Tag: House Trump

Wargaming A Trump Coup


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

We have to start taking Trump’s coup plotting seriously. It seems as though Trump has settled on January 6th as his last effort to blow up the Consutition before he just loses his mind and begins inciting sedition via transactional tweets.

So, let’s game out what Trump’s plot might be. The key thing we have to appricate is Trump has done none of the hard prep work needed to cleanly pull off a coup. At this point, what’s going on is a side-effect of Trump slowly sliding into insanity at the prospect of no longer being president.

On January 6th, it definitely seems as though Trump’s options are limited. At best, he can get the two Houses to debate for 2 hours and potentially rile the whole country up even more than it already is. If the debate grew really heated — which it will — then it’s very possible that Rightwing shithead cocksuckers could flip out and start blowing shit up.

The real issue for me is Mike Pence. I could see Pence simply not doing his job no matter what. He simply will nullify the certification no matter what the outcome of the vote in Congress. It’s my impression that at that point, the certification by states’ governors would be what was relevant and, as such, Trump would lose.

But the real issue is Trump has more than enough time to prime MAGA-Qanon-Patriot Party shithead cocksuckers to strike should things not go their way. There could be significant political violence on or about January 6th, the likes of which we’ve not seen in the modern era.

I’m also nervous that should Pence nullify certification, that Rudy will sue at SCOTUS in a final, last ditch effort to box SCOTUS into a partisan box. Of course, this would not be happening in a vacuum. If things had gotten that far, then America could very well be experiencing rolling political violence that would be marketed as a civil war.

But there’s one thing we have to remember — to date, MAGA cocksucker shitheads have been all talk. Or, they just haven’t reached Brown Shirt or Black Shirt levels of popularity or organization. They may come, but there not there yet.

So, it definitely seems as though Trump is going to lose in Congress after delaying things some. But because of the expectations game Trump has been playing along with his growing instability, it’s possible that Trump will keep going.

He might grow transactional on Twitter in any number of different ways. Everything from telling MAGA to “remind liberals of the power of the Second Amendment” to demanding that Red States call conventions so they can secede. At this point, I have to make the point that I continue to give Trump autocratic and abstract abilities that he simply doesn’t have.

He’s not an autocrat, he’s a ding-dong. He’s a lazy, incompetent ding-dong who has enjoy unprecedented support not matter what he does because he’s an avatar for the rot and rage in the American political system. That he’s waited until the last month of his administration to freak out and suddenly try to be an autocrat is very telling.

Even if America is an autocracy without the autocrat, we still have a pretty strong civil society, so if Trump got what he wanted — a successful coup that at least initially kept him in power — the reaction to such a “political 9/11” would be so quick, so violent that he simply would not be able to STAY in power.

Things would grow very chaotic very quickly and what might happen is something closer to a Glorious Revolution than a Second American Civil War. In other words, a lot of conservatives-who-aren’t-MAGA would, at last, give up on Trump and he simply wouldn’t have the Mandate of Heaven anymore and he would be deposed.

It would not be fun. It would be scary as hell, in fact. The only reason why I just can’t see Trump pulling of a coup the way he wants to is, well, it’s the last month of his administration and he’s losing his mind. So, yes, he can cause a lot of damage and scare the shit out of the entire nation, but in the end, he just hasn’t done the hard work necessary to steal a second term.

Not to say he won’t try. He probably will. And things will probably get violent. But, again, this is December 2020, not October 2020. What’s happening right now says more about Trump’s sense of self-preservation than it does anything about his political acumen as a would-be autocrat.

So, in the end, it definitely seems as though Trump is going to get his coup, then get deposed. And that’s the best case scenario for him. Worst case scenario is he totally loses his mind, holds up in the White House and has his Downfall in the White House Situation Room.

Trump’s Potential ‘Hard Coup’


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It definitely seems as though Trump is plotting some sort of coup. But I struggle to figure out how, exactly, he plans to pull it off. He would need some sort of military force. And the U.S. Military simply isn’t going to follow an illegal order.

So, in a sense, we’re careening towards an extremely dangerous moment in our nation’s history because president ding-dong may be so unmoored from reality that he gets so wrapped up in his need for self-preservation that he doesn’t think things through and causes a massive crisis.

The key thing is — Trump hasn’t done the hard work of prepping the way for any type of coup, be it hard or soft. But if he’s thinking purely in terms of self-preservation and not politics, he could strike out of desperation. That, in itself, would be a massive self-own that would destroy him politically and really be a very surreal — and ironic — end to the Trump Era.

All I can think of is Trump’s conspiring with his Congressional idiots to somehow use him going transactional on Twitter in conjunction with them causing problems in Congress when the Electoral College vote is certified on January 6th. That’s all I got. If Trump made some sort of appeal to MAGA to do his bidding then maybe they think they will have a chance to intemidate Congress into doing their bidding when they have to make the decision to certify the Electoral College vote? Maybe?

And, yet, I don’t see how even they would think that was enough. The U.S. Military won’t follow an illegal order and even if there was some sort of Good Old Boy putsch attempt it would not end well. As I keep saying — Trump simply has not done the hard work of being an autocrat.

He had four years to think up different ways to stay in power that could have very well worked, but he was so busy playing golf that he let a whole slew of opportunities slip through his fingers.

He has a month left in office and if he went full gotterdammerung he wouldn’t have the thin veneer of legality he would otherwise need to go full autocrat and never leave office. As I’ve said before, we’re now an autocracy without an autocrat.

If Trump was an autocrat instead of just a ding-dong, many of the conditions necessary for him to pull of a hard or soft coup are there. But he’s simply too lazy and incompetent to be an autocrat. But as I’ve also said before, the real danger is the difference between when Trump goes purely bonkers and when Moscow Mitch notices that Trump isn’t thinking about politics anymore.

Given that Trump has less than a month remaining in office, Moscow Mitch’s first inclination would be simply to wait things out. So, whatever extra-legal thing Trump is cooking up would have to be pretty severe to even catch Moscow Mitch’s attention.

But I have to say — it would be one of the most ironic events in American history if in the end, after five years of terrorizing Republicans, Trump destroys himself politically in a failed attempt to stage a coup. I’m also growing nervous that the end game for Trump may be a lot like the endgame for Hitler.

And that is how, in the end, Trump destroys the United States.

Release The Kraken? Be Careful What You Wish For, Sydney Powell


By Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

There’s talk that Trump may, at the behest of Sydney Powell, sign an executive order seizing voting machines to “look for signs of fraud.” While I guess for a lot of MAGA shithead cocksuckers that would be a good thing, it might be a pretty massive self-own on Trump’s part.

I say this because to date, Trump really hasn’t, in any concrete way, done anything autocratic. He has plenty of autocratic impulses and “cruelty is the point” for most of his policies, but he’s yet to do anything that conservatives-who-aren’t-MAGA can’t dismiss as just liberals having Trump Derangement Syndrome.

But once Trump starts down the path to autocracy, especially at this late date in his administration, it might be just a little bit more difficult for people who love Trump’s policies, his young hack MAGA judges and his tax cuts to be able to defend him. It won’t be impossible — they’ll likely just wave their hand and say he’ll be out of office soon enough, why are we even talking about this, but there’s a risk that he could get REALLY BAD, REALLY QUICK.

If he begins to see things in strictly terms of self-preservation, then the usual political considerations won’t apply. And the real danger will be the time between when Trump stops worrying about any political consideration and when Moscow Mitch notices this.

We could careen into a massive clusterfuck for no other reason than everyone is too busy celebrating the holidays and assuming Trump will leave office in about a month to notice that Trump has completely fucking lost his mind and has no intention of going anywhere without a fight.

I’m wrong all the time. I have no idea what is going to happen. But the prospect of Trump going “full autocrat” with one month left his term is unnerving, to say the least.

#ETTD: Republicans May At Last Say, ‘He’s Gotta Go’


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The thing about Trump is he has such an absolute control over the Republican base that he could have become an autocrat in the traditional sense, but didn’t because he’s just a ding-dong. And I’m hearing a lot of people on Twitter suggest that Trump is the precursor to the rise of an autocrat who would finish the job Trump began.

We’re living in a Stephen King novel.

I generally agree with that sentiment, but for one thing — what if Trump between now and January 20th grows so unmoored from reality that he, at last becomes a liability to the Republican establishment in such a way that they at last turn their back on him, that they at last say, “He’s gotta go.”

What would that even look like?

Well, it seems to me that this would not be some sort of liberal fever dream where Rachel Maddow somehow becomes president. No, it would be such an epic crisis that it would scar Americans for a generation. Whatever the crisis was would be, in itself, a “political 9/11.” It would be so bad that the entire ground to a halt and we were given minute-by-minute discussion of events on CNN or MSNBC. And, remember, the 25th Amendment is a dead letter. It just doesn’t exist in any practical fashion, so we would have to impeach and convict Trump to get rid of him if things got all that bad.

For Republicans to finally, finally, finally, finally, finally, FINALLY, cut ties with Trump, it would have to be existential. Like, maybe he starts a war with the DPRK and we all think we’re going to die from a limited nuclear exchange with them. Something that big.

Or, put another way, Trump would have to become so wrapped up in staying in office that he totally and completely gave up any prospect of running for office again in 2024. The reason is — Mitch McConnell is a creature of power politics. For him to become interested in some sort of snap Impeachment that led to conviction, he would have to think the very existence of the United States was seriously at risk.

I have my doubts that even Trump doing crazy things like whipping his cock out or tweeting the n-word to Obama would be enough for #MoscowMtich. Trump has just over a month left in office, so #MoscowMitch would simply shrug and wait things out.

So, whatever Trump did would have to be REALLY BAD. So bad that it would be mentioned in the same breath as Watergate AND 9/11. And, honestly, the only thing I can think of is a war of some sort. And while Iran is the most obvious target of such a war (Mike Pompeo thinks Trump is the anti-Christ and would force Jesus to come back if such a war started) it definitely seems some sort of an attack on the DPRK would fit the bill much better for Trump.

The reason is — if Trump was completely insane, he might see a major regional war in Northeast Asia as such a massive distraction that he could pull a Constitutional fast one on us. Though, to be fair, the US Military — unlike the American public — can walk and chew gum and the same time so they would get rid of him. But Trump is growing so crazy that it’s at least possible he might want to risk such a gambit.

And, honestly, the only thing that may be stopping him now is he’s not a political genius and he likes Kim Jung-Un on a personal level too much. It just would never occur to him to do such a thing. He’s really not very smart.

It’s therefore possible that Trump will do everything in his power to destroy as much of the government as possible on his way out — maybe even thrash about in some sort of coup that goes nowhere — and in the end he just won’t leave the White House. And that will be the extent of these last few surreal days.

The ‘Patriot Party’ As Existential Threat To The Republic


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

For the moment, The Patriot Party is more an expression of MAGA frustration that the person they thought would murder American democracy — Donald Trump — was less Hitler and more Chauncy Gardner than anything else.

What MAGA-Qanon-Patriot Party cucksucker shitheads want is, essentially, an American Nazi Party. They want a party that is so absolute in its fidelity to the Dear Leader that any member with any power will break the law rather than let anyone but a member of The Patriot Party take power.

That’s why Trump’s ding-dong “soft coup” to date hasn’t been successful. Republicans still have just enough respect for the rule of law that even if Trump attempts to get them murdered, they stand up to him. The Patriot Party would work hand-in-glove with Trump or whatever American Nazi who happens to pop up in the next few years.

So, in the guise of The Patriot Party, MAGA feels they would get what they haven’t gotten from the Republican Party to date: such absolute partisan allegiance to the autocrat that they destroy American democracy.

But for the moment, this is just a vague inclination among MAGA. It would take Trump joining The Patriot Party for it to really take. Or something. The Republican Party make simply turn into the Patriot Party before it’s over with. Or maybe American democracy will again limp along as the Republican Party implodes for an election cycle.

While we’re in a very dangerous place politically right now in America, unless some sort of “political 9/11” happens, the frustrations of MAGA will remain just that for a few more years.

The Strange Case Of Everyone Wanting A Second American Civil War


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

This blog gets very few hits, but I’m getting a growing amount of traffic from people obviously interested in my dystopian hellscape scenarios about some sort of Second American Civil War.

What gives?

Well, this seems to be a pretty complex question. Some of this comes from a number of macro political trends coming to a head at the same time. The rot in the American political system — exemplified by rise of Donald Trump — is so bad that growing number of MAGA-Qanon-Patriot Party cocksucker shitheads on an abstract level want the opportunity to murder “libtards” in cold blood.

The question, of course, is why.

I think some of it comes from the absence of something — Trump actually being an autocrat. When MAGA-Qanon-Patriot Party cocksucker shitheads voted for Trump in the first place, they thought they were getting the guy from The Apprentice. They thought he would be an autocrat who would destroy American democracy once and for all and put globalist cucks in their place.

Alas, as has been proven repeatedly over the last five-odd years, Trump is NOT an autocrat in the traditional sense. Trump has autocratic impulses and he has a lot of power by just, well, being himself, but he’s not a leader and he’s really just a lazy, incompetent ding-dong. If you want my proof — all I have to do is point out that had Trump struck in an autocratic fashion right before or right after the election, he probably would be cruising into a stolen second term. What’s more, there probably would be a civil war or secessionist crisis because at that point, Blue States would be so upset that they would leave the Union. This would give Trump the legal cover to take over Blue States, reconstruct them in his own image and give the MAGA-Qanon-Patriot Party cocksucker shitheads the autocracy they so crave.

But, guess what! Trump’s an idiot. A lazy idiot.

So, while Trump is an avatar for the rot of the American political system, he doesn’t have something that Hitler had — an actual willingness to force the matter as necessary when politics got in the way. It’s because of that absence of focus on Trump’s part that I have come up with all these pretty simple ways Trump could stay in office as long as he wanted….only to have him not do any of them because, well, he’s a ding-dong and not an autocrat.

And I think that’s the source of a lot of people who come to the site’s curiosity — they know a martial law, secession and civil war SHOULD be happening right now….but it’s not. And they can’t figure out what happened. They’re so busy sucking Trump’s cock and fucking their guns that they don’t realize that Trump simply isn’t the autocrat they wanted.

This is not to say that such an autocrat won’t arise. There are about a half dozen people waiting in the wings to complete the process Trump has started. The ironic thing is, Trump is such an idiot and wants all the power but none of the responsibility that for the time being, he’s freezing out Tom Cotton or Mike Pompeo or whomever from becoming president in 2024 and doing all the things that MAGA-Qanon-Patriot Party cocksucker shitheads believe should be happening NOW.

It’s still possible that Trump is going to lose his fucking mind and somehow start a civil war. But the thing that MAGA-Qanon-Patriot Party cocksucker shitheads don’t realize is they don’t actually live in Russia. Trump can’t just tweet that we’re under martial law and good old boys can now start murdering liberals Purge style without any consquences.

There would have to be some reason, some catalyst for martial law to be declared and Trump has waited so long that if he did try to take “total control” at this point, first the U.S. Military would ignore him and second soon enough Joe Biden would be legally POTUS and, well, fuck you, you fucking cocksucker shitheads.

So, it’s still possible a civil war could break out any moment (I guess.) But it’s just not going to happen the way MAGA-Qanon-Patriot Party cocksucker shitheads think it would.

More likely, this is the beginning of a process that will lead to a civil war at some point between now and, say, 2025. But I can’t predict the future. Who knows.

The Upcoming Jan. 6th Congressional Electoral College Certification Shenanigans


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I don’t know what to make about this one. A lot of MAGA Twitter has pinned its hopes on January 6th now. They believe that all their problems will go away when Congress refuses to seat Electors they don’t like. Trump will win the election that way and MAGA can go back to putting kids in cages and owning libs who say “fuck.”

But there are some serious, serious, SERIOUS problems with this.

So, here’s what will happen under the best of circumstances for MAGA shithead cocksuckers. Someone from the House and someone from the Senate contests a slate of Electors.

The two Houses go back to their individual chambers and debate for two hours. At the end of the two hours, they vote with a simple majority winning. Here’s where MAGA dreams of four more years run into a brick wall.

Not only do Democrats have a solid majority in the House, but the Republican leadership in the Senate is actively opposed to such a ding-dong move. So, there are several reasons why all of this is damaging and disturbing.

The first is, it forces the Republicans to AGAIN be on the record about wanting to overthrow the election. Or, put another way, while will likely help a lot of the more insane MAGA Republicans with the base, the fact that the more moderate Republicans have to make a decision that is recorded is not great.

The next is an expectations game.

As we grow closer to January 6th, Trump is going to AGAIN put all his eggs in a basket that is going to break. He’s going to lose, but his followers who are willfully ignorant at this point, at least have the prospect that they MIGHT win — despite the fact that they definitely won’t — as way to “own the libs” a few more days.

It also again lets the know who is with them and who isn’t. This time, Senate Republicans will get roped into this seditious clusterfuck.

And, lastly, there’s a good chance that once Trump loses this final attempt to overturn the election, he will snap in some way and go transactional on Twitter. This, combined with the deflated nature of MAGA at that point, will lead to either some sort of snap secessionist crisis (because Trump is ranting about this on Twitter now) or just rolling political violence because, you guessed it, Trump has gone transactional on Twitter and is “joking” about the need for MAGA to remind people of the power of the 2nd Amendment.

But let me remind you of something — I, and many other people (Maggie Haberman) greatly overestimate Trump’s practical political acumen. In fact, he’s just a lazy, incompetent ding-dong. Any political violence or secessionist crisis or civil war that happens will be stuff that would have happened anyway, he just is the avatar for the specific set of events.

Gen. Mike Flynn’s Sedition Crazy Train Express


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

So. General Mike Flynn. His latest suggestion is Trump order the U.S. Military to force “redo” elections in various states he lost. This is dumb, dangerous and problematic for number of reasons.

Now that the Electors have voted, I just don’t see how Trump could order the U.S. Military to do such a thing. To call Flynn’s suggestion a pipedream is to give pipedreams a bad name.

But what he suggests does give us some sense of what a dangerous period in American history we’re in. There are people on the Far Right who are so wrapped up in MAGA that they have completely lost sight of what’s going on. Their devotion to Trump is so absolute and so disconnected to reality that it’s nothing more than a political grunt.

Trump good. Liberals bad.

That’s it. That’s all they got.

Flynn — who I think is Trump’s Russian handler — is telegraphing to Trump want the Russians want Trump to do in the name of destroying the country. But what may be really going on is an expectations game.

The Russians through Flynn hope that if MAGA expectations are raised enough that when they, at last, have the Great Disappointment, that they’ll start murdering people and blowing shit up. It seems as though such a “Great Disappointment” might happen sometime between January 6th and January 20th.

That would be when a number of things align — Trump may go transactional in his craziness and MAGA people will finally flip the fuck out because there’s simply no way for Trump to win….or “not lose.” But, again, I struggle to imagine any situation where there’s a secession crisis.

And if there was, it would only be Mountain states with small populations and no black people. Such a secessionist crisis would definitely give good old boys in the old CSA political boners, but, alas, black people in the South are simply never, ever going to sit back and let a bunch of Cooters bring back the CSA.

You thought the fight over Confederate statutes was bad — just wait until the battle is about Neo-Confederacy!

So, fucking cocksucker shithead Neo-Confederates can stroke one out to the “South Shall Rise Again” all they want to, but the Dear Leader totally bungled this situation. He has waited to late. And not even January 6 shenanigans will save them.

Of ‘The Patriot Party’


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

In a sense, the Republican Party is down low imploding. On one end of the spectrum, you have conservative NeverTrumpers openly talking about starting their own party. Meanwhile, MAGA hates the Republican Party so much that it wants to start its own “Patriot Party.”

It seems to me that the Patriot Party is more about the fire next time than it is anything going on right now. The goal of a “Patriot Party” would be that it would be an honest-to-God fascist party that would completely ignore any law or norm that got in the way of them obtaining and maintaining power.

But there’s an immediate problem with this. One is, if you slice the MAGA base from the Republican Party, then the rump Republican Party is far more likely to snap back to some semblance of being a “normal” party again.

At least for one election cycle.

The long-term consequences of a Patriot Party would be the United States would finally turn into the autocracy that MAGA wants it to be — and it would be, but for Trump being a total ding-dong and not an autocrat.

So, I guess in a sense, what I thought would happen — a civil war now, has just been punted down the road to sometime between 2023 and 2025. Or not. Trump could still lose his fucking mind and go transactional on Twitter between now and January 20 and somehow cause the United States to buckle into severe political violence.

All I can say is — fuck you, MAGA, you fucking cocksuckers.

A Second American Civil War Is Coming…But….


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The United States politically is running on fumes. And, all things being equal, we’re on the cusp of a civil war. But. There’s a big difference between MAGA wanting to murder liberals in cold blood in the abstract and actually doing it. And, now that Trump blew his golden opportunity to drive Blue States out of the Union, we’re in a very murky situation indeed.

Several different things are happening at the same time. Time is running out for Trump to such an extent that even if he started to actively goad Blue States to secede in some way, all Blue States have to do is wait out the clock. On January 20th, that’s it — Biden becomes POTUS and Trump’s best case is to fly to Alabama and try to get Red States to leave the Union en mass.

Now, I’m aware of the Jan 6th shenanigans that Republicans want to pull, but that gambit is extremely quixotic. Republicans don’t control the House and the Senate leadership has made it clear they’re not interested in anyone voting to replace Electors.

As such, again, in the abstract MAGA really wants to start killing liberals on the field of battle….but a civil war doesn’t just happen magically. You would need troops, a government, you name it. As it stands, MAGA are just sore losers who are triggered because they got their fee-fees hurt.

So, in that sense, the case could be made that we’re on the very edge of the beginning of a process that will ultimately lead to some sort of secession crisis. What MAGA is doing is significantly more serious than what happened in 2016 and we can only assume that the 2024 election situation will be even MORE serious than this 2020.

The crux of the issue is that because of existential problems in our political system, the United States is two different nations that are receding from each other at an alarming rate. On an abstract level, MAGA’s dream of America is my nightmare and vis-versa. MAGA wants a fascist white ethno state that is pretty much a clone of Russia. Or, to put it another, more poetic way, to “make America great again,” they want 1950s America with wifi and Disney+.

It’s still very possible that if there was some sort of political 9/11 that a civil war would break out in the United States sooner rather than later, and, yet, as I keep writing — Blue States are in a far better position than Red States to the point that Red States wanting a civil war is rather foolish in the extreme.

All I can figure out is Red State MAGA people are looking at what’s going on politically and assuming they could make short work of Blue State people for various reasons — including MAGA is a bunch of racist, misogynistic cocksucking fuck who are so wrapped up in their love of the Dear Leader that they have deluded themselves into thinking they can somehow just leave the Union without African Americans picking up arms to destroy them.

When it comes to a near-term civil war in the United States, it will be because Trump snaps at some point and goes transactional Twitter. But even then, it might be rolling political violence instead of an actual civil war. And, remember, Biden is going to become POTUS on January 20th, so, again, it grows very difficult for Trump to push Blue States out of the Union then turn around and take them over via some sort of MAGA Reconstruction.

Again — one can only conclude that while a Second American Civil War is likely to happen between now and, say, 2025-ish, for the time being we’ve been spared that tragedy. And if we aren’t, it will be specifically because Trump finally loses his fucking mind.