Tag: House Trump

10 Days That May Shake The World


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

So, here we are, on the evening of January 6th, not knowing what’s going to happen. As I’ve said before, America is running on fumes politically and the two sides have hardened their positions enough that just the barest of additional stress on the system would likely make the whole thing collapse.

And by collapse, I mean significant political violence in the United States.

But, for the moment, let’s imagine we somehow defeat the January 6th coup. This is when things REALLY get bumpy. The moment Biden’s victory is certified, Trump may really fucking snap.

It is between, say, Jan 10 (final certification if Republicans push the issue) and January 20th that Trump’s already fragile mental state could grow so perilous that he explodes. He becomes a very conspicuous caged rat who would rather destroy the nation than risk leaving office for various reasons.

He would “destroy” things in a number of ways. He could foment some sort of secessionist crisis. He could start really firing people en mass. He could frogwalk Joe Biden. He could start a war or wars. And, worst of all, he could finally implode into extreme passive-aggressiveness.

If that happens, then Trump could very well scare the ever-living shit out of the entire world as he begins to ramble on Twitter about how “liberals want me to kill myself” or “no one appreciates the power I have when it comes to nuclear weapons.”

Now, even then, I have my doubts as to would anything happen. At least at first. If Trump really went that bonkers, the first thing that would happen would be Republicans would say he was “joking” or that somehow there was some misunderstanding of what he said.

It’s when it became absolutely, 100% clear that that was not the case….then THAT would be when some extremely surreal events would happen very, very quickly.

But the one constant about Trump is you just never can tell. He could more implode than explode mentally and we just kind of drift into the Biden Era, no big deal.

Josh Hawley — America’s Would-Be ‘Young Putin’


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I thought it was going to be Tom Cotton who murdered American democracy, but, surprise, it’s Josh Hawley who probably is going to get the honor. Traditional American liberal democracy is on life support and it’s probably going to be Hawley who ultimately pulls the plug.

The scenario I could see happening is Ivanka Trump becomes a senator from Florida, she dukes it out with Hawley in the 2024 primary and he ultimately becomes her Veep. They get elected — one way or another — and together they play the part of a fascist velvet fist.

Ivanka would just be the figure head, while Hawley would be the real power behind the throne. This would be similar to the situation in Russia where Putin kept bouncing back and forth between president and premier, never really leaving office. Under this scenario, Hawley would have the potential of being in office 16 years and maybe even more once he really gets into consolidating power and rams through his own Constitutional Convention.

The thing we have to come to grips with is autocracy is actually fairly popular in the United States. Trump was elected because people thought he was going to be an autocrat. In fact, the famous quip about Trump is his governing style is “malevolence only tempered by incompetence.” So, Hawley would just be regular old malevolence, which is what a sizable passionate and organized portion of the electorate wants because they’re afraid of the browning of America and women with sexual agency.

In my mind, this is all but a done deal, but for one thing — Trump.

Trump is such a wild card because of his mental instability and growing freak out about leaving office, that as I keep saying, it’s possible that he might self-own in such a spectacular fashion in the last few days of his time in office that it’s something of a “political 9/11” that so scars people that we actually punt our decline into autocracy for a generation.

But it’s not going to be a liberal fever dream. We’ll all going to get the shit scared out of us when it happens — we may not make it out alive.

The Guns Of January: The Current State Of Political Affairs In The United States Is Untenable


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Something is going to happen. The United States is running on political fumes right now and if history is any guide, someone, somewhere is going to put unexpected stress on the system. It’s almost inevitable at this point.

Or, put another way, while we could very well punt this particular macro crisis in the United States down the road four years, the lines have hardened to such an extent that something that otherwise would not really be a big deal, might spark a sequence of events with no discernable endgame.

I would compare it to Europe mid-1914 right before the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand. Europe was a power keg that just needed a spark to explode — and that spark came. The United States is the same way. But, let me be clear to all the MAGA-Patriot Party shithead cocksuckers who think there’s going to be some sort of conservative “revolution” if the Dear Leader doesn’t stay in power for the rest of his life.

There won’t be a conservative revolution.

This.
Is
Not
Going
To
Happen

There’s not going to be a revolution. You may want to fuck your gun, but you’re not going to have a “revolution.” I don’t know why so many fucking idiots in Texas come to this site looking for my dystopian porn about the end of the United States. Fuck you, you idiots.

I will admit that Trump may TRY to stoke civil undress in a big way in the latter days of his administration in a last-ditch effort to stay in power, but, no, there’s not going to be any sort of conservative “revolution” by so-called “patriots” who want lower taxes and “freedom” from fear of being “canceled” when they’re a dick to women or minorities and get caught.

It’s all very frustrating.

When I talk about a “Glorious Revolution” in the United States, I’m NOT TALKING ABOUT A TURNER DIARIES RACE-WAR REVOLUTION YOU FUCKING IDIOTS. I’m talking about Trump, in a spasm of extra-political and extra-legal acts, being overthrown because, well, everyone who isn’t MAGA finally gets tired of his shit an hits the streets, maybe even up to the point of there being a General Strike.

There may be some serious counter-revolution style civil unrest in the United States, but I see that happening more in four years than now. The far Right, while full of abstract hate and rage against “libtards,” simply isn’t well organized yet. They need to marinate in their hate a few more years before they reach SA / SS levels of hate.

If Trump just freaks out at some point between now and January 20th and declares martial law unliterally or starts a war in an effort to “wag the dog” so he can pull a Constitutional fast one on us, he’s not going to be successful. He is going to seriously scare the shit out of us, but he’s not going to be successful. He just isn’t well organized mentally to pull it off.

So, yes, all the elements are there for significant political violence in the United States any moment now. But it will happen in the context of the Mad King being fucking bonkers, not some sort of Right wing revolution where we all sing kumbha over the broiling bodies of liberals. So, fuck you, you fucking cocksucker MAGA shitheads.

We’re In A Severe Constitutional Crisis


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

As someone smarter than me said on Twitter, “Post-factual is pre-fascist.” So, the next few days will be crucial in deciding the fate of the United States. The reason why I say that is Republicans are beginning to pull some pretty spectacular scenarios out of their asses in an absolute last-gasp effort to keep Trump in office.

The latest scenario is the creation of the bullshit commission that Ted “Born In Canada” Cruz has suggested would delay the certification 10 days so Republicans can have a lot more time for mischief. Even thought the Electoral Count Act exists to prevent a replay of the 1876 situation, that Cruz is even suggesting such a thing indicates we’re now in a significant Constitutional Crisis.

The biggest reason is it seems pretty obvious that while Ted Cruz and other seditious members of Congress are playing politics, Trump is pretty much thinking only in terms of self-preservation. The disconnect between these two mindsets has otherwise normal people playing into the hands of a madman. Trump just wants to stay in power, no matter what (for various reasons) and, as such, he has thought no further than simply “I don’t want to leave office.”

A lot of people on the Republican side involved in this clusterfuck who should know better are playing along because they don’t want Mad King Trump to demand they be primaried in 2022 or 2024. So, they, too, aren’t really thinking beyond the short-term goal of sucking up to Trump and not making him mad. They really haven’t given any thought to what happens if they pull this stunt off? They don’t think they will and so they see no downside in going as far as possible with Trump’s bullshit.

So it’s up to people like me to think about what happens if they “catch the car.” Well, as I keep saying, it would be a “political 9/11.” But even then, the whole thing would be problematic for House Trump for a number of reasons. This is Trump we’re talking about and he is a massive self-own artist. He’s already self-owned in a massive way by not doing his autocrat “homework” of stealing the election outright in a way that would otherwise give him necessary façade of legality that would allow him to consolidate power in his second term.

He’s not an autocrat, he’s just a deranged idiot who was nothing more than an avatar for the rot and rage in the American political system. That’s it. He has zero leadership skills, so he wasn’t even able to do the bare minimum necessary to “not lose” the 2020 election when the time came.

So, here we are.

Now we have a number of different potentially pretty bad scenarios ahead of us. Trump could essentially stage a coup via the “Pence Card” gambit that would, in effect, be supported by about 38% of the electorate. All things being equal, that’s probably enough for him to stay in power. But I keep thinking about how American civil society would process such an event. Sort of a, “how do you explain it to the kids” kind of thing.

People on Twitter talk a good talk about what they might do if a Pence Card Gambit coup took place, but I have my doubts. It could be that there’s significant grumbling, but since Trump would have at least a thin veneer of legality that he would get away with it.

That would break the back of American democracy once and for all and House Trump would formally be founded. But for the moment, there’s no end game. That’s why we’re in a crisis. Any number of different things might happen in the end.

The Abstract Rage Of Rep. Louie Gohmert


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Let’s look at what’s going on with Rep. Louie Gohmert’s lawsuit against Mike Pence of all people. It seems to me there are a few reasons — in his mind — for the lawsuit.

  1. Catch Pence’s Attention
    Gohmert’s suit is about, in part, simply catching Pence’s attention and reminding him of what he might be able to do if he was so inclined. While Pence could be a dick and throw the nation into chaos, up until fairly recently, he was a pretty traditional — if far Right — politician. So, for him to do something crazy on January 6th would at least appear to be out of character.
  2. Remind Pence of his Duty
    By bringing attention to what Pence’s responsibilities are, Gohmert is attempting to put pressure on Pence to fuck things up. Again, Pence came up through the ranks as a pretty “normal” politician, so it would really be wild for him to do what Gohmert and others want.
  3. Make Everyone Talk About What Pence Could Do
    Another aspect to the suit is to get everyone talking about what Pence may — or may not — do when the opportunities arises. This is where the suit has been the most successful, by far — I mean, I’m talking about it right now.

    Now, let’s talk about how bonkers all of this is to begin with. Gohmert is definitely ahead of the curve in the whole fascist take over of America. And, if he would just fucking be patient, he would definitely get what he wanted. America is a center-Right nation and obviously had Trump in 2016 been the “guy from The Apprentice” then we would be an autocratic, managed democracy right now. Our democracy would, at last, be dead and we would just have House Trump in power for the foreseeable future.

    But there’s a problem — Trump.

    Trump is just a very lucky ding-dong — and now a very lucky DERANGED ding-dong — and so it’s possible that Trump could do something so fucking insane between now and January 20th that we don’t just punt Gohmert’s fascist dreams down the road one election cycle, but for a generation.

    I don’t know. Everything is still very much up in the air. Not until around January 6th will we have a better understanding of what, if anything, is going to happen with all of this.

The Narrative For A Trump Coup Attempt


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

A Twitter thread by Bill Kristol finally gives me a handle on what Trump might do between now and, say, January 7th. It goes something like this.

The anniversary of the Soleimani assassination is Jan 3rd. It’s easy to imagine a situation where there’s some significant attack against Israeli and American interests in the Middle-East and Trump uses that to escalate things on the eve of the January 6th vote by Congress to certify the vote. That makes Trump a “war president.”

Next, the Proud Boys in D.C. for the Congressional certification freak the fuck out and start blowing shit up to the extent necessary to give Trump the excuse to use the Insurrection Act in D.C. In that context, he does something extra-political or extra-legal by pretty much just waving his hands about the details and doing something so he “wins” the election when Congress discusses the issue.

This would be a massive clusterfuck and I honestly don’t see how Trump would be successful. But such a sequence of events could, in itself, be the “political 9/11” I’ve been worried about and lead to a secession crisis and subsequent civil war.

It’s Almost Inevitable At This Point That Trump Pardons Himself


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

There’s a very specific reason why I believe Trump is going to pardon himself at some point before January 20th — the conversations on the codeword classified servers.

Trump is such a fucking idiot — an a paranoid one at that — that it’s easy to imagine a situation where he panics at the thought of anyone not beholden to him seeing whatever it is he told Putin — and others — on those transcripts. So just before he legally leaves office — on way or another — he pardons himself knowing Pence is unlikely to do it for him.

Now, Trump pardoning himself will be a curious situation. In hindsight, there is some merit to the MAGA people who saw my fears about Trump as entirely abstract. Outside of a few real dick moves, Trump hasn’t really a lot of the tyrannical things I — and people like me — have feared. He’s just a big old ding-dong, not an autocrat.

But for him to pardon himself would be next level. It would be something concrete that people like me could point to and say, “That’s the mark of an autocrat.”

I’m well aware that even that would be a lulz in real terms, given that Trump’s about to leave office. But, here’s the rub — it’s still very possible that Trump could go grow so fucking deranged post January 6th that he completely changes the context of his era in the closing days of it.

If Trump pulled something extra-legal or extra-political — like pardoning himself (to name just one thing) then the very people who have poo-pooed the anger of people like myself when it comes to Trump will have to at least confront that he’s done something difficult — but not impossible — to defend.

And, really, if you think about it — Trump pardoning himself is not even as bad as it could get if he really fucking flipped out. I still think Trump might start a war out of the blue against Iran (or the DPRK) or figure out a way to frogwalk Joe Biden (or Obama!) in his final days.

But, really, who knows when it comes to Trump at this point. Anything is possible.

Are We Going To Have A Civil War?


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Short answer: No, probably not right now.
Long Answer: Yes, probably in a few years. Let me explain.

There’s one major issue whenever you try to game out a Second American Civil War and that’s Trump. On one hand, Trump has done everything in his power to destabilize the United States the last five years.

On the other hand — he’s just a ding-dong.

What I mean by that is, he was handed everything necessary to destroy the United States in a one-two punch…and he went golfing. So, for the time being, we’re an autocracy without an autocrat. If Trump really was some sort of American Putin, he would have thought six or seven steps in advance and goaded the Blue States into leaving the Union at some point, so he could destroy them and remake them in his own MAGA image.

But, to date, he’s not do anything like that.

Yet, this has not stopped a lot of people on both the Left and the Right to begin talking outloud about some sort of civil war. On the Right, it seems to be them grasping at abstract straws in desperation. They feel that because of cancel culture and various other faux controversies that they REALLY HATE liberals, so a civil war is the worst thing they can think up in that line of thought. But, to date, their rage against “libtards” has been exclusively been abstract. They just hate liberals, but don’t really have any concrete, specific things they are going to do to them in the real world.

So, for the time being, because we’re an autocracy without an autocrat, we’re going to be in a very surreal situation where all the conditions are there for a civil war of some sort…and nothing happens. We will drift for about two years then gradually things will reach a crescendo around 2023 – 2025 and some sort of secession crisis will happen and that will be that.

It seems as though because Trump is NOT the guy from The Apprentice in real life, that we’re going to punt this particular problem down the road a few years.

And, yet.

This is Trump we’re talking about.

So, it’s within the realm of possibility that starting around January 6th , Trump’s sense of self-preservation will grow so much stronger than any political considerations that he will attempt something extra-political or extra-legal and that, in itself, will be such a massive clusterfuck that Trump will destroy himself politically and redefine the entire Trump Era.

That, in itself, will punt America’s lurch into autocracy down the road not just one presidential cycle, but a generation. Just about then, of course, the youngest of the Baby Boomers will be dying off at last and so, who knows. But remember, this is not going to be some sort of liberal fever dream — for this to happen, it would need to be a “political 9/11” whereby Trump scares the shit out of all of us and takes a political pound of flesh.

Anyway. I can’t predict the future.

The Value Free Trump Era


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

In the end, what will decide Trump’s fate will be, as always, Trump. If he can just behave for a few more weeks, he’s going to get away scot free with everything he’s done. Everything. There simply will be no political will do do anything about any of his crimes.

What’s more, he will be in a position to not only be a king maker in Republican Politics for the rest of his life, but come roaring back in 2024. There may even be talk of naming him Speaker of the House in 2023 when Republicans take over again.

But.

Trump is not the political genius that everyone –including me — has thought he was over the years. His actual political ability is little more than a grunt. While he is an avatar for the rot and rage in the American political system, that’s all he is. He doesn’t have any innate political leadership ability. So he pretty much just thrashes around, destroying things and being corrupt without any overall strategy.

As I’ve said before, we live in an autocracy without the autocrat. The only thing stopping the United States from being a Russian-style autocracy at this point is Donald Trump. That’s it. If there was virtually anyone else in his position right now, we would be an autocracy.

The most surreal point of all of this is Trump isn’t going to behave. He probably is going to do some dumb self-own move that redefines his era to such an extent that he destroys himself politically. Whatever extra-political or extra-legal thing he attempts, may finally, at last, give us the political will to do something about the Trump cancer.

But it will come at a cost.

He’s likely to extract a pound of political flesh from us along the way. It could be a war, or him going transactional on Twitter. Nothing is off the table. So, it’s not going to be some sort of liberal fever dream where Rachel Maddow becomes president.

Nope, it’s going to suck.

The Trump Era Can Be Value Free If Trump Just Behaves Himself


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Because Republicans have no shame, all Trump has to do to be in a decent position to make a come back in 2024 is simply behave. He just has to still keep political considerations in mind between now and January 20th. If he can just do that, he probably will remain a Republican Party king maker for at least a decade to come.

Yet, as we know, Trump is a willful child.

So, it’s fairly possible that Trump is going to attempt something extra-political or extra-legal in a desperate attempt to stay in office. He could do something so bad that for a bright, shining moment a lot of America will, at last, be on the same page about Trump: he’s gotta go.

I honestly don’t know what exactly he might do. But one thing is clear — it’s not like Trump has hidden his slide into insanity. He’s been quite open about it. He’s bonkers and there’s a decent chance that he’ll do something in the last few days (hours?) of his administration that redefines the whole five year experiment in political terror.

What, exactly, it might be, I don’t know.

But whatever it is, he will be doing it from a position of weakness. And there’s still a decent chance that after January 6th, he won’t have any hope anymore and he’ll finally flip the fuck out in a pretty massive fashion. He could grow extremely passive aggressive on Twitter. Or he could grow transactional.

Anything’s possible when someone’s lost their mind.

I guess only time will tell.