Tag: Autocrats Never Lose

Trans Rights Is Such A Political Clusterfuck

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Two things can be true at the same time. The “woke cancel culture mob” HAS been a little bit too touchy about certain elements of the Trans movement — especially the whole “protect trans kids” AND Trump is demagoguing the whole thing because the base demands it.

The MAGA base has a surreal fixation on Trans people to an absurd degree. Some of this comes, I think, from how they know the whole thing (especially the nearly-non existant “Trans kids”) is kind of the political clit of the woke Left.

Now, some context.

Just in the last few days it’s hit home that I have a vested interest in assuring Trans peoples some level of dignity — the moment MAGA rounds up Trans people and puts them in camps, guess who’s next: ME. And people like me.

So, as a member of the kook community, I really am growing nervous about my fate as it is grow more and more clear how dire things are growing for Trans people. I just don’t see how this doesn’t end with Trans people in camps. Maybe it will be the Trans issue that causes the inevitable mission creep for ICE.

Cause, you know that’s going to happen. Form follows function and soon enough ICE is going to become an American SS. They will start to round up any one considered either “an enemy of the state” or unworthy of life.

Now there is something else to consider. As it stands, the USA is in something of a political luminal space. We’re an “anocracy” to be exact. There is going to come a point when we go full-blown autocracy and then, well, all bets are off. The USA in 2025 is not Germany in 1933.

We’re far more diverse, decentralized and have a far stronger traditional of being a liberal democracy.

So, if we go full autocracy, there is going to — finally — be some sort of reaction on the part of Blues. And that’s when things will get messy. Very messy.

And, tragically, many, many people may die for no damn reason other than MAGA bigots are paranoid about the browning of America and a small sliver of the population that is Trans.

Ugh.

The Real Dangerous Element Of The Jimmy Kimmel Imbroglio

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

“You do it to yourself,” the old Radiohead lyric goes and that’s what’s going on with the United States. While, yes, the FCC did pressure Disney into getting rid of Jimmy Kimmel for the time being, it happened in conjunction with something far more insidious.

It was really the ABC affiliates balking continuing to air Kimmel that did him in, over and above the clear threat from the FCC.

As such, it is clear that the United States continues to be a house divided. The two sides continue to rush away from each other at an alarming rate. There is literally a solid 37% of the electorate or so that really, honestly wants my worst nightmare to happen.

They want a white Christian autocratic state and they’ve wanted it since Trump ran in 2016. So, lulz? It definitely seems as though we’re going to slide into autocratic rule for no other reason than Blues simply can not, will not get their act together.

I mean, if we had a proper opposition, there would be calls for a general strike. Or Blues would make life hell for Republicans in Congress to the best of their ability.

But, no. This is it. We’re on cruise control and we’re just going to drift into an autocratic state without even so much as a whimper.

Things Remain Politically Hot

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It’s an example of how we’re living in a “sick, sad world” that one of America’s most cherished ideals — that we’re a free country with freedom of speech — is being consumed by a the martyrdom of Charlie Kirk.

Charlie Kirk

And, yet, it’s not like this happened out of nowhere. The conditions have long been there — at least since the end of the second Obama administration, so, lulz?

The key thing to remember is this is just the beginning of a very dark time in our nation’s history. It’s only going to get worse. A lot worse.

The question for me now is what the endgame is. How bad do things have to get before there is any meaningful reaction against it all by Blues? As it stands, the crazed death-cult surrounding the MAGA martyr Charlie Kirk seems hell bent on consuming any and everything in its path.

At the moment, it seems like we’re going to wake up in a few years and the United States will have gone full Russia. We’re well on our way to that path, at least.

I just don’t know. What happened to Charlie Kirk was a tragedy, but maybe if we just cooled it a little bit we will still have a nation where we have democratic politics instead of tyranny.

I’m At A Loss Over This Jimmy Kimmel Thing

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It definitely seems as though we’re careening towards the type of situation that happened as Putin was consolidating power in the early 2000s: Russia’s vibrant late night TV industry was strangled.

Now, I haven’t actually heard what Jimmy Kimmel joked about in regards to the now-martyred Charlie Kirk, but the fact that Disney is so feckless and weak willed as to pull him off TV “indefinitely” over it is extremely alarming. It shows you that we really are in a new era.

The great irony is, of course, that the very group that bitches and moans about “cancel culture” is now using the very techniques of cancel culture on people they don’t like. I guess you really do become the thing you hate if you are around long enough.

I do think that Kimmel should have maybe paused on joking about anything to do with Charlie Kirk. What happened was tragic and the MAGA Right is so crazed at the moment that every day we don’t have a revenge murder is a blessing.

And we all know that if there is a revenge murder on the part of the Right it’s going to be someone big, someone really big. That’s usually how these fucking dumb tit-for-tat things happen.

Anyway. I wish we could all just calm down. We also can be thankful that Trump hasn’t demanded Enabling Acts be passed by Congress in response to Charlie Kirk’s murder. If Trump was more of a Hitler-like figure, that’s exactly what he would be doing right about now.

As it stands, while a lot of fucked up shit is going to happen in Charlie Kirk’s name, it probably will continue to happen in dribs and drabs.

Charlie Kirk Is A MAGA Martyr — Now What

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I don’t know what to tell you folks. Form follows function and MAGA, like Nazism, apparently craves a martyr and now it has one in the guise of Charlie Kirk.

The issue for me is I wish we wouldn’t do so much “who shot John” in regards to the motives of the shooter and just follow wherever the facts took us. But the MAGA Right has an established orthodoxy, an established narrative, and they have the political and media clout to make it the official story.

Ugh.

As I keep saying, the great irony of all of this is MAGA is ascendant. All they have to do is just be fucking patient and they will get the white, autocratic Christian ethnostate they are rabidly desiring.

If they don’t cool their heels for just a few short years, they really risk letting loose centrifugal forces that will tear the country apart. Or, if noting else, cause the two sides to actually go to war to figure out which vision of America will be used going forward.

I still have my doubts about Blues states wanting to leave the Union. That’s not their vibe. But a revolution on the other hand, yeah, maybe. That’s a possibility.

And that’s the crux of the crucial thing that MAGA is obvious to. The USA is not Germany in 1933 and it is not going to be nearly as easy to make America a Nazi state. The country is too diverse, has too strong a tradition of democracy and too decentralized for that to happen very easily.

MAGA is going to have to fight for it.

I’m Worried: ‘Blue Revolution’

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I like to make my abstract fears concrete and after giving it some thought it seems as though here’s one possible scenario for Something Bad happening in the United States in the next few years.

Here’s what could happen — at some point around the 2026 or 2028 Federal elections Trump throws as many Red state National Guard members as he can at Blue state to fuck with free and fair elections. And this would happen in the context of general fuckery against Blue states on Trump’s part.

Someone gets a little too excited and a Molotov Cocktail gets thrown at National Guard unit and they live fire back. This causes a huge rush of uprisings in Blue states and a revolution — not a civil war — starts. I call it a revolution because the point would not be to leave the Union, but to topple Trump’s regime.

Weird propaganda from Twitter.

I do not want this to happen — I hate violence of any sorts, but it’s something to take into consideration. In some respects, our politics are so taunt at the moment, that one instance of Trump really fucking with Blues could be enough to ignite something akin to a revolution in Blue states.

Of course, the issue of what would happen to the U.S. Military is something to think about. A lot would depend on how big the attempted revolution was. If the U.S. Military found itself in the position of attacking a united front of Blue states in open rebellion, it could just collapse itself rather than having to do that.

Once that happened, then, of course, WW3 happens and about 1 billion people would die from the effects of a few limited nuclear exchanges — those would be deaths that would happen specifically because of Trump.

Anyway, I don’t really think any of this is going to happen. I think despite all the radical talk on the part of MAGA Republicans that, in the end, they know they’re politically ascendant and that they will get everything they want just by being patient.

No need for a National Divorce, or massive suppression of Blues.

Trans Rights: A Political Firebreak For Kook Rights

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I long said before Roe was overturned that abortion was a political firebreak for birth control in general and I’ve been proven right — the MAGA Right is itching to ban The Pill using any means necessary.

And, so, here we are, after the tragic murder of Charlie Kirk, talking about the place of Trans people in American society. While I have in the past made it clear that I thought the Left was a little bit too touchy about Trans rights, I now have re-evaluated that because, well, once they round up Trans people for being “terrorists” it’s just a brief jaunt to saying all kooks should be round up “for their own safety.”

That’s how tyrannical systems work. They don’t start with camps, but they sure do end with camps.

I just struggle to understand how far things have to go before Blues wake from their slumber and start to go mano-to-mano with the bloodthirsty cocksuckers of MAGA.

Now, this is the point where I say, I’m going to use my right to call MAGA “cocksuckers” as long as I can. I’m well aware that in this new, post Charlie Kirk as martyr era that I’m supposed to keep my head down and nod pleasantly when MAGA people tell me to go to hell.

But, fuck that. I’ve been a loudmouth crank my entire life, why stop now?

Anyway, can’t we all just get along? Can’t we stop going after Trans people just for being different and especially don’t lick our chops about putting kooks like me in a camp for being different as well.

And Now, We Argue Over Facts

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I have at least one MAGA Facebook friend I keep around for various reasons, one of them being to keep tabs on what the current MAGA orthodoxy is. Well, it seems as though the narrative now when it comes to Charlie Kirk’s murderer is that he was a leftist and had a Trans partner.

While I’ve definitely heard those things suggested, I also know that a lot of evidence suggests that the murderer was a “groyper” (far Right) and that the “Trans” person involved not only could be just his roommate, there’s no definitive proof that he’s Trans at all.

But the MAGA Right has it’s “evidence” for what it wants to believe and so, lulz, here we are now, arguing over facts. And I really do fear that Trump is going to do something really weird and dumb because of what he *believes* is true, not what is actually going on.

As I keep saying — I have a vested interest in what happens with Trans people. They’re a firebreak for regular old kooks like me. Once ICE starts to round up Trans people and put them in camps…it doesn’t take much to see that kooks like me will soon join them.

And, as I keep saying, the MAGA Right is ascendant. They are growing in power while Blues continue to be rather blasé about the significance of this. And, again, if Trump was some sort of “great man of history” he would have already used the Kirk murder to send Enabling Acts to Congress to turn us into a full-on tyrannical state.

But Trump is such a lazy doofus that he just rides history and only rarely, like January 6th, actually directly influences it.

I Still Worry MAGA Is Going To Catch The Car When It Comes To Trans People

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I have a very serious vested interest when it comes to the macro safety of Trans people. I think of them as something of a political firebreak between myself and MAGA coming after, well, kooky people like me.

As it stands, MAGA seems to want to blame every fucking thing wrong with the entire world on Trans people. I am the first to admit that the center-Left has done itself no favors by being so touchy about “Trans rights.” But since Charlie Kirk’s murder, I have been feeling a whole lot more empathy for Trans people because of how fucked up MAGA is about them.

What is the goal of MAGA by demonizing Trans people? What’s the endgame? Is it just form follows function and fascists gotta have some group of people to have their 2 minutes of hate dedicated to? The absolute white hot hatred that MAGA has for the tiny sliver of America known as Trans people is just fucking bizarre, surreal.

But, here we are, with MAGA’s hatred for Trans people growing and growing and growing. At some point, ding-dong Trump is going to do something really dumb, which is thing, and THEN things grow dark. I could see him either declaring all Trans people terrorists or putting them in camps “for their own safety.”

Something dumb and ultimately ill-advised like that.

And THEN, gradually, all kooks — including me — will be rounded up by ICE and thrown into the campus with the Trans people and then they put us gas chambers or shoot us in the back of the head.

I really need to sell a novel so I can escape America. Sigh.

Fascism All The Way Down

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The tragic murder of Charlie Kirk may, in future history, be seen as a significant bolt popping off the side of the U.S.S. USA. There will be a before and after and the after could be us heading towards significant, lingering political violence.

At the moment, MAGA is kind of crazed. They have been radicalized by Kirk’s death and the question is, will this radicalization subside or is it the new normal? at the moment, I just don’t know.

One thing I’m really worried about is Trans people. I worry about them because I know once MAGA gets what it wants — to put the poor people in camps and murder them in cold blood — it won’t be too long before MAGA’s attention will turn to regular old kooks like me.

And therein lies something of a historical conundrum.

How far can MAGA push before Blues wake up and fight back? This, I honestly don’t know. Blue leadership is so wane and feckless that it could be that the populace itself has to rise up and take care of matters should Trump go full tyrant. (Not that I’m advocating such a thing.)

The great irony is that, for the time being, we’re being saved by what a fucking lazy doofus Trump is. If Trump really was a Hitler-like character, he definitely would have used Charlie Kirk’s death to strike in a direct way by this point. But, Trump as I keep saying isn’t a “Great Man of History,” but rather simply a symptom of some fucked up macro historical shit going on in the United States at the moment.

I mean, if you think back to 2016, the people who voted for Trump WANTED an autocrat. They wanted him to turn the United States into Russia. That was the whole point! But here we are, in Trump’s second term, and he continues to consolidate power in only dribs and drabs.

Not that Trump hasn’t pretty much ruined the United States for generations to come. He has. He’s like a macro-historical vandal. It will take a generation of things working out just right for us to recover from just these first few months of Trump’s second term.

By the time Trump’s term is over, the USA will probably be unrecognizable. And it’s only going to get worse. I suspect the plan is to turn ICE into the SS and the FBI into the Gestapo. I’m kind of waiting for mission creep to take over ICE and their powers grow significantly. Maybe that will be one of the last signposts before we go full Russia — that something will happen whereby ICE is given significantly more authority to crack skulls than it has now.

Anyway, we’re all fucked. Good luck. You’ll need it.