Tag: Mad King Trump

How Trump Could Start World War 3


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I love me some worst case scenarios and it’s pretty easy to imagine The Darkest Scenario whereby Trump starts World War 3. It goes something like this — Trump successfully boxes Iran into a corner and they strike Israel in some major fashion.

Israel sees this as an existential threat and nukes Tehran. The entire Middle East descends into war. But what, there’s more. Once the taboo of using nuclear weapons is broken a number of the Usual Suspects begin to saber rattle. While India-Pakistan and China-India are obvious, it’s possible that the DPRK might make significant military moves again ROK.

Put this in context — because of Trump’s “love letters” with Kim Jung-un, our problems with the DPRK have evaporated. But once Trump is out of office, the DPRK could come roaring back to the front of our consciousness.

Or, put another way, given how unstable Trump is, it’s not too difficult to imagine something happening in the final weeks of Trump’s time in office that causes him to switch gears with the DPRK in some dramatic fashion.

Remember — the DPRK has the means, motive and opportunity to use city-killer bombs on the United States.

Trump’s Congressional Electoral College Nullification Gambit


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

While I doubt any effort to get Mike Pence to nullify the Electoral College votes in Congress will work, they’re likely to try. It’s possible that Pence might simply refuse to be on TV announcing that Trump has lost. As such, it’s my impression that the certification of votes by state governors will work if Pence isn’t willing to do his job.

But him doing this would be so destabilizing that there could be significant political violence. It seems to me that the goal of such a gambit would be to box SCOTUS into a up or down partisan vote. House Trump believes its best bet for success is to force a situation whereby SCOTUS decides the election like they did in 2000.

The disturbing thing about this gambit for me is not so much that it will work as it is what happens when it doesn’t. Right now, Trump has hope that he might steal the election — which he could have done very easily if he had done any autocratic prep work instead of playing golf — and when he doesn’t have that hope anymore, he may YOLO it.

As such, for about two weeks, Trump could be totally unhinged as it begins to sink in that he will, in fact, have to leave office.

So if we manage to get past a Pence Coup on Jan 6th, we have to deal with Trump decompensating and maybe even blackmailing the United States with his near-absolute ability to launch nuclear weapons.

TNSTAAFL: Trump’s $2,000 Stimulus Check Gambit Is Ominous



by Shelt Garner
@sheltgar

Like previous beleaguered presidents in our history, Trump is beginning to get desperate. Coming out for a $2,000 stimulus check is not nearly the manna from heaven that the populist liberals of Twitter would have you to believe.

Trump sees such a gambit is as not only a way to stick it to #MoscowMitch, but a way to shore up his support with the public should he attempt extra-political or extra-legal methods to stay in office. There’s a reason why he wanted to make sure he signed the first stimulus checks — it worked. A lot of people, especially Hispanics in Florida, noticed who signed the checks and voted for him.

Think of it as political “There’s no such thing as a free lunch.” Trump isn’t asking for the money out of the kindness of his heart — he has sinister motives. He’s beginning to think in strictly self-preservation terms.

We can only hope that he doesn’t finally snap and start, I don’t know, blackmailing us all on Twitter by suggesting he might blow the world up if he can’t stay president.

‘Downfall’


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I feel I have a certain insight into Trump’s mind because he reminds me a great deal of my late mother — if you added testosterone and a wealthy Queens upbringing.

Anyway, the thing I learned from my mother’s behavior is people like Trump have a certain power from their instability. You just never know how they’re going to react to something. Are they going to flip out or are they going to take it calmly like a normal human being.

Having said that, there’s an element of Trump’s mentality that we’ve been kind of eyes wide shut about. Let’s call it the “Downfall” endgame. In this scenario, Trump’s mind falls into a logic trap and he snaps mentally. It would be at this point that he scares the shit out all of us.

So, let’s say his last-ditch effort to overturn the election fails on Jan 6th. He has about two weeks to wreak havoc. He could go transactional on Twitter in any number of different ways. He would demand MAGA murder liberals in cold blood. He could demand secessionist conventions in Red States. Or, things could get far, far darker.

He might start to get really, really passive aggressive on Twitter. To the extent that he starts talking about his ability to launch nuclear weapons and how he’s “protecting America” by being in office. If that wasn’t enough to scare the shit out of everyone, he might start to whine about how everyone hates him and liberals would be happy if he was dead.

I’m not joking — this is a real possibility.

This brings up the idea that Trump could very well hold up in the White House and refuse to leave. While a lot of Twitter liberals seem to express a certain glee at this prospect, in reality having to coax Trump out of the White House isn’t exactly something I would like to see the country have to go through.

But it gets worse.

What if, by that point, he’s so far gone that he goes the Downfall route. The implications of this would be staggering. It would be his final selfish act. Because it would be something that would-be Patriot Party people could hang an ideological agenda on.

Trunp-as-martyr would scramble our politics for a generation.

And, yet, that scenario is so fucking dark that I don’t like to think about it for no other reason than in the end Trump is a physical coward and for him to do something so drastic would mean he REALLY had lost his mind.

Anyway, he’s something I wrote about trying to get Trump out of the White House a few years ago.

9/10ths
a story fragment of a possible near future
by Shelton Bumgarner

April, 2019

The eyes of the world were on the White House.

Just moments before, President Donald J. Trump, 45th president of the United States, had been convicted by 67 members of the Senate for a whole list of high crimes and misdemeanors. Trump had for weeks now been ranting on Gab about his case in the Senate, bouncing back and forth between threats to start a war with Iran or the DPRK and not-so-subtle hints that he might take his own life should he be convicted by the Senate.

And, now, at last, the moment of truth had arrived.

Trump legally, at least, was no longer president, but he had been oddly silent since the verdict had been announced with great fanfare from the well of the Senate. Trump’s conviction had come after months of investigations on the part of the now Democratic Congress. The length and breath of Trump’s malfeasance discovered by these hearings had rocked the nation to its very core. On more than one occasion, MAGA talking heads on cable news had been interrupted by astonishing breaking news that left them, for once, unable or unwilling to defend the president.

The hearings had ground on for months to such an extent that Trump’s approval had slowly drifted to the 20s and stayed there consistently. Trump’s support was now made up of the very rich and the very poor. Oddly, despite Trump’s near constant demands on Twitter for violence on the part of his supporters, little, if any was reported. Trump had grown so frustrated that he had all but abandoned Twitter at one point for the more receptive Gab social media platform. Though on more than one occasion Rudy Giuliani had made it very clear it was within the rights of the president to declare martial law if he deemed it in the best interests of the nation. More than one delegation of Senate Republicans had gone to the White House to explain to Trump that he was going to be convicted, no avail. Trump made it clear to them, in not so many words that his simply living in the White House made him president, a sentiment best expressed by the legal saw that, “Possession is 9/10ths of the law.”

Finally, a post to Gab came out: “My so-called ‘conviction’ is the work of the Deep State and as such illegitimate. I remain president.”

This set off a chain of events, the likes of which Americans had never seen. Suddenly, everyone on Twitter became a Constitutional scholar as everyone studied the exact wording of the Constitution as to what happens if the president is removed from office by the Senate. The wording is quite clear: he or she is no longer president and that’s it.

Nowhere in the Constitution did it explain what to do if the president simply decided to ignore the Senate. What’s more, nowhere in the Constitution did it state what to do with the nuclear launch codes should a president be removed from office and he refuse to accept the decision of the Senate.

The next few hours were chilling as they were surreal for millions of people not just in the United States but around the globe. The issue of Trump’s physical access to America’s nuclear launch codes was suddenly at the forefront of everyone’s mind. Though it was finally announced that while the nuclear football remained in Trump’s possession, Sec. of Defense Mattis had ordered the American armed forces to stand down for the duration of the crisis.

Trump, on Twitter, was as defiant and unhinged as usual.He threatened to kill himself. He threatened to start a nuclear war. He vowed to declare martial law.

The usual suspects on cable news did their best to spin all of this for Trump. As an anxious nation waited for the now former president to leave the White House, a cavalcade of former Republican Senators and Trump White House staffers attempted to make the former president’s case. Their final argument was that for the good of the country, Trump should be allowed to remain president, despite his lawful conviction by the Senate.

Things began to move rapidly at this point.

Vice President Pence was sworn in but Chief Justice Roberts in a dark, somber event in the Old Executive Building. Meanwhile, it was learned Trump had quietly replaced his Secret Service detail with a private security force that made it clear it was prepared to defend Trump until the bloody end.

At this point, two things happened. A final bipartisan delegation of Congressional leaders came to the White House grounds under the flag of truce. During the course of an hour-long meeting, Trump screamed at them that they had never supported him and the world would be better off if it just ended instead of allowed the forces of the Deep State to ruin America. He made it absolutely clear that he would never leave the Oval Office willingly.

With that, they left.

Next, a surreal, bizarre event, the FBI slowly began to surround the White House. There was much debate online and on TV about how long the nation should wait for Trump to leave the White House. CNN went so far as to do a deep dive into the exact amount of food the White House grounds might have available at any one moment.

Finally, shots rang out from the White House as the battle was joined. It took several hours but in the end, the FBI was finally able to secure the facility. Nearly a dozen personnel on both sides died during the course of the Battle of The White House.

In what would become ionic footage, Trump was quietly escorted from the White House grounds. He spent the remainder of his days ranting on Twitter and Gab that he was the rightful president.

The End.



Republicans Have Become The ‘Leopards Eating People’s Faces Party’


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It is becoming clear that Trump is no longer thinking in terms of politics but rather strictly in terms of self-preservation. As such, we’re careening towards a moment in time when Trump goes extra-legal and extra-political in his attempts to stay in power. There are a number of things that are concerning me about this.

The Defense Department
Trump keeps cramming the Defense Department with cronies. I’ve read somewhere that this may be an effort on the part of Trump to find out how much he could, in fact, get away with if push comes to shove. That’s really nerve wracking because what if Trump somehow manages to move the autocratic dial a little bit. Just a little bit would freak us all the fuck out.

Mike Pence
I’m growing concerned that on Jan. 6th Trump will goad Mike Pence to simply nullify the certification of Electoral College votes by not doing his job — or not doing it in a manner that follows the spirit of the law. Remember, the point of this would be to throw things to SCOTUS in such a partisan manner that they’re absolutely boxed into a up-or-down corner. Trump wants a replay of 2000 because he’s a craven ding-dong who’s actual political skill is little more than that of Chauncy Gardner in Being There. So, it’s very possible that there will be extreme, rancorous debate in Congress over the certification of votes, but in the end, Trump will lose. Even if Pence tries to be a spanner in the works.

Trump Going Transactional
This is a real wildcard. As it becomes more and more clear that Trump is, in fact, going to actually have to leave office, it’s possible that he stops “joking” and insinuating about violence against his enemies and flat out tells MAGA to murder liberals in cold blood. Or he could begin to demand Red States hold snap conventions so they secede. Pretty much anything is on the table once Trump finally snaps mentally.

‘Downfall’
This is probably my worse fear. If we get to this stage of things, then Trump really has lost his mind. This is a very dark situation, indeed. Everything from Trump blackmailing America by suddenly bringing up his ability to use nuclear weapons to him going the literal Hitler-in-the-bunker route would be possible under this scenario.

But there are some things to take into consideration. One is Trump is not nearly as well-put-together as we keep thinking and he’s so unstable and lazy that any transactional things he does may be so half-hearted and poorly thought out that they aren’t very successful.

Yet, we’ve now officially entered the most dangerous phase of the Trump Era. Anything could happen. We could all get the shit scared out of us before it’s over with. There will be no narrative, no value as it all happens.

Trump Destroying Himself Politically By Staging A Coup Would Be A Fitting End To His Era


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I have a number of conservative-but-not-MAGA people in my family who don’t really support Trump but, because of negative polarization, essentially support Trump.

The key issue issue is — to date — Trump has yet to do something that people like me can point to as truly tyrannical. He’s done a lot of “cruelty is the point” things, but nothing obviously extra-political. He’s abused power. He’s significantly weakened our democracy, but he’s yet to do anything extra-political. And, remember, Trump has done some pretty outrageously illegal things — paying off Stormy Daniels, for one — but nothing that was so completely indefensible that we as a nation had the political will to do anything about.

That’s why Trump may be setting himself up for political destruction in the last month of his time in office. If he stages a coup of some sort, that would be a transactional, extra-political event that conservatives-who-aren’t-MAGA would have significant difficulty defending. Maybe to the point of finally endorsing Trump having some accountability at last — they’ve gotten their young hack MAGA judges and huge plutocrat tax cut, why wouldn’t they?

Or, put another way, there may come a point very soon when it becomes clear that Trump cares more about his own perceived self-preservation than any political consideration he will, at last, given the rhetorical tools necessary to get conservative-but-not-MAGA people woke.

Generally, history takes the most ironic path possible, so it would be fitting if after 5 years of terrorizing America Trump loses it all because he stages makes an unprecedented power grab in the last month of his term. The key point we have to take Trump’s coup plotting seriously. This situation has all the classic signs of a epoch-making clusterfuck.

A person with power making significant miscalculations under pressure, is a key one. But I still don’t understand how, exactly, Trump plans to seize power if the U.S. Military won’t follow an illegal order. I guess I could see him going transactional on Twitter, but even then, that would just cause political violence.

I guess, — guess — if he went transactional on Twitter and incited significant political violence then he might use that, in itself, as an excuse to seize power. But this is December 2020, not January 2020. He has just a few weeks in power. He would need a thin veneer of legality to stay in power. There are a few Hail Mary Pass attempts he might try — all involving boxing SCOTUS into a partisan box.

While I have no faith in SCOTUS anymore, for him to place all his bets on them pulling an uber-2000 on us given how reluctant they’ve been to do such a thing to date is really bonkers.

But it’s at least possible that Trump may try just that.

We’re going to be living in “interesting times” far, far sooner than we can possibly imagine.

Welcome To The Political Upside Down, America


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Things are very surreal right now in the United States. It’s beginning to sink in with our deranged ding-dong of a president that his options for staying in power are limited. Add to this that Trump has done none of the prep work necessary to successfully stage a coup and…well…you ain’t see nothing yet.

We’re going to enter the Upside Down soon, like potentially within hours. But let me clear — all of this happening in the context of Trump thrashing around. There’s going to be limited planning or co-ordination. And because the U.S. Military will not follow an illegal order, I just can’t see any hard coup attempt on Trump’s part being successful.

What’s more, Trump seems to be actively aggravating the a number of political figures he would need if actually was of sane mind enough to want his coup to succeed. That’s why, in a sense, Trump’s coup efforts are more connected to his tenuous connection to reality than his political goals.

His sense of self-preservation is what’s driving these outwardly whacky coup attempts. What makes them dangerous is there are MAGA people in positions of power who are willing to entertain his coup dreams and, as such, get him a lot closer to success than any of us would like.

But even the use of the world “success” in this context is problematic. He might be able to seize power in some extra-political manner, but I struggle to imagine any scenario where he gets to keep it. American civil society is just too strong. There would be a very, very quick and very, very strong reaction because on a political level, America has moved on.

Yes, a lot of MAGA people think Biden “stole” the election, but there are plenty of conservative-but-not-MAGA people who don’t think that and won’t support Trump’s effort to stage a coup.

Trump may surprise me and get away with it, but more likely to happen is the whole thing will be a massive self-own that destroys Trump political once and for all. But we’ll see.

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.

The Coming Trump Singularity


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

All the great clusterfucks in human history happen when different groups make reasonable — but flawed — calculations. It’s at least possible that we’re careening towards a notable example of this.

Right now, everyone is weighing various political considerations for Trump going forward. But the thing we have to begin to wonder about is what happens when Trump stops thinking about politics and starts thinking about something far more basic — self-preservation.

If this happened, it would be the final thing that forced all the MAGA people who have said “both sides” or “I hope he won’t do that” or “I pray he won’t do that” to, at last, have an opinion. What happens when Trump decides that he would rather destroy the United States than either admit defeat and or risk going to prison in New York State.

I honestly have no idea what would happen. Either these people, at last, say, “He’s gotta go,” or they simply say nothing and let him incite political violence or whatever in hopes that it’ll all go away and they can admit people like me were right about Trump 20 years from now when it’s all moot.

It would be a fitting end to the Trump Era if he, in a rabid attempt to stay in power, destroyed everything. His political future. The Republican Party. Even MAGA itself.

Of course, if Trump destroyed everything because he went from politics to base self-preservation it would come at a massive cost. It would be rolling “political 9/11” that would scare the shit out of everyone. In fact, there are some pretty dark scenarios.

When the traditional considerations of politics no longer are an issue for Trump because, well, he’s fucking insane, then we would be in for an epoch-making type crisis. We all may start to worry about how easy, exactly, it is for the president to launch a nuclear strike.

But it might not even get that bad, but still be really scary.

It’s easy to imagine Trump going transactional in the lead up to Jan 6th. He might tell the Proud Boys to begin to blow shit up in D.C. in an effort to intemidate Congress into voting to overthrow the vote of the Electoral College. Or, put another way, Trump has been a huge stress test for the Constitution and, as such, it’s easy to imagine to situation where for no other reason than it’s an actual event that can go ways we can’t predict, the Congress certification of the Electoral College votes is a potential wildcard.

Any number of different weird things might happen — especially since the Democrat majority isn’t really very big in real terms. So, I don’t know, humans are humans and it’s at least possible that Trump might “not lose” in Congress which would, in itself, probably cause a civil war / revolution.

But even if we get pass the Congressional certification, we really would enter a surreal moment in America’s political history. The reason is — the days between Jan 6th and Jan 20th would be when Trump would have every reason to go transactional on Twitter.

He could do everything from incite political violence to demand Red States to leave the Union via snap conventions. And that’s the point when there would be a historical record scratch. Such behavior on Trump’s part could split the Republican Party a minimum.

It could even go so far as to destroy MAGA itself because, at last, MAGA would be seen for the cancer it is.

So, it’s at least possible that Trump in his thrashing about for self-preservation on his way out, destroys not only the United States, but MAGA and himself. When the crisis is all over, our entire political system could be scrambled for a few years as we figure out how to process what has just happened.

But I’m notorious for getting things wrong. Yet is is something to think about.