Tag: Orange Man IS Bad Shithead

The Fate of FOX News HQ In NYC Is The Canary In The Coal Mine


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I really, really don’t want a civil war of any sort in the United States, but I can’t help myself when it comes to wargaming how it might occur. A key issue is what people aren’t ready for is when Red States believe Trump is president and Blue States think Biden is president and, on a state level, those governments begin to act accordingly.

Now, I know the U.S. Military has said that they won’t do anything to determine who the president is if there is some question — and there will be — but they didn’t say anything about putting down a rebellion of the people who absolutely don’t think Trump (or Biden) is president.

Here’s one possible sequence of events.

Trump “wins” reasonably late in the post-election process, probably with a favorable decision from the Supreme Court. The whole thing is so ham-handed and poorly executed on the part of House Trump that on a pure optics level, it will seem to Blue States that Trump stole the election (which he did.) The populations of Blue States — mostly in cities — will grow so enraged by this theft that they will begin to take it upon themselves to make their anger clear.

It makes a lot of sense that one place where this might happen is NYC. That’s the center of media in the United States and both FOX News and the WSJ are located there. It’s very easy to imagine a situation where the population of the city grows so angry that they loot both headquarters (or worse) and the journalists there are forced to decamp to a Red State.

That would be the pretext for a House Trump crackdown on the Blue States. House Trump would assume they could do a knockout blow — and maybe they could — but it’s also possible that a la the beginnings of the original civil war the first round of victories on the part of Trumplandia will only happen because the Blue States are struggling to get their act together. As the crisis deepens, Blue State leaders with a clear vision as to what to do will bubble up to the surface and things grow far more complicated for everyone involved.

These leaders could come from any area of society. Once politics dies, then everything is throw up in the air and it’s not a matter of who you are, it’s matter of what you can do.

One last note — House Trump is going to shut down the media altogether soon after any major political violence begins. That could go as far as shutting down the Internet itself until they can purge people they don’t like.

While, yes, this will definitely give House Trump a “first mover advantage,” if they make it more difficult for people to look at online porn, the average person might sit up and take notice that their lives are demonstrably different.

I think I’m deluding myself, though.

Seems like there’s just too much momentum on the side of tyranny. The bad guys have won. Not until I see Twitter liberals begin to make plans for some pretty fucked up things in real life will I think there may be any hope. We’re fucked. It’s over.

Leave the country if you can.

Blue States Are In A Better Position Than You Think Should A Second Civil War Occur


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I really, really don’t want a civil war. I will note that while this blog gets about 100 views a day, I’m getting a minor uptick from Red States of people obviously stroking to the idea of a civil war.

This is surreal to me.

The reason is, if you look at the state of play in the country on opening day of any prospective civil war, Blue States are in a lot better strategic situation than you might think. A lot depends on what the goals of any such civil war might be. Remember, Trump is likely to have the military and first mover advantage, so he could very well serve Blue States a knock out blow before they could figure out what they wanted.

But let’s suppose the war aims of Blue States were not to leave the Union, but to unite the country under their banner a la the First American Civil War. While there might be a lot of talk about Blue States leaving the Union, I find that as a war aim is dubious.

The first thing I see when I see a realpolitik map of the United States is how weak the Red States are. That’s why it’s so dumb that Red State people are so eager to start killing people in the name of the Dear Leader. They are playing a really weak hand well because American politics is broken and the moment we’re not talking about politics but war, then the dynamic is totally different.

It’s easy to see how much of the country is Red and simply assume Red States could easily overwhelm the smaller (in geographic terms) the Blue States. The problem with this thinking is Red State people are conflating their political edge with an edge on the battlefield.

In real terms, it’s easy to imagine Blue forces from the West blitzkrieging across, say, Montana and linking up with other Blue forces in the Mid-West. While states like Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan are “Purple” state politically, I seriously doubt if things became life-or-death that they would go Red. There would likely be a lot of political violence in the process of throwing their lot with the Blue states, but it would happen.

Anyway, I could imagine through sheer brute force Blue forces taking the entire Great Plains and Rocky Mountain areas pretty quick.

Now, this when you might say — but what about the South?

That’s a very curious situation. On one hand, the old CSA has a regional memory of rebellion, and, yet, there are two factors that make that not as clear cut as you might think.

One, is race. During the First American Civil War, if you weren’t a freed slave fighting for the Union, you were pretty docile on a macro level. But I seriously doubt a replay of that. The moment Southern Whites using the current political dominance to begin implementing their MAGAQ agenda, something akin to a race war might break out. That, in itself, would greatly weaken the ability of what is otherwise a pretty densely populated part of the country from being easily defended.

Another issue for the old CSA states — especially Texas and portions of Florida — is once things grew existential, there are a lot of moderate people there that would be aghast at the prospect of essentially American Nazis taking over their states. This is a dynamic that would lead a number of old CSA states to implode.

Speaking of imploding states, I suspect within days of any Second American Civil War erupting, Virginia would implode rather dramatically. Virginia is two states — one Red, one Blue — and they hate each other. So, it’s easy to imagine the state becoming completely ungovernable on a political level because the rural parts of the state would rebel against the urban, progressive portions of the state. Things would grow more murky, as well, because of the historical connection Virginia has to the CSA. I could see a lot of Red militants wanting to control cultural touchstones like Richmond and Danville so they could have a link to the past.

One area where Red States (MAGAQ) would have a serious advantage at the beginning of any such civil war is leadership. Add to this MAGAQ being a personality death cult and they would, at first, likely appear to consolidate their power quite quickly. But it’s human nature that even your fey latte swilling hipsters would rise to the occasion if they were staring death in the face. Some basic aspects of human behavior have not changed, no matter how much MAGAQ think they have a monopoly on such things.

But I doubt things would be this clear cut, especially in the beginning. As I said, Trump would have control of the military and a rabid, bloodthirsty 38% of the electorate to turn to. So, it’s possible there would be a knockout blow and there would just be simmering political resentment as Trump turned America into Russia on a political level.

And, yet, Trump is such a fucking moron, that it’s equally easy to see him somehow bungling a sure thing to dramatically that the necessary political and military moves needed for Blue States to engage in a pitched battle with Red States could take place.

But the above is really the absolute worst case scenario.

More likely, everything will be wrapped up on Election Night and we’ll just gradually, in fits and starts, turn ourselves into Russia. Or, put another way, the harder it is for Trump to win, the more radical he will become and the chances of an actual civil war breaking out increase.

Autocrats never lose.

Everything Is About To Change


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I can’t predict the future. But all the metrics point to some pretty well-established things in the United States vanishing rather abruptly within, say, a year. One way or another, House Trump is going to consolidate power.

Really, the only thing that could potentially stop this from happening is Trump himself. He’s such a fucking incompetent self-own artist, that he could very well be on the cusp of his final consolidation of power in the United States and things go completely haywire because he screws up in some way.

I don’t see that happening, however.

Within a year, the media is going to be purged. The more difficult it is for House Trump to stay in power, the more likely this happens quicker than it might otherwise happen. But is going to happen.

Once the press is purged, then Trump can go about the business of snatching people off the street and pushing them out of windows. The ICE camps will become Trumplandia death camps overnight. MAGA-Qanon will begin to murder the entire liberal class en mass and the U.S. Military won’t do anything because they don’t want to get involved in domestic politics.

So, lulz. We’re all fucking doomed and there’s nothing we can do about it.

Good luck.

The Two ‘Tracks’ of Election 2020


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Two different things are happening with Election 2020. On a strictly political level, Biden is in a pretty good position. Meanwhile, everything else indicates that’s a serious lulz.

In other words, a lot of Twitter liberals are working on the assumption we’re still a liberal democracy with a functioning political system. This, sadly, is not the case. Politics in the United States is no longer functioning. The Right in the United States is now completely fascist. They don’t believe in traditional American democracy and see it only as a means to an end.

As such, even though under the traditional rules of American elections, Biden is doing pretty well, under the so-called “new rules” that fascist Republicans love so much, he’s simply not going to be allowed to take power, even if he actually legally wins.

Remember, this is happening in the context of Trump throwing everything he has — including conspiring with the Russians — BEFORE the election happens. So, it’s reasonable to assume all of this wraps up Election Night. We may be left scratching our heads about some things, but Trump will win re-election and we’ll continue our gradual slide into autocratic managed democracy. Trump will demand a Constitutional Convention and if you really wanted to get dystopian, he’ll tell the military to stand down so MAGA-Qanon can murder millions of liberals in cold blood.

At the other end of the spectrum, there’s just a civil war.

I don’t know how that civil war would play out, but I would guess that initially what would happen is MAGA-Qanon would sucker punch the country, hoping for a knock out blow. If that wasn’t successful, then it would become something of a pitched battle. Trump would use this violence as an excuse to consolidate power even quicker than he would anyway and the very thing that would happen gradually over a few years will happen in a few months.

The point is — it’s over. Darkness has fallen.

I really wish I was wrong, but all metrics, all macro trends point to this as being inevitable. People are going to get snatched off the street nation wide. People are going to be pushed out of windows. The media will be purged.

All I can say is good luck. You’ll need it.

Prediction: Election Night 2020 Will Be A Dud


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Liberal democracy in the United States is dead. We’re now nothing more than an autocratic managed democracy. We are Russia and Russia is us, at least on a political level.

We’re in the twilight of the First Republic. Soon enough Trumplandia will be officially founded and we’ll have about 40 years of fascist tyranny at the hands of House Trump ahead of us very, very soon.

I say this because all the macro trends point to it. For Trump to be this popular after being an “asshole” as former Vice Magazine Tim Pool would say, is a testament to how, on a structural level, the First Republic is kaput. It all happened very quickly, but in hindsight, the history books will go on at great length about how it was all very obvious how this was going to turn out.

There is a lot of sturm und drang on Twitter about what may or may not happen on Election Night and afterwards. But I’m of the opinion it’s all going to be a huge letdown. By the time it actually happens, most politically aware people will see that 2020 is going to be a replay of 2016.

Biden wins the popular vote and Trump squeaks by in just enough states that he wins the Electoral College and fuck you. Here is why I think this.

  1. The Russians
    The Russians are going to hack directly into our election systems, giving Trump a result identical to 2016. Maybe even a little bit better. The polls will tighten just enough that this will hide the ratfucking at the hands of Russian hackers. A lot of people will be left scratching their heads about the details, but Trump will still be in power and fuck you.
  2. Kanye West
    As part of the above electoral ratfucking, the Russians will move just enough votes to Kanye to give their hacking some cover. Trump and the Russians are now actively working together to steal the election so even if someone begins to question the outcome, we will never find out until it’s a moot point.
  3. The Durham Investigation
    This is going to be the Second Comey Letter of 2020. Really, the only issue at this point is will Barr get greedy and indict Biden and Obama directly, or will he somehow simply get so close to Biden that there is just enough of a whiff of criminality that Trump wins.

This doesn’t even begin to address postal service ratfucking.

I absolutely, 100% believe this is going to happen. I say this because we are so far down the road to tyranny that something pretty spectacular would have to happen for the final embrace of fascism not to happen. And if it doesn’t happen, there are a lot of bloodthirsty MAGA-Qanon people who are going to start murdering people in cold blood to make sure it DOES happen.

It’s kind of irritating that so many people are oblivious about our decent into autocratic managed democracy. They’re going to get really upset. So upset, that there might be massive protests, which House Trump will only use as an excuse to knock some heads.

We are completely, absolutely doomed. There’s no going back. There may be a few moments of false hope, but there’s absolutely no way House Trump is ever power for any reason. They would rather burn the country to the ground than let that happen.

So, lulz, nothing matters.

No One Is Going To Save Us


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Someone in Europe looked at this site for about 20 minutes. I don’t know what they looked at — they were able to hide that information — but they first came in with abrupt wave of viewers from Europe and Russia, so it leads me to believe they might be connected to the Russians.

I really am pulling all of this out of my butt, but given what they were originally interested in — my talk about Russians hacking directly into our election systems as part of a quid pro quo with House Trump — it seems reasonable to assume that maybe my paranoid rants might be a bit closer to the truth than I originally realized.

But, really, the point is no one is going to save us.

The Russians are going to successfully hack into our election systems and if there are any suspicions about it happening, House Trump will simply stone wall the whole thing until after the Electors vote. After Trump is safely in his second term, he can purge the media and, by the way, fuck you.

And, honestly, there’s only one person who could possibly fuck up this perfect crime — Donald J. Trump.

He’s such a massive self-own artist that in his craven desire to absolutely win, he could very well fuck everything up at just the right moment so there is at least the illusion that we might punt the death of American democracy down the road a little bit.

But that’s really a stretch.

I mean, the moment election night is over, the clock starts ticking. And, even then, for Trump not to win outright election night, a lot of things would have to go wrong for him. So, it’s easy to imagine a situation where by the time we figure out what the Russians did with House Trump, it’s way, way, way, way WAY too late.

It’s not like the Electors are going to do anything. Though I still think human Electors are, by far, the weakest link in the entire Constitution. It’s a liberal fever dream to think Electors might have the wherewithal to change their votes if it became clear that Trump directly conspired with the Russians to rig the election. And, really, things are so fucked up in the United States that we could actually HAVE proof that happened and Trump would simply throw Rudy at the press just long enough for the Electors to vote and, by the way, fuck you.

What’s more, I don’t think Twitter liberals appreciate the harder it is for House Trump to steal the election, the more likely something akin to an actual civil war will break out. MAGA-Qanon is chomping at the bit to murder people like me and it is extremely easy to imagine a situation where things get completely out of control and the entire country implodes — leaving House Trump on top.

But the point is — we’re fucked. House Trump has won. We’re going to continue to slide into an autocratic managed democracy in fits and starts until by 2024, the very idea of a free-and-fair election will be quaint. America will be Russian and Russia will be America. Politically, we will be identical. And that doesn’t even take into account House Trump demanding a Constitutional Convention so its rule can be codified.

So, really, I would suggest you either get out of the country or start thinking how you’re going to avoid being pushed out a window. It’s very possible that MAGA-Qanon will go full Pol Pot on us and there will be American Killing fields. The process of dehumanizing liberals et al is pretty much complete. Trump will just tell the U.S. Military to stand down while MAGA-Qanon descends upon major metropolitan areas and murders everyone they don’t like –which is a lot of people.

As far as I can tell, House Trump will have Putin-levels of control over the country for at least 30-40 years. The dead hand of demographics, however, will begin to make their power a bit more untenable.

Then history will, again, wake up and we’ll see what happens next.

Maybe a 2nd Republic will be founded. Who knows.

1861 & 1933 — Two Years, Two Futures For America


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It definitely feels a though we’re in the twilight of one era and the cusp of the beginning of another. But what type of new era? It seems to me two years symbolize what may be about to happen in the United States: 1861 and 1933.

1861 — “Renewal Through The Crucible Of War“
It is obvious, in hindsight, that in the years leading up to 1861, that the country was tearing itself apart. The thing we have to remember, of course, is at the time no one knew exactly what was going on or the consequences. That’s the thing about living through history — you simply don’t know how it’s going to end. It’s given a narrative after-the-fact by historians so people can understand it. At the time, it seems like just a random sequence of events. As such, if our future can be gleaned from 1860 — it would seem as though the “bad guys” are likely going to win at first and then, after considerable struggle, leadership will arise and things will get sorted out in a new way. A lot of people will die tragic deaths, but in the end, America will bounce back. Though, I suspect the First Republic’s goose is cooked given the exact set of circumstances we find ourselves in.

1933 — “A Darkness At Noon”
On the other hand, there’s this. In this historical analogy the bad guys win and that’s it. We cross the Rubicon into an autocratic managed democracy (or worse) and that’s it. The end. And the only thing that might loosen House Trump’s grip on power will be the dead hand of demographics. Once the last of the Baby Boomers finally drop dead, then the internal dynamic in Trumplandia will slowly begin to shift and something new will pop out of the rubble of what was once the United States.

I honestly don’t know which one of these years is our future. Could even be a mixture of the two. But I do know the fault lines in American politics are about to shift in a rather dramatic fashion. We should all brace ourselves for historical earthquake.

Trump: American Norodom Sihanouk


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

There has been a lot of hysterical talk on the part of the center-Left that Trump is some sort of “American Hitler.” And I will be the first to admit that I have engaged in a lot of that talk myself. MAGA people chuckle at this and simply grunt something about “orange man bad” in reply.

Well, I used to think that maybe Trump himself wouldn’t be an American Hitler, but it would be one of his younger, more organized successors.

I’m beginning to doubt that assesement.

The reason is: Qanon.

It’s very easy to see a situation where Trump consolidates power after the Russians steal the election for him and ultimately the worst crimes don’t even happen because of him. It would be a situation similar to King Norodom Sihanouk in Cambodia.

Once OANN owns CNN and The New York Times has been nationalized and then given to Rupert Murdoch (and so forth) there simply won’t be anyone to notice that MAGA and Qanon have fused and they’re rounding people up to be murdered in American Killing Fields.

What’s more, the U.S. Military will be so concerned with not interfering in domestic politics that what starts off as a general attack on liberal elites turns into a mass emptying of the cities and American Killing Fields. This sounds surreal and bonkers, I know, but that’s an angle we haven’t really thought about before — Trump himself doesn’t order the American Killing Fields, but he doesn’t do anything to stop it, either.

Besides the whole mass murder thing, the other element of this that is gravely concerning is who is going to save us if this happens? It definitely seems as though once the country implodes that’s it.

I can’t think of how get out to the other side.

This is all a delusional fever nightmare at this point. But it’s definitely something to think about since apparently the fix is in when it comes to Russians hacking directly into our election systems.

A Tim Pool Rebuttal


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The thing about former Vice Magazine writer Tim Pool is his arguments for Trump are actually cogent enough to warrant a rebuttal. Pool is interesting to me because he seems like just the type of guy who would REALLY be into Joe Rogan. Anyway, he’s apparently all-in with MAGA at this point and, from his Twitter threat explaining why he’s voting for Trump rather fascist-friendly, if not fascist altogether. Let’s go through the thread a pick it apart.

He opens the thread explaining why Kyle Rittenhouse’s double murder explains why he’s voting for Trump. Now, for me, that statement in itself sets off some warning lights because it establishes he’s going to see what Rittenhouse did through the lens of partisan politics. He also makes a point of claiming the press “lied” about Trump doing something. I don’t know enough about what exactly he’s talking about, but while maybe they weren’t *literally* secret police, a lot of the violence that’s happening across the country is being sparked by the reaction of Trump’s goons more than the often otherwise peaceful protesters.

Ok, this is an extremely charitable explanation of what happened. Pool makes it seem as though some innocent waif decided to swoop in and save the day. He ignores that there are pictures of the 17 year old holding an AR-15. He’s bending over backwards to frame the situation in such a way that your average Joe Rogan audience member will nod their head in agreement. The following tweet is probably his strongest argument in the thread:

I will give him this point. Biden should definitely be more proactive condemning the violence taking place. And, yet, to me, for this to be the single issue that he is so concerned about when 180,000 people have died because of Trump’s criminally incompetent handling of the COVI19 pandemic as well as a shit ton of other criminal activity on House Trump’s part is a little bit of a tell — he was never going to vote for Biden and Biden not doing what he felt was needed was simply confirmation of his existing decision.

Here is where we get to the core of his argument and the whole thing falls apart.

To call Biden “a coward” who “hides in his basement” is straight MAGA agitprop. And given how well the whole “law and order” thing is probably polling with House Trump’s campaign right now, it makes me think Pool is no longer a journalist in an real sense. He’s completely in the pocket of House Trump and, just like Joe Rogan, he uses a form of masculine earnestness to deflect any reasonable effort to talk to him.

I compare it to someone in 1933 saying Herr Hitler is going to make the streets of the Free City of Danzig safe again. He wants us to focus on this sole issue, totally ignoring the astonishing existential threat that House Trump presents to the Republic on a strategic level. He wants to do this because as long as we focus on this specific issue, we aren’t talking about the flaming pile of horseshit that is the Trump Administration.

As such, I can only conclude that Pool is a fascist. That the Right is embracing Kyle Rittenhouse as some sort of John Brown of MAGA tells you everything you need to know about the state of American democracy. The logic is there to support wide-spread political violence against anyone who gets in the way of MAGA or Qanon.

Now, what’s even worse is the center Right and the center Left have grown so detached from each other and what they can agree is “real” that it’s nearly impossible for there to be any discussion at all. The Right has cross the Rubicon and now are full throated fascists, even though they will never admit it because they know it would hurt them politically — for the time being.

As such, this fall is going to be very dark.

I continue to believe that House Trump is never, EVER leaving power for any reason, even if it means inciting a civil war. Given Pool’s reasoning for voting for Trump, I honestly can’t imagine any situation where he wouldn’t be right there with MAGA and Qanon, cheering on the political violence that apparently he — and much of the American Right — are now cool with.

Good luck, guys.

The Five Existential American Trends That Cause MAGA


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’m not saying anything that’s not already been said, but I just felt like articulating the obvious in my own words. There are five major historical trends that have led to the rise of MAGA.

  1. White working class men can’t get laid.
  2. Baby Boomers are old.
  3. The secularization of metropolitan areas.
  4. The Rise of the Plutocracy
  5. The Browning of America.

I once saw a dire warning about what was going to happen to China and India because of a lack of women. It was not pretty — men not being able to get laid is often the source of significant societal upheaval. It’s maybe exactly the same, but in the last 20 or so years, it’s gotten a whole lot more difficult for white working class men to get laid.

This has happen for a number of reasons.

One is the obvious — the industrial base of the United States has vanished. It’s all in Asia now. So, if you’re a young man without a college degree living in rural America, you’re fucked. It’s really difficult for you to find a job that pays enough for you to get a wife and have a family. This leads to extreme “economic anxiety.”

But, really, that one macro metric out of whack is the source of a lot of the worst aspects of MAGA — the racism and misogyny. The racism comes from white blue collar men angry about the lack of jobs. The misogyny is the same thing.

For both the racism and the misogyny there are other factors that are influencing that metric. But let’s look at the misogyny first. Without good jobs, it’s more difficult for working class families to live the American dream. Since, in general, girls are better students than boys when they’re young, on a statistical level I would suggest that the number of available women for young white working class men is reduced enough for them to notice — an educated woman probably has a better shot at having a higher paying service industry job.

As mentioned, another aspect of MAGA is Baby Boomers are old. This is a subtle, but powerful, macro trend that really helps the whole cause because, well, old people vote. Throw in the other macro trends associated with MAGA and you got your self an existential threat to a liberal democracy.

As major metropolitan areas grow more secularized, they are more open to more progressive social constructs which freak out religious people living in rural areas. This hands autocrats like Trump a convenient bludgeon to use against major population areas when they need to get elected in the first place.

Another major macro issue America faces is economic disparity. Since plutocrats successfully brainwashed poor people to be against a progressive income tax, well, lulz, we’re all fucked. The plutocrats provide the funds necessary to win elections for autocrats like Trump.

Lastly, there is the Browning of America.

This is something that touches all the other macro trends in one way or another. As white people become a minority, this leads them to feel a huge amount angst on an existential level. It jiggles their collective self-perception and sense of self-worth.

By definition, all these existential issues are intractable. We simply don’t have the leadership or the political will to do anything about them. Or, put another way, the one that we can do something about — the Browning of America — unites all the other issues into one single avatar — a fucking racist like Donald Trump.

As such, the damage is done.

All you need to throw into the mix is something like Qanon and the American Killing Fields aren’t far behind.