Deep State Radio & My ‘Doom Shit’


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I listened to the most recent Deep State Radio and, while I was pleased, I noticed something. While they kept talking the “doom shit” that some people on Twitter get mad at me about when it comes to MAGA, Trump and our coming decent into autocracy, there was an element of ignoring the pink MAGA elephant in the room.

That elephant is they are so concerned about the political problems we face when it comes to MAGA that they said not a word about the other option before us: civil war.

Now, I know why this is — they’re working with metrics that are real, not speculative and they don’t want to sound hysterical or like their doing “doom shit.” But I compare it to a fictional, anachronistic podcast in, say, 1859. They would be talking about the rise of Slave Power and how “these United States” risked being all slave under autocratic Slave Power rule. The idea that Lincoln would win and slave states would leave the Union in protest is probably something they would dare broach.

But not one listens to me, so I talk about it all the time.

As I keep saying, we have something of a spectrum ahead of us with a MAGA autocracy on one end and a civil war at the other. I vacillate wildly between these two possibilities in my mind. At the moment, I think we’re going to slip peacefully into autocracy because The Powers That Be have every reason to tell an enraged populace that Everything Is Fine.

It will only be if MAGA bungles the historical inevitable of America transitioning into an autocracy that there is any risk of the “doom shit” that I keep writing about here and on Twitter becoming a reality.

Before I go, let me explain my gratuitous use of “doom shit.” See, one of those well respect Resistance Twitter accounts who do a lot of yeoman work covering the Trump Era got mad a me for pretty much saying, “I simply don’t believe Trump is every going to be legally held account for anything he’s ever done.”

They yelled at me and said, “You have to stop it with the doom shit.”

At the moment, at least, it’s not “doom shit” — it’s what really going on. Mad Kind Trump is politically above the law. And, even worse, even if we magically fell him on a political level, he’s always just been an avatar — there are a dozen would-be autocrats lurking in the shadows, waiting to finish the job he completed.

As such, we still face the choice of autocracy or civil war between now and January 2025.

Pondering The MAGA Desire To ‘Just Be Left Alone’


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

A recurring theme whenever I talk to MAGA people is their desire to “just be left alone.” Given how willing they are otherwise to embrace autocracy — which will definitely not just leave them alone, I struggle to understand what they’re really talking about. What, exactly, do they mean by the idea of “just being left alone.”

Under our current liberal democracy, who is not leaving them alone?

It’s this type of abstract fear on the part of MAGA that eats away at me. One reason this is so is FOX News and Trump really lean into this fear. They promise MAGA people that if only they support The Dear Leader, that they will stop the evil liberal-progressive forces that will mess with them.

I guess if I wrote for Vox, I would be smart enough to figure this out. I know this sentiment is some sort of MAGA code for a specific situation, but I still can’t figure out what they really mean. Maybe what they’re talking about is how they have a different interpretation of the social contract than non-MAGA people. Maybe they see “just being left alone” to mean the right to be openly racist, bigoted and misogynistic?

But I fear that doesn’t really even properly express what’s going on. We all want to just be left alone, regardless of political leanings, and yet I see that freedom as something we already have and MAGA sees it so currently imperiled that they would burn the country to the ground and install an autocrat to defend it.

MAGA-Qanon’s Strategic Error


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I have long said that Republicans no longer see democracy as legitimate. It’s nothing more than a means to an end — power. If it doesn’t help them either obtain or maintain power, then it’s an obstacle.

The interesting thing about MAGA-Qanon is they are really setting themselves up for a historic, strategic miscalculation. They are now so consumed by their own ideology, that they are totally conflating the gains they’ve gotten by abusing the politics of liberal democracy with what they think they can get by running around murdering people in cold blood.

Now, of course, they don’t say it that way. They project. They say it’s people like ME who want to hurt people like THEM. They wrap this bullshit in attacks on BLM or Antifa or whatever the latest fucking boogeyman is of the moment. But their obsession with political violence is telling — it’s obviously on THEIR minds.

But why?

Well, it seems as though the basis for their bloodlust is the assumption that the people they hate — namely, people like me — are so degenerate, immoral and debauched that they have something of a moral duty to eliminate them. To solve that particular “problem,” if you will. The latest version of this bullshit is Qanon, which is demonstrably just the age-old blood libel against the Jews repurposed to attack the more general “liberals.”

But the endgame is the same — the implication is that Republicans and their MAGA-Qanon base are itching for a “final solution” to the liberal “problem” in the United States. What started with Reagan Revolution has reached its logical extreme — liberals have, in the eyes of many right wing nutjobs been dehumanized to the point that rounding them up and putting them in the existing ICE camp infrastructure will be seen as morally justified.

And, yet, as with any such whacked out idology, they are completely missing some pretty basic elements of human nature. While obviously MAGA-Qanon would have something of a “first mover advantage” should they get what they want, it’s not going to happen in a vacuum. There will be consequences.

It’s at least possible that after the initial shock of massive, brazen power grab on the part of Trump that the very people that MAGA-Qanon dismiss might have a lot more gumption in them than imagined.

I’m not saying there won’t be a lot of loss of life if MAGA-Qanon begins the “Final Solution,” but I am saying Americans don’t generally brook extremism of that type. When the dust settles, America may be transformed. But not into some sort of real-world  Gilead, but rather a new nation based on a Renewed American Covenant.

Or, put another way — it would be a tragedy. It would be a clusterfuck and I don’t want it. I don’t think people appreciate not only how good we have it America but how much it would fucking suck if Trump steals our birthright out from right in front of our eyes. But it will also suck massively if the country implodes and we have to go through The Stand to get the country back together again.

I don’t have any easy answers for you — we’re going to have to suffer one way or another I’m afraid. The one thing we all want — a peaceful transfer of power — is never going to happen.

Either we slip into autocracy or we implode as a nation.

I honestly don’t know which one is going to happen. Good luck.

Trump’s October Surprise: The Durham Investigation




by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It is an immutable law of nature that one of the many ways Trump is going to steal the 2020 Election is the outcome of the bullshit Durham investigation into the origins of the Mueller investigation.

Really, the only question at this point is how close are they going to get to Biden himself?

Given how deranged Trump is, I would probably guess they’ll do something a tick or two more potent than the Second Comey Letter. Something whereby at just the right moment, they can plant a seed of doubt in the minds of the electorate so Trump wins.

And, by the way, if you’re reading this because you’re a MAGA piece of shit stroking one off to the idea of this very thing happening — eat shit you fucking fascist.

But maybe I’m not looking at this right. Maybe Trump will be so desperate by October that he’ll indict Biden himself. That would probably be enough to end Biden’s campaign and Trump would actually “win” the election even without his fucking with the post office or getting Russians to directly hack into our election systems.

It won’t matter that the entire thing is bullshit and we’ll figure it out eventually. All that will matter Trump is he “won” the election and he can go in for the final consolidation of power. That’s it. That’s all he will care about. You can protest all you like. You can rant about it all you want to on Facebook and Twitter. But Trump will still be in power and fuck you.

The darkness is here politically. House Trump has established Trumplandia. The Thousand Year Trump is the be all end and end all of American politics.

Absolutely nothing indicates to me that I’m wrong. Durham may not indict Biden directly, but somehow, someway, the Durham investigation is going to help Trump “win” the election.

Flipping The Script On #MAGA’s Paranoid Delusional Canon Of Bonkers Conspiracy Theories In The #Novel I’m Developing & #Writing



by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner


Say what you will about MAGA shitheads, they definitely are creative in their sheer insane, bonkers views on the world. So, in the novel I’m developing I actively flip the script on some of their favorite talking points.

It’s worked out quite well, if I do say so myself.

I like the idea of taking their insane fucktard conspiracies seriously and then turning them against them. So one of their favorite talking points — the existence of a Deep State — is a central plot point in this novel. In fact, it’s such a rich vein of surreal insanity that the more I think about it, the more I realize how great it is. It’s really a matter of simply figure out how to flesh it all out so it makes as much sense as possible.

I mean, it makes a lot of sense to me in my head, but putting it down on paper is a different matter altogether.

It’s just so funny to me. In fact, if I work hard enough, it’s possible I might hook some MAGA cocksuckers into reading the novel for no other reason than it strokes their fucking whacked out conspiracy theory needs. I must say in passing that I think the late Stieg Larsson was in to conspiracy theories, so given how influenced my work is by his stuff, it would be an appropriate homage to his novels to do this, even if it is mean to be DL ironic in nature.

As I said, the more I think about it, the more it works. If I could get MAGA people to read the novel for no other reason than I take seriously their paranoid fucking insane ideas, then, well, that would be pretty cool. The whole thing is done on the sly, though. I take is seriously, but with an eye cocked at the audience like, “Can you believe this shit?”

Anyway. It all makes sense in the context of the story. It has taken me two years to get to this point and it’s such a relief to finally reach land. I’ve finally figured out the infrastructure so I can lay out my vision for the canon of this novel. Now comes the hard part of seeing if my writing is up to the task.

#MAGA Is A Death Cult #COVID19

Shelton Bumgarner

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It has taken me a little while, but I’ve figured out why so many MAGA people are interested in COVID19. It’s not that they’re oblivious to the fact that Trump is completely fucking up the handling of this pandemic. They just don’t care. That’s a lulz.

What they’re more interested in is the idea that a pandemic will be the end of the global liberal order that has kept the peace for about 75 years. They’re looking forward to, what? I don’t know. A lot of elderly people dying unnecessarily? I thought angry old Baby Boomers were the core of MAGA. But, lulz. I guess the younger, more ignorant MAGA shitheads think that when the global order collapses and the poors are desperately searching for food while Peter Thiel snorts coke off a twink’s asshole that, what, their jobs will come back? That women will go back to being living gestation pods?

Some of it is that, by nature, many MAGA shithead fuckers are preppers who have been looking forward to the end of the world for some time — why else would they vote for the anti-Christ, I mean Donald Trump. They have been preparing for a post-apocalyptic hellscape for decades, so if Trump makes it closer to being a reality, all the better. All the more reason to support him, right, you fucking shithead KAG and MAGA fucks?

House Trump is going to lie and cheat as necessary in its craven need to consolidate power going forward. The Fourth Right is here. I just have to be sure not to die in an ICE Camp.

Sen. Rand Paul’s Craven Desire To Out The Whistleblower Is Growing Surreal

Shelton Bumgarner

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

What the fuck is wrong with Sen. Rand Paul? Leaving aside why an avowed libertarian would be such a fucking suckup to Trump, what does he honestly expect will happen if we get the Whistleblower’s name? (We will get it sooner rather than later, but, still.)

All I got is on the face of it, he thinks on a political level it significantly helps Trump’s case because the name not only gives Republicans built-in talking points, but they can pivot to the Whistleblower’s connections to Joe Biden and Susan Rice whenever the issue of Trump’s many impeach-and-convict crimes come up in conversations with reporters. If you’re exclusively messaging the fucking racist, misogynistic dipshit MAGA people who love fascism and liberal tears, then you can, at least in your own Republican Senator mind, excuse Trump’s crimes against the Constitution because, well, the person who reported them is not a MAGA person. On a very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very stupid level — like date your sister stupid level — I guess if you’re a MAGA person you can spooge your pants now that the vast Deep State Conspiracy has been exposed….for simply pointing out that Trump’s “perfect phone call” actually showed a massive, historic abuse of power.

But, lulz. If you’re MAGA you hate black people and women. You hate America and democracy. All you care about power and money and sucking Trump’s political cock. So you can delude yourself into thinking everyone else will fall for this political messaging that helps you get to sleep at night.

I guess it’s at least possible this might happen. I guess.

There’s a real danger, however, that things may careen out of control. There may be violence direct against the Whistleblower on the part of MAGA. What political objectives this might accomplish are something of a mystery to me. But I guess having blood on your hands will somehow…prove to Godless pinko liberals that MAGA has the best interests of America at heart?

I don’t know. Just be careful what you wish for, MAGA. Americans don’t abide by political violence. What may seem like a great idea at first may not work out quite the way you expect it.

The Grift That Is MAGA

Shelton Bumgarner

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

The thing about MAGA is it’s based on a lie. The whole thing is bullshit. Really, at its core, MAGA is identity politics for white people. Throw in some base misogyny and nativism and amosexualism and Christian persecution porn and you have yourself a very powerful political movement.

What’s so astonishing to me is how easy is it to grift MAGA. Sometimes, the bigger the grift, the more popular you are. That, I think, explains MAGA. Trump is the biggest grifter of all. His grift has become so successful that it’s the basis of a cult of personality.

I have, on more than one occasion, thought about trying the grift myself. It would be very easy to abruptly change political views a la Dennis Miller. Within six months, I’d likely be having lunch with Trump himself. The need for grift is that powerful within the MAGA movement.

The whole thing has become so ridiculous — and is so based on hair-trigger hypocrisy — that wild things happen over and over again. The most recent example of this is the surreal attack on Debra Messing. She committed — as I understand it — a minor infraction on Twitter and the MAGA echo chamber is out for blood. But it seems pretty obvious that the whole thing is not being done in good faith and it’s being used as excuse to own a lib that Trump has attacked recently.

This is a prime example of how Trump is simply an avatar for a deeper, darker, problem in American society. We’ve reached the point where MAGA will do anything to get and keep power to such an extent that the “Resistance” simply can’t keep up. When your political opponent is an ideological zombie and you’re trying to reason with them using “norms” you’re setting yourself up for failure.

What might happen is sometime in the middle of Trump’s second term, the center-Left might realize it has to adopt the “new rules” of MAGA to defend itself. Unfortunately, while it has to be done for simple political survival, long term it’s the setup for nothing less than a civil war — or a military junta. There may come a time, I’m afraid, when Blue States begin to believe that the only way to keep any semblance of freedom is to leave the Union altogether. That definitely would put the Red States absolute desire to “own the libs” to the test, now wouldn’t it.

It’s kind of sad when the best case scenario you can think of to keep yoru nation together long-term is a military junta. But that’s some time down the road. For the time being the MAGA grift will continue. The center-Left is, sadly, a bunch of wussies in my opinion. I’ve mulled the need for, on an ideological level, a form of Radical Resistance. But in hindsight I realize I was extremely naive. MAGA is a cancer that is going to kill the patient and I can’t see that there is anything to do about it.

Impeaching Trump Won’t Fix The Deeper Existential Problem In America

Shelton Bumgarner

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

While I would be overjoyed if House Democrats finally pull their thumbs out of their asses and impeached Trump, my elation would come with some qualifications. The issue is, Trump is an avatar for an existential problem in America that is not going away anytime soon. In fact, I would propose it won’t fade until about 20 years from now when the youngest of the Baby Boomers die off just around the time we reach a tipping point with the browning of America.

Though impeaching Trump makes a lot of sense on an abstract level, actually doing it is problematic. Again, I’m not saying we shouldn’t do it — we should. I’m just pointing out that doing it — even successfully — won’t be the panacea too many people on Twitter seem to think it would be. First and foremost, it is likely to fail. So Trump could run as having been “vindicated” the moment he’s acquitted by the Senate. What’s worse, even if impeaching Trump was somewho, miraculously successful, that would mean Pence would have not one, but two opportunities to run for president as an incumbent.

But this raises another issue — Trump is such a horrible person and president the issue of impeachment may eventually be out of all of our hands. I could see more than one scenario where Trump’s mental state grows so dangerous — like 9/11 crisis dangerous — that things fall apart for Trump not in months or weeks but days. In fact, in a sense, that’s the only way impeachment makes any sense to me at this point — to fix a specific crisis. Trump has such a lock on the minds of about 35% of the electorate that while we should impeach him, we should also manage our expectations as to what it will accomplish.

And, yet, really, long term we have to accept that given that Trump is no more than an avatar for a deep existential problem with the United States that there is, in fact, no bottom as to how far things are likely to go. If Federal elections don’t become perfunctory, then there will be active hacking by the Russians. If that doesn’t work, then MAGA will intimidate and bribe individual electors. ICE will be weaponized and the existing camps will be filled not with asylum seekers, but with anyone who has the temerity to challenge the the will of The Leader. I wish this was being hysterical, but it’s not. This is a real possibility. We could go full Russian manage democracy in brief few years. Like, less than five.

I wish I could tell you there was some solution. There’s none. Short term, I would suggest that the Left adopt the “new rules” that the Right is so fond of. We go eyeball-to-eyeball with them every political chance we can get. If that means the government grinds to down to a Singularity, so be it. And, really, at this point there are no good endgames. Here are some possibilities.

Junta
It’s possible that the only thing that will keep America together is the military. This is so alien to the American tradition that things would really, really have to get bad. But the military is the lone institution that commands the respect of the general populace, so it may be the only thing that keeps the country together long term.

“Wayward Sisters, Part In Peace”
In this scenario, there is a peaceful division of the country alone political lines on a state level. At best, we have some sort of economic union. At worse, the two sides will hate each other at this point that not even that will happen. The real fight will be over which country gets the US “brand.” Otherwise, the Red States will descend into a third world status while the Blue States will continue to grow and prosper.

The Apocalyptic Rock Fight
In this scenario, the division of the country gets out of hand. The two sides begin to drop a-bombs on each other until the entire country in ruin. Eventually one side will graduate to h-bombs and things will really get interesting. I only even suggest this possibility because MAGA is a manifestation of a cancer on the American psyche that is so dark, so depraved that is may swerve into such a bloodlust that, well, there’s no turning back.

Apartheid Era South Africa Meets Modern Venezuela Meets Reconstruction America
In this scenario, we have sort of a dystopian middle ground. Even though the brown of America has happened, white America clings to economic and political power with a death grip. Meanwhile, because of gross corruption, America is finally a third world country with nukes. We’re alone and scared on the world stage. Large swaths of the populace feel completely disenfranchised. Only the poor pay taxes and the rights of women and minorities are harshly repressed. What’s more Blue States are now little more than military districts without any formal representation in Congress.

And, so, that’s it. Those all the endgames I can think of. None of them make me feel good, none of them I want. But the more I think about it, the more it seems there are a few fundimental flaws in the Constitution. Among them the Electoral College and the Senate. But the Senate is so fundamental to the American system that I think that, in itself, means America will soon be a failed state in all but name. In a sense it already is and we’re just deluding ourselves.

In real terms, I guess all we can do is stay aware of what’s happen and try to, on an individual level, make or corner of America a better place. America is over. The end.

How To Defeat MAGA, If Not Trump

Shelton Bumgarner

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

Now, I fear it’s too late to defeat Trump himself. Not only is he too much of an avatar for white identity politics, both plutocrats and Russians have a vested interest in him winning a second term. So, he’s going to win and we just have to accept the consequences.

Having said that, this is how we in the long-term defeat MAGA. I give MAGA a pass this election cycle because there’s a key aspect to my plan that we simply don’t have time to implement.

That key feature is getting someone like Jon Stewart run for high office such as Senator or Governor. We need someone like Stewart in 2024 because the only way to defeat a bully is through humor. Stewart is the perfect embodiment of Leftist rage and he can make people laugh. After the dystopia of Trump, people want to laugh again. And Stewart is the only viable person I can think of who could do it in 2024.

But one other piece of advice. If you’re dealing with someone who loves drama like Trump, you need to keep your eyes on the prize. You need to focus on your agenda without being distracted. Pick a few goals and try to pin them down on them.

That’s why, on a personal level, I at least want to try to stop being so angry at MAGA. Should the occasion arise where I talk to them about politics, I am going to calmly and methodically ask them a series of questions. I will only do this after I’ve given the opportunity to get whatever ranting they need to get out of their system, out. Of course, the flaw in this is if I do one-up a MAGA person, they’re more likely than not just going to get mad and tell me to fuck off in a huff.

But anyway, I don’t know how well I articulated that vision. You get the general idea, I guess.