fashion, he’s such an insecure idiot — and self-own artist — that it would be very easy to see him go way out of his way to provoke a war with either the DPRK or Iran. The conventional wisdom is that as long as a war with the DPRK didn’t go nuclear, the whole thing could be wrapped up in about three months — which would place us at just about when Election Day happens. People would be humming Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless The USA” on their way to the polls and Trump breezes towards an easy (legitimate) victory. Iran is a lot trickier and less likely to be wrapped up in time. The DPRK is so crazy, of course, that they could very well engage in a limited nuclear exchange with the US which Trump might be blamed for and, well, that might help his re-election chances. There is the long shot chance that the United States and China might go at it, but that’s a pretty scary proposition.

World War III
In this scenario, it’s not just the United States and the DPRK or Iran who have at it, it’s the entire world. One way this might happen is the Russians, fearing Trump might somehow magically lose despite their best efforts to help him steal the election, decide to grab as much of Ukraine as they can while the going’s good. This destabilizes the world in general and some major hotspots flair up all at the same time. Several regional wars happening at the same time would be marketed as WWIII by the press. This is a very unlikely scenario — I mean, the Russians know they’re going to be successful hacking our election — so, lulz. But you never know. It is interesting, of course, to speculate on what the reaction among Americans would be to a general war between the Russians and the Ukrainians — would people even notice?

The Durham Investigation
Republicans have absolute bloodlust when it comes to the Durham Investigation into the origins of the TrumpRussia probe. They get all excited just thinking about it. What they want, of course, is a repeat of 2016 when there was an air of criminality surrounding Hillary Clinton for various reasons. While Durham is a good little thug and will likely wait until the weekend before the election to indict the entire Obama Administration including Biden, there’s a chance he might drop that particular turd in August to let it linger in the national consciousness for a few months.

The Second Great Depression Officially Starts
As you may know, the Republicans are dicks and simply refused to do anything about propping up the economy because, lulz, Trump’s going to indict Biden anyway, so fuck you. But there’s a chance, at least, that the economy, which has struggled the last few months (to say the least) will finally crater because of the lack of an extra $600 in the unemployed’s pockets, no $1,200 stimulus check and lack of eviction protection. It could be that by the end of August, the economy will finally be so bad that the mouthbreathing knuckle draggers of MAGA might, at last, sit up and take notice. If Trump’s approval rating begins to drift down towards 30-25% on a consistent basis, when the Russians hack our election systems as part of Trump’s quid pro quo with them (his part being removing 1/3 of our troops from Germany) the disparity between the polls and votes might be so dramatic that someone, somewhere might begin to ask questions. (This is, of course, a lulz, because fuck you, Bill Barr is going to make sure that’s not an issue and House Trump is able to consolidate power through a second term Constitutional Convention.)

Trump Finally Snaps
This, in a sense, is the absolute worst case scenario. But just as death be not proud, going bonkers be not proud. It’s not like when someone goes bonkers that they say, “Well, this is really going to hurt Republicans, so I’ll go bonkers now.” Nope. While, in general, I believe Trump will, in fact, inevitably go bonkers, it could be well into his stolen second term when it happens. But if this happened in August, just about the time he’s set to be formally nominated by the Republicans, it would be a political crisis of an unprecedented nature. The system is simply not designed for something that dramatic this late in the process. The issue about Trump going bonkers is at first we wouldn’t even notice it because he’s generally bonkers as it is. If he finally snapped, it would have to be REALLY BAD. So bad, so depraved, so offensive, that the entire country would grind to a halt while we figured out what to do. CNN would be giving us minute-by-minute updates as to what was going on. With this one, there’s simply no known endgame. It’s very possible that after about 24 hours of silence, Republicans would bounce to his defense, no matter what. They’re a death cult and they honestly would rather Trump nuke us all to hell than risk the abstract dangers of Communist progressive liberals attacking the sanctity of marriage. If Trump’s bonkers behavior go so absolutely bad at some point in August that Republicans simply, at last, had no defense of Trump other than “fuck you,” well, who knows what might happen.

Something REALLY Bad — And Unexpected — Happens
This would be something I simply can’t predict. Something so jaw-dropping that all the fucked up things that have happened so far in 2020 pale in comparison. I’m thinking things like either Trump or Biden grow gravely ill (physically) ill for some reason. The Senate Republicans finally figure out a way to knock Biden out of the race through their investigations of Hunter Biden or, I don’t know, COVID19 mutates and becomes far, far more deadly.

America As Fascist State



by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Twitter liberals are so clueless. They clutch their pearls whenever Trump zooms past some norm and then come up with elaborate fever dreams as to how this is going to “bring down” Trump.

Trump is never going anywhere. Never.

MAGA wants the very nightmare that people like me fear. They crave it. They lust for it. That’s the whole appeal of the Qanon fucktard conspiracy theory. It gives them a framework for what they want — everyone who disagrees with them in jail or dead.

It’s because of this that darkness has officially fallen. It really happened the moment Trump was acquitted by the Senate. The pandemic kind of momentarily made it seem as though there was a chance for a free-and-fair election, but lulz, that’s over with.

Trump is a tyrant and we’re never fucking getting rid of him. Early in 2021, he’s going to consolidate power in any number of different ways. By about 2023, people — like me! — getting pushed out of windows will become common place and accepted part of life.

The only unknown is Trump himself. Trump is such a massive self-own artist that one could come up with any number of different ways might massively self-own.

But even if he did, it would be nothing more than a pause. The macro trends simply don’t point towards the United States being a liberal democracy anymore.

Maybe in about 40 years, once the last of the Baby Boomers are dead, then, maybe, we may gradually begin to drift back towards the America I grew up in. But, generally, we’re very much fucked.

The #COVID19 #Pandemic & The #Novel I’m Developing & #Writing #AmWriting



By Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Oh, this pandemic. What to do. What to do. The novel I’m developing and writing is set just before the pandemic starts and the second book in the story ends just as the pandemic is about to strike the States in a big way.

There’s so much going on with this novel already, I find myself struggling to figure out how to thread the needle on the issue of dealing with the pandemic. In fact, one of the “benefits” of the pandemic from an artistic standpoint is it gives you a very definite delineation between “now” and “the before times.”

I often ask my sister who consumes a lot of pop art if she would want such art to acknowledge the presence of the pandemic going forward or not and she seems rather blase about it all. Or, put another way, I can’t gauge from her answer if I should put more or less reference to the pandemic in the novel I’m working on.

Given what’s going on with the novel, I think I almost have to address it as soon as possible. I have a very easy in for this discussion and, as such, I’m probably going to use it as an opportunity to talk about what people thought of the idea of a pandemic leading up to its arrival in the United States.

Originally, this novel was meant to be a rumination on the Trump Era about the time of the lead up to The Mueller Report, but development took too long, so I pushed the story forward a year. I don’t feel comfortable pushing the story forward ANOTHER year should development raise the issue of when its set again.

I have a clear time frame because of the pandemic — right before it struck and changed everything. It seems like an ideal time to establish the events of the two books will be taking place in.

But, again, I have no idea if audiences will want that or not. And, yet, this novel is meant to be very timely, so I don’t see how I can’t address the pandemic. And it makes a lot more sense to figure out how to make the novel both timely and timeless in the way it addresses current events.

Things Are Falling Into Place With The #Novel #AmWriting



by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

This weekend has been very productive so far. I wrote the first draft of the first chapter and now I’m doing a huge amount of pre-flight work on the second chapter.

Really, the only thing pausing things right now is inspiration is coming at me hard and fast so I need to make sure my scene summaries are as jam-packed with excitement, plot points and character development as possible. I don’t want to rush things. I want to be methodical.

Trump being a fucking enraging traitor continues to provide the energy needed to develop and write this novel. All I need to summon up some serious motivation is to “doomscroll” Twitter a little bit. One thing I’ve always wanted this novel to be is something of a “Twitter in real life” kind of thing where you see different types of people on Twitter represented as they would be in real life.
So, in that sense, this novel is — and always has been an allegory for the Trump Era hidden inside a breezy, pulpy thriller.

I hope to wrap up pre-flight on the second chapter very soon, maybe this evening. Then, as always, I’ll wake up at about 4 a.m., drink some coffee and write for a few hours. This is just such a huge project — and I’m not on crank like Phillip K. Dick — that even under the best of circumstances, I can only finish a scene or two at once sitting. That slows things down a little bit.

One thing about development of a novel is you never know what the context will be when you try to sell it. But I am trying to be as timely and topical as possible with this novel. The only reason why I will keep it in the immediate past at this point is it opens up really playing up the looming pandemic in the second book which will be set in very early days of the pandemic in the United States.

Anyway, as I keep saying, this novel has no literary aspirations. It’s meant to be a really fast read. Hopefully, you might notice after you finish a lingering sense that I really fucking hate the Trump Administration — and extremism in general.

None Dare Call It Treason #Trump



by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The issue right now is if things really are as bad as we fear when it comes to TrumpBountyGate, what are we going to do about it? There really isn’t much that can be done as best I can tell. We can’t impeach Trump again until well into his second term. He’ll never resign. He’s going to steal the election with Russian help.

So, I don’t know.

This goes back to something that is central to the Trump Era — Trump is his own worst enemy. So, really, if we have him dead to rights on this issue, the thing that causes some serious accountability to come to him for once won’t be anything but himself. He may finally flip the fuck out.

I don’t even know how that might manifest itself. I think maybe he might finally snap in a really crazy way whereby he starts to tweet out the N-Word to Obama. Or maybe he joins Tik-Tok and starts to do dances there. Things that are simply so outside the bounds of normal behavior that someone, somewhere, finally sits up and takes notice.

But I’ve been let down by Congress so many times that I honestly don’t think anything of note is going to happen. After a few days of teeth gnashing, things will gradually go back to a Trump Era level of normality.

I would keep an eye on SCOTUS and Trump’s taxes. If Trump faces not only a pandemic and accusations of treason but his taxes being forced to be released as well, then, we may, at last, be going to the show.