Tag: Orange Man IS Bad Shithead

A Nation On Edge


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Two things are happening at the same time right now. One, we’re seeing massive in-person voting 20 days before the election. If that keeps up, we might see 30 million people vote before election day.

On the other hand, TrumpBarr will never fucking leave power for any fucking reason.

As such, we’re in for The Big Ugly.

Now, I am well aware that a lot of people think Trump’s too much of a lazy, incompetent moron coward to simply stay in power no matter what. While he is, in fact, all those things, Interior Minister Bill Barr is NOT those things. So, it seems logical to assume that even if Biden somehow wins with a massive popular vote total, Barr is going to lulz that.

TrumpBarr will use the full power of the U.S government to challenge any and every aspect of the election that hasn’t broken their way. This will go to SCOTUS and the result will be 5-4 or 6-3. The end, fuck you, America.

And, yet, at the same time if what everyone expects — Trump leaving office because he has lost in a historic landslide — doesn’t happen because of a dubious SCOTUS decision….well, things may get ugly. Like, Big Ugly, ugly. I say this because of the Mueller Report. Barr, through simple media narrative management was able to keep Trump in power.

As such, it seems logical that Barr will start off trying to do the same thing and grow more radical the more difficult it becomes to do that. This is a very risky game Barr is playing because once you lose the Mandate of Heaven, you should politely leave office.

If it becomes impossible for The New York Times to deny that a fucking coup is taking place, well, then, The Big Ugly has begun. Things are going to grow existential. Given that apparently bad guys always win these days, I can only assume that in the end, America will be under the TrumpBarr jackboot.

We just don’t have it in us to do what is necessary to catch #MoscowMitch’s attention — bring the country to its knees.

It just isn’t going to happen. After all is said and done, TrumpBarr will “not lose” the 2020 election and that will be that. We’ll leave NATO, form an alliance with autocrats around the world and the dystopian will officially be here. The ICE camps will be come death camps and Qanon’s dreams will come true. Maybe they’ll empty the cities and there will be American Killing Fields.

The stakes are really that high.

The Big Ugly: America Has A Very ‘July 1991 Soviet Union’ Vibe To It Right Now


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The reason why I keep comparing Trump to Gorbachev is I can remember in the years leading up to the August Coup how no one, but no one could understand what his agenda was or what the ultimate endgame would be.

Trump is the same way — we know we’re in a new era and we have no idea how any of this is going to end.

I still think very, very soon we’re going to experience The Big Ugly. I like this phrase because it’s not like I have to say, civil war, revolution or implosion. It’s just something BAD — The Big Ugly. The reason why I think The Big Ugly is going to happen is TrumpBarr will never peacefully leave office and, yet, the mood of the country (maybe?) has subtly begun to shift towards something (maybe?) akin to a landslide (if we were still a liberal democracy.)

As such, when TrumpBarr stage a coup of some sort, that’s going to slam up against American self-perception and the bolts may pop of the country. To the extent we see a massive amount of domestic political refugees as Red and Blue States begin to consolidate.

There’s also a chance that something pretty lit might happen in NYC — Trump Tower could be stormed. FOX News, The WSJ and New York Post could be literally driven out of the city. Hell, maybe even some sort of commune might be established there (free state?)

Anyway, the point is — there’s no endgame right now. The United States, because of the passions of the 2020 election and personality cult that surrounds Mad King Trump I may, well, fucking implode like the Soviet Union did in late 1991.

In general, I would suggest this isn’t going to happen because the countries are too different. And, yet, fucking cocksucker MAGA-Qanon shitheads may simply decide to force the issue, especially if TrumpBarr gives them every reason to believe they can successful keep Trump in power via some sort of well-finessed media messaging management coup.

To me, it seems as though The Big Ugly might happen for no other reason than TrumpBarr make the caculation that the dead hand of history is on their side and, by the way, fuck you.

Have no idea if they’re right or not.

Only time will tell.

Second American Revolution: A Possible Historic Trump Self-Own


“…Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute a new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness”
The Declaration of Independence


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

For about five years now, the laws of politics have been suspended. Trump has experienced little or no accountability for his autocratic inclinations. And, in a sense, what we face now was always going to happen — the only thing standing in the way of his dream of being an American Putin is the 2020 Election.

Bill Barr and Donald Trump.

That’s it.

Once he gets past that obstacle, he will finally achieve wealth and power beyond his wildest imagination.

And, really, if we see Trump as sort of an inverse of Gorbachev, then even if there was some sort of “counter-coup” on the part of Nancy Pelosi, Trump still wins. Or, put another way, the dead hand of history is now so powerful that some truly astonishing would have to happen for America’s slip into autocracy being rather prosaic.

So, in a sense, I think we need to start thinking about either leaving the country (if you can) or begin making arrangements for how to placate Big Brother win the time comes. I honestly think that’s our fate. We just don’t have it in us to do what is necessary to push back against the rush towards autocracy we find ourselves in on a macro level.

But, for no other reason than to make myself feel better, let’s imagine a scenario where Trump’s natural inclination to self-own gets in the way of his final consolidation of power. The only way I could possibly see this happening is if Trump and Barr’s attempt to secure the presidency through owning the media narrative somehow falls apart.

Something no one — especially me — can’t predict happens that suddenly changes the state of play on the ground.

A key issue is while Barr is The Brain to Trump’s Pinky, Trump is still fucking screw up. If things got tricky in an American obviously near revolution, I just don’t see Trump handling that situation very well. The New York Times’ Maggie Haberman can sell her soul for access all she wants — Trump is not a political genius.


Donald J. Trump, 45 President of the United States.
He is nothing more than a deranged version of Chauncey Gardner from Being There. That’s all he ever has been — he’s just a vessel, an avatar for some pretty fucked up existential problems in the American political system.

Before I go any further, let’s be clear — in my mind, all my running scenarios about how we might manage to have some sort of “Renewed American Covenant” is nothing more than me having way too much mental energy and maybe nerves about living in an autocracy. Trump was never going to get convicted in the Senate and as of right now, it seems that Trump is never leaving office for any reason, even if it means burning it to the ground. So, this is a serious flight of fancy. It’s meaningless. But it is fun, I guess, to daydream.

So, for Trump to pull defeat out of the jaws of victory, he would have to ring the Liberty Bell, if you will, in the hearts of the average American. He would have to do something — or be personally blamed for something — that went against the American sense of what it means to be, well, American.

That I have to essentially bet that something I can’t predict is how the nation I love is saved is not really all that great a situation. And, even then, I’m working on the assumption that that would just be the BEGINING of something that might lead to some sort of national renewal. And to get that Renewed American Covenant we would have to go through an unprecedented tragedy that I really, really don’t want it to happen.

This is just me trying to console myself by turning the abstract fear of what might happen into a more manageable concrete scenario I can roll around in my mind.

Or, put another way, I love to run scenarios and this just happens to be one that I can use to figure out how to get America back on track (if only after a significant shake up.)

But I guess it is possible that at some point between Election Night and Trump’s final consolidation of power in January, he screws up. Whatever he does is so bad that a lot of conservative-but-not-MAGA people abandon him. So much so that there is something of an Apocalyptic Rock Fight between MAGA-Qanon and everyone else.

So that would be the setup for a Second American Revolution. Trump, through Barr, gets a thin veneer of legality to his second term and yet somehow he screws the plan up and there’s some sort of “revolt” (probably starting somewhere like New York City).

He tries to put it down using the Insurrection Act, Something Bad happens as a result and finally, finally, FINALLY a few conservative-but-not-MAGA people begin to at least tacitly accept some sort of organize resistance-in-real-life-where-you-might-get-hurt-or-lose-your-well-paying-job happens.

This is all very serious, folks. This is not a video game. This is not an angry Twitter thread.

This would be real life.

Comparative Political History: Trump & The Rise of Hitler


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Any mention of Hitler is loaded. And, yet, why is that? The answer, of course, is how many people directly died because of him. But there was a time, in the early days of his rule, when he was seen as very much a Trumpian figure. It was only after the deaths began to mount that he attained his modern status as the human personification of evil.

While I’m sure there are a dozen historians quietly working on their Hitler-Trump dual biographies right now, the comparisons between Hitler and Trump are now growing alarmingly similar. But before we go any further, we have to remember that Trump, at least for the moment, is nothing more than criminally incompetent autocrat. It could be that for a variety of reasons, he’ll linger in the Germany 1933-1934 era and that will be that. Or put another way, he may simply hope to be something akin to Russia’s Putin, but not attain the more direct, vicious and malvalent control that Hitler got.

But the profound thing the rise of Trump potentially gives us is direct insight into the rise of Hitler. Now that we can safely make a direct comparison between Hitler and Trump (at least relative to Hitler’s rise to power and his early years), we’re close to understanding how, exactly, Hitler came to be. It definitely seems as though — if we take Trump a guide — that someone like Hitler was going to rise to power. Both men are extremely lazy and they don’t really do anything other than establish a “permission structure” for evil to grow and flourish. So, in a sense, we might get the age old question of was “a Hitler” inevitable, or was he just a particular quirk of history because of his special skillset.

Seems to me it’s the former. Hitler was inevitable because of macro historical trends, and, yet, he was something of a one-shot. He filled a historical and political need, but someone else wasn’t going to do exactly the same thing if something happened to him early enough in his rule. So, in a sense, had Hitler died at just the right moment, it’s possible that WW2 might not have happened. Germany would probably been something a lot more like Franco’s Spain given the available replacements to Hitler in the existing Nazi power structure.

And, really, the issue at this point is does Trump, after he steals the 2020 election, see it as his 1933 election and pass some sort of enabling acts as quickly as possible after his own Reichstag Fire. I’m thinking yes — probably in the form of a major domestic terrorism event. He’ll demand a Constitutional Convention and that will be that.

Yet, again, would Trump at that point go the Putin route, or would he lurch towards something a more Nazi? This is such a complicated question for a number of reasons. One is, why? He has made no secret of his obsession with and fidelity to Putin. That type of control — not Nazi ideological control — definitely seems is personal agenda for the United States as this point.

So, to that extent, one would be on safe ground to call me hysterical for claiming Trump is an American Hitler.

And, yet.

There are a few things that give one pause for thought. It’s possible that Trumplandia will, in itself, be a thing that historians compare other events to in the future. If Trump did go the Nazi route, the more direct political movement MAGA would go the direction of is the Khmer Rouge. Instead of trying to take over the world like Hitler and the Nazis, Trump and MAGA would implode the United States.

Everything exists — right now — for Trump to begin rounding up “liberals” and begin putting them in the already-existing ICE camp infrastructure. The American center-Left (read: everyone not MAGA) is so weak, so ineffectual, that Trump again the “total control” that Roger Stone suggests he make a grab for.

The reason I say this is how else was all of this going to end? The absolute fidelity of the MAGA-Qanon base and the complete complicity of the entire Republican Party as a result give Trump such power that he may — simply because he’s a moron — stumble into a Pol Pot type situation without even really meaning to. It’s not like Trump has any ideology at all other than how own personal aggrandizement and increase of wealth. It just so happens that the venn diagram of what he wants on a personal level and what his base wants is identical and, as such, he really doesn’t have to do anything but just be himself.

Do I really think Trump is going to ultimately be seen not as an American Hitler but as more an American Pol Pot? I honestly don’t know. He definitely has that option before him. I think he just wants to be an American Putin. And, yet, Putin doesn’t have Red Hats at his beck and call. Putin has a lot of power, yes, but he also has a lot of self-control. He uses the levers of state to do his bidding. While it’s extremely easy to see MAGA Red Hats turning into American Brown Shirts then American Khmer Rouge. What I mean by that is, it’s easy to imagine MAGA-Qanon Red Hats radicalizing once Trump consolidates power after stealing the 2020 election. Trump tells the authorities to stand down and he just sit back and watches the Red Hats do his bidding. It would give him plausible deniability. The whole thing might get out of his control, but he’s so devoid of empathy I doubt he would really care all that much.

At this point, let’s do a direct comparison of Trump and Hitler. First, both Hitler and Trump are very, very lazy. On a personal level, both men don’t drink. (Or at least say they don’t.) Hitler only got married late in life, while Trump has been married three times. Hitler had a very specific ideology, while Trump is completely devoid of an ideology. Hitler was reasonably sane, while Trump’s mental acuity definitely seems to be wanining.

I could very much see a situation where Trump’s downfall ultimately comes from himself. He grows so extreme — or allows the MAGA-Qanon Red Hats to grow so extreme — that a lot of center-Right-but-not-MAGA people (the bedrock of America) freak out. They get radicalized enough to bring House Trump down. Of course, this would suck massively on a macro political history scale.

The majority of Americans, by nature, are extremely docile and politically apathetic. So, Trump could very well found House Trump and let the country drift, over the next 20 years or so, towards being — at least on a political level — an American interpretation of Putin’s Russia. This seems a very real possibility.

And, in the near term, the issue is how difficult is it for Trump to steal the 2020 election? The more difficult it is, the more likely what his family might attain gradually over 20 years, he — and Barr — will try to grab over about three months. This would be so shocking to the average American that instead of consolidating power peacefully, the United States would implode into civil war, revolution or something akin to both at the same time.

This sounds crazy, but, then major historical events when you live through them are nothing more than a shocking series of random events to the average person. It’s not until long after the fact that historians, in an attempt to explain what happened to successor generations given those events value and an a narrative so as to make them easier to explain and understand.

But I continue to believe because of the Durham Investigation, the false promise of a COVID19 vaccine and Trump’s likely quid pro quo with the Russians (he removes 1/3 of our troops from Germany, they hack directly into our election systems), that all of this is going to be a dud. We’ll know election night that Trump has “won.” We’ll continue to drift into a more Putin’s Russian and less Hitler’s Germany and that will be that.

I absolutely believe that.

I guess I’m just a little nervous that Trump is such a fucking self-own artist that even with that easy-“win” he will somehow manage to fuck us all over because the MAGA-Qanon Red Hats see his victory as a green light to establish a white ethno-state NOW and not gradually over the next generation.

That’s when it’s at least possible that the American Ancien Regime will be washed away and a New Order will be established. What that looks like is anyone’s guess. It could be a Second American Republic or it could be Gileade. Which one it is, we decide.

America’s ‘2024’ Problem


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Something about Obama’s second term galvanized and radicalized the Republican Party to such an extent that Trump was given a springboard to the presidency.

If Trump wins a second term — which I think he will because he’s going to lie, cheat and steal his way into it — it’s easy to imagine a situation where the Democrat Party will experience a similar radicalization. And, yet, these are not ordinary times. What’s more likely to happen is Trump will purge the media in his second term and make all traditional notions of civil society and liberal democracy in the United States moot.

Also, remember, a lot — A LOT — of otherwise well-respect, intelligent people have completely invested themselves in MAGA-Qanon. So much so, that they have said some pretty bonkers things in his defense. Things are simply are nearly impossible to defend if he’s not in power and they have to criticize the sitting president.

The list goes on. But the point is — the United States is careening towards a historic fork in the road. Either we turn into a fascist state or we have a civil war. We can not go this far down the road to tyranny without slipping into it directly or solving this particular debate about the soul of the nation on some sort of battlefield.

Now, let me put all of this into context. I’m a man of peace. A man of ideas. But I am also taking seriously the batshit insane rhetoric now found among a lot of prominent Rightwing “thought leaders.”

As such, everything indicates that even if it’s just rhetoric for them, that someone, somewhere is going to take is seriously and blow something up. This may happen no matter what for no other reason than in their organsmic love for Trump, they want to give him an excuse to seize “total power” as Roger Stone would have it.

I have written at great length that, really, the last defense of what’s left of our liberal democracy is nothing more than our self-perception as Americans. Nothing has indicated to me that even that will matter in the end, but for one thing — House Trump is a bunch of self-own artists.

They are well on their way to cruising into “total power,” but they’re such morons that they could very well do the very thing that all the point scoring on Twitter by Blue Check Liberals has never done to date — make people care.

When the average person looks up and realizes some basic freedoms they assume they would have as part of their American Birthright are gone in a rather abrupt fashion, then it’s possible we’re all going to need to bone up on our Lincoln.

A Curious Trump Statement


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Trump said something really weird recently. I can’t find the exact quote, but it was something along the lines of he how he “really” won the popular vote even though he obviously didn’t.

Usually when Trump says something weird like that, it’s because a similar idea is rolling around in his head. It makes you wonder if he is hedging his bets in some way. Maybe staking claim to that argument should Biden make the argument that he’s really the president in some post-election fiasco?

Regardless, it was an unusual statement given how we’re careening towards a enormous clusterfuck this fall.

Life During Trumplandia


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

One way to face your fears is to think about them so thoroughly that you turn an abstract fear in to a more understandable concrete one. So, let’s think through what like in “Trumplandia” will be like once the Russians steal the 2020 Election for Trump because we pulled out 1/3 of our troops from Germany at their behest.

Well, some of this is easy and some of it is hard.

It’s easy to see that once Trump is AGAIN politically pardoned for everything he’s done while in office that he’ll take his consolidation of power to the next level — he’s going to purge the press.

This could happen any number of different ways. But I’m going to assume it happens two different ways — “German Industrialists” do House Trump’s bidden by, say, buying up companies like Twitter while House Trump itself will lean on media companies to change their tune about House Trump….or else.

The broadcast companies — because of their government licences — are easy. The New York Times might be a bit more difficult to bring to heel, but when you have the entire power and weight of the US Government at your disposal it’s easy to imagine Rupert Murdoch finally owning the paper at last.

So, on a practical level, the first thing the average person will notice is a lot of fresh faces on TV and some pretty strange changes in tone at The New York Times and The Washington Post. I don’t think a lot of people appreciate how central the NYT is to the media ecosystem, so once it’s neutered, that will change a lot.

All the major late night talk show hosts will vanish off TV and a wave of new people will pop up who strangely avoid talking about politics altogether. In a sop to liberals, they may be women and minorities, but they will completely stop talking about politics because “it’s not popular.” It’s even possible that something weird will happen with SNL as well.

But all of this will happen in one fell swoop, so fast that there won’t be anyone to, well, report about it.

Once House Trump gets the free press out of the way, then Trump starts to rant about the need for a Constitutional Convention to “pass a balanced budget amendment.” This is where some sort of doublespeak “Second Bill of Rights” will be pushed through the MAGA dominated convention and, lulz, the United States will be officially transformed into Trumplandia.

The question, of course, is how will this affect the average person?

This is a very interesting question because on one hand, given how fragile and rotting out liberal democracy obviously is, it’s easy to imagine that this transformation will happen quite smoothly. And, yet, Trump himself is such a massive moron self-own artist, that things may get all fucked up. Instead of pulling a fast one on everyone, Trump could be so ham-handed in his smash-and-grab on the United States that people get really mad.

If that’s the case, then we’ll just continue to drift into an autocratic managed democracy in fits and starts. It will be Trump’s successor — Cotton? Pompeo? Don Jr.? — who will be able to do all the ratfucking that Trump obviously is desperate to do.

But one thing I think we really need to keep an eye on in Trump’s stolen second term is how much money Trump Org is able to suck out of our economy. Our economy is significantly bigger than Russia’s so it make sense that the House Trump could become the wealthiest “royal” family in the world pretty quick. All that ill-gotten cash can be turned around to bribe anyone who might get in their way going forward.

In the long run, it’s probably First Amendment rights that Americans will notice the erosion of the most. But by the time the “final pivot” happens with MAGA-Qanon it’s going to be way, way, way too late to worry about shit like that.

People like me are going to be told to “shut up if you know what’s good for you.” That will be the final answer from any MAGA-Qanon who happen to get into a debate with people like me.

The sad thing is, they’ll finally be right.

Mulling The Possibility Of A Reproductive Rights ‘Dred Scott’ Decision


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Two macro trends in the conservative movement make you say, “Hmmm.” One is how absolutely bloodthirsty MAGA-Qanon is becoming. They are so wrapped up in “owning the libs” that they are chomping at the bit to do away with politics altogether and just run around murdering people they don’t like.

The other macro trend is how absolute conservatives are in their desire to to something of a counter-revolution against the culture wars of the last few decades by stacking the Federal bench with as many young hack MAGA judges as they can possibly appoint while they have the power to do so.

This is an example of why I hate extremism.

Being so wrapped up in winning the culture wars after a number of social issues are already settled in the public eye might make conservative spooge their pants, but on a political front it might not be the best option for them. They are so consumed by their own Right wing echo chamber, that they are completely oblivious to the fact that if, say, not only is Roe V Wade overturned, but any form of contraception is effectively outlawed, that there might be significant backlash among a pretty big swath of voters, specifically — women.

Now, yes, I know we’re an autocratic managed democracy now and House Trump has destroyed American democracy under its jackboot. I know that lulz, nothing matters and I’m going to die in an ICE death camp soon enough. But there is a very real possibility that women across the political spectrum would be politically energized if there was something akin to a reproductive rights Dred Scott decision.

I can’t predict the future. I have no idea what is going to happen. But it is a long-term thing to keep in the back of your mind going forward.

We Are So Fucked


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

A series of macro trends are all coming to a head very, very rapidly. In the United States, we all assume we will muddle through major political problems or simply punt them down the road until they’re moot.

But the election of 2020 is a unique political event. We already live in an autocratic managed democracy and Trump’s “victory” in 2020 will simply be the final nail in the coffin of an already dead republic. We’re going to drift in fits and starts, as we have for some time now, into an era of something along the lines of a semi-monarchical fascist state.

There are a few wild cards, of course.

One is Qanon.

It’s very easy to see that particular batshit insane element of the clusterfuck that is modern life growing so potent that some surreal — and extreme — things happen so rapidly that not until way, way, WAY too many people are dead in American Killing Fields do we finally do anything about it. It sounds hysterical now, but Qanon serves a very important purpose for a lot of dark forces at work in American culture and, so, lulz.

Autocrats never lose, so, really, the only minor hiccup in our immediate political future is when Trump “wins” and is extremely dumb and hamhanded about it all, what will be the reaction of the 38% of the electorate that is not in a personality death cult? We they get woke and take to the streets or will they simply shrug and resign themselves to being “Good Germans?”

But, in general, darkness has fallen over the United States. The bad guys have won. Either we’re an autocratic managed democracy like Russia or, because of Qanon, we turn into something a lot more like Nazi Germany than we’re will to admit to ourselves.

I honestly can’t game out which end of that spectrum is more likely. All I know is we’re fucked. We’re totally, completely fucked for a long time. My current guess is about 40 years, given current demographic trends. Throw in global climate change, a limited nuclear war with the DPRK and the possibility of a Singularity and, well, things don’t look so great right now.

Again, if you can, get out of the country.

On Being A ‘Radical Moderate’


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I am not a Leftist. In fact, I find it rather annoying that the only people right now taking the United States’ decent into a fascist managed democracy are Leftists. So, as I look for people to join with to figure out what to do in real life about MAGA-Qanon actually beginning to implement their fascist agenda in the United States, I’m not finding a lot of people to talk to.

I’ve come to believe I’m a “radical moderate.” What this means is I simply want things to go back to what they were in 2016. I don’t want to shit on America or rant about identity politics or “slay the patriarchy,” I just want a liberal democracy with a functioning political system.

It should not be that big a deal. But, tragically, it obviously is.

The reason why I think radical moderation is important is there are millions of Americans who don’t give a shit about scoring points on Twitter. All they care about is raising their kids, paying their mortgage and keeping their jobs. As such, should the worst happen, they are the people who are going to make the final decision about America’s fate.

If they just don’t care that tanks are rolling down their streets now or the only appeal they hear from people hoping to save what’s left of the Republic is how shitty America is, there’s a chance they will be so turned off that they will lulz it. Now, I know a lot of mainstream Democrats essentially are already giving a rather policy-driven approach to these types of people, but that’s a political solution.

When politics finally dies in the United States — probably because of dueling presidents — things are going to grow existential pretty quick. Appeals to this huge swath of Americas will be moot because it won’t be policy we’re fighting over, it will be for the soul of the country.

But it may be too late. The logic and moment for tyranny is well established. It may be that there isn’t even that much of a struggle when House Trump finally turns us into a Russian-style autocratic managed democracy.

I just don’t know what to say about that prospect. Sometimes, you have to make your own hope, I guess.