Tag: The Big Ugly

The Narrative For A Trump Coup Attempt


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

A Twitter thread by Bill Kristol finally gives me a handle on what Trump might do between now and, say, January 7th. It goes something like this.

The anniversary of the Soleimani assassination is Jan 3rd. It’s easy to imagine a situation where there’s some significant attack against Israeli and American interests in the Middle-East and Trump uses that to escalate things on the eve of the January 6th vote by Congress to certify the vote. That makes Trump a “war president.”

Next, the Proud Boys in D.C. for the Congressional certification freak the fuck out and start blowing shit up to the extent necessary to give Trump the excuse to use the Insurrection Act in D.C. In that context, he does something extra-political or extra-legal by pretty much just waving his hands about the details and doing something so he “wins” the election when Congress discusses the issue.

This would be a massive clusterfuck and I honestly don’t see how Trump would be successful. But such a sequence of events could, in itself, be the “political 9/11” I’ve been worried about and lead to a secession crisis and subsequent civil war.

It’s Almost Inevitable At This Point That Trump Pardons Himself


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

There’s a very specific reason why I believe Trump is going to pardon himself at some point before January 20th — the conversations on the codeword classified servers.

Trump is such a fucking idiot — an a paranoid one at that — that it’s easy to imagine a situation where he panics at the thought of anyone not beholden to him seeing whatever it is he told Putin — and others — on those transcripts. So just before he legally leaves office — on way or another — he pardons himself knowing Pence is unlikely to do it for him.

Now, Trump pardoning himself will be a curious situation. In hindsight, there is some merit to the MAGA people who saw my fears about Trump as entirely abstract. Outside of a few real dick moves, Trump hasn’t really a lot of the tyrannical things I — and people like me — have feared. He’s just a big old ding-dong, not an autocrat.

But for him to pardon himself would be next level. It would be something concrete that people like me could point to and say, “That’s the mark of an autocrat.”

I’m well aware that even that would be a lulz in real terms, given that Trump’s about to leave office. But, here’s the rub — it’s still very possible that Trump could go grow so fucking deranged post January 6th that he completely changes the context of his era in the closing days of it.

If Trump pulled something extra-legal or extra-political — like pardoning himself (to name just one thing) then the very people who have poo-pooed the anger of people like myself when it comes to Trump will have to at least confront that he’s done something difficult — but not impossible — to defend.

And, really, if you think about it — Trump pardoning himself is not even as bad as it could get if he really fucking flipped out. I still think Trump might start a war out of the blue against Iran (or the DPRK) or figure out a way to frogwalk Joe Biden (or Obama!) in his final days.

But, really, who knows when it comes to Trump at this point. Anything is possible.

Are We Going To Have A Civil War?


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Short answer: No, probably not right now.
Long Answer: Yes, probably in a few years. Let me explain.

There’s one major issue whenever you try to game out a Second American Civil War and that’s Trump. On one hand, Trump has done everything in his power to destabilize the United States the last five years.

On the other hand — he’s just a ding-dong.

What I mean by that is, he was handed everything necessary to destroy the United States in a one-two punch…and he went golfing. So, for the time being, we’re an autocracy without an autocrat. If Trump really was some sort of American Putin, he would have thought six or seven steps in advance and goaded the Blue States into leaving the Union at some point, so he could destroy them and remake them in his own MAGA image.

But, to date, he’s not do anything like that.

Yet, this has not stopped a lot of people on both the Left and the Right to begin talking outloud about some sort of civil war. On the Right, it seems to be them grasping at abstract straws in desperation. They feel that because of cancel culture and various other faux controversies that they REALLY HATE liberals, so a civil war is the worst thing they can think up in that line of thought. But, to date, their rage against “libtards” has been exclusively been abstract. They just hate liberals, but don’t really have any concrete, specific things they are going to do to them in the real world.

So, for the time being, because we’re an autocracy without an autocrat, we’re going to be in a very surreal situation where all the conditions are there for a civil war of some sort…and nothing happens. We will drift for about two years then gradually things will reach a crescendo around 2023 – 2025 and some sort of secession crisis will happen and that will be that.

It seems as though because Trump is NOT the guy from The Apprentice in real life, that we’re going to punt this particular problem down the road a few years.

And, yet.

This is Trump we’re talking about.

So, it’s within the realm of possibility that starting around January 6th , Trump’s sense of self-preservation will grow so much stronger than any political considerations that he will attempt something extra-political or extra-legal and that, in itself, will be such a massive clusterfuck that Trump will destroy himself politically and redefine the entire Trump Era.

That, in itself, will punt America’s lurch into autocracy down the road not just one presidential cycle, but a generation. Just about then, of course, the youngest of the Baby Boomers will be dying off at last and so, who knows. But remember, this is not going to be some sort of liberal fever dream — for this to happen, it would need to be a “political 9/11” whereby Trump scares the shit out of all of us and takes a political pound of flesh.

Anyway. I can’t predict the future.

Trump Is Not Well


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I have long been ranting about the implications of Trump being a deranged ding-dong, but we’ve reached next-level crisis because after January 6th, Trump isn’t going to have any political or legal options left. So, it’s very possible he’ll explode, instead of implode mentally.

If he were to implode mentally, then we probably wouldn’t know. He just would be catatonic in the White House and we just wouldn’t see him for a few weeks until he mysteriously popped up a few months from now tan, ready and rested. So, it’s very possible Trump will explode — he may very well go completely insane after Congress meets on January 6th.

Did Stephen King predict our fate?

My fear is, of course, that Trump will finally snap but we won’t realize what’s going on at first because he’s been acting crazy for so long that his sudden decent into crazyland will at first be just a matter of degree. But I think one way we will really begin to know Trump has snapped is a combination of him going transactional on Twitter and him growing extremely passive-aggressive there as well.

He’ll not only start to tell MAGA to do things for him in the real world, he’ll also start whining about how liberals “hate him and want him to kill himself” or even out of the blue talk about how he controls our nuclear arsenal. It will be talk like this that might — might — finally scare the shit out of Republicans enough that they decide to do something about it.

But, alas, I think even then, they’re going to sit on their hands. Trump would really, REALLY do something completely insane for Republicans to do anything at this late date in his administration. The only thing I can think of is Trump somehow goes way out of his way and starts a war with the DPRK which involves a limited nuclear exchange.

Then, maybe, #MoscowMitch might do something about Trump.

Otherwise, lulz, nothing matters.

Or, put another way, Trump has his fate — and the fate of humanity — in his hands for the time being and there’s nothing we can do about it.

The Value Free Trump Era


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

In the end, what will decide Trump’s fate will be, as always, Trump. If he can just behave for a few more weeks, he’s going to get away scot free with everything he’s done. Everything. There simply will be no political will do do anything about any of his crimes.

What’s more, he will be in a position to not only be a king maker in Republican Politics for the rest of his life, but come roaring back in 2024. There may even be talk of naming him Speaker of the House in 2023 when Republicans take over again.

But.

Trump is not the political genius that everyone –including me — has thought he was over the years. His actual political ability is little more than a grunt. While he is an avatar for the rot and rage in the American political system, that’s all he is. He doesn’t have any innate political leadership ability. So he pretty much just thrashes around, destroying things and being corrupt without any overall strategy.

As I’ve said before, we live in an autocracy without the autocrat. The only thing stopping the United States from being a Russian-style autocracy at this point is Donald Trump. That’s it. If there was virtually anyone else in his position right now, we would be an autocracy.

The most surreal point of all of this is Trump isn’t going to behave. He probably is going to do some dumb self-own move that redefines his era to such an extent that he destroys himself politically. Whatever extra-political or extra-legal thing he attempts, may finally, at last, give us the political will to do something about the Trump cancer.

But it will come at a cost.

He’s likely to extract a pound of political flesh from us along the way. It could be a war, or him going transactional on Twitter. Nothing is off the table. So, it’s not going to be some sort of liberal fever dream where Rachel Maddow becomes president.

Nope, it’s going to suck.

The Trump Era Can Be Value Free If Trump Just Behaves Himself


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Because Republicans have no shame, all Trump has to do to be in a decent position to make a come back in 2024 is simply behave. He just has to still keep political considerations in mind between now and January 20th. If he can just do that, he probably will remain a Republican Party king maker for at least a decade to come.

Yet, as we know, Trump is a willful child.

So, it’s fairly possible that Trump is going to attempt something extra-political or extra-legal in a desperate attempt to stay in office. He could do something so bad that for a bright, shining moment a lot of America will, at last, be on the same page about Trump: he’s gotta go.

I honestly don’t know what exactly he might do. But one thing is clear — it’s not like Trump has hidden his slide into insanity. He’s been quite open about it. He’s bonkers and there’s a decent chance that he’ll do something in the last few days (hours?) of his administration that redefines the whole five year experiment in political terror.

What, exactly, it might be, I don’t know.

But whatever it is, he will be doing it from a position of weakness. And there’s still a decent chance that after January 6th, he won’t have any hope anymore and he’ll finally flip the fuck out in a pretty massive fashion. He could grow extremely passive aggressive on Twitter. Or he could grow transactional.

Anything’s possible when someone’s lost their mind.

I guess only time will tell.

Why A Trump Coup Attempt At This Point Would Be Quixotic


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

There’s a lot of talk about Trump staging a coup these days, so let’s go through different scenarios to see how successful they might be.

January 6th
This is yet another day in the inevitable march towards Biden becoming president that MAGA shithead cocksuckers think they can somehow magically prevent Biden from ever becoming president. There are a series of things Trump could do at this point. MAGA people in Congress will challenge the Electoral vote and obviously delay things for a few hours — maybe even 24 hours if they are big enough assholes. And there are plenty of really dark scenarios whereby Pence doesn’t do his job, or there’s violence in Congress itself or Trump goes transactional on Twitter as all of this is happening. But the fact remains — Trump has not done any prep work to pull of a successful coup. There were a multitude of autocratic things Trump COULD have done over the last four years so he was able to successful steal a second term…and he didn’t do any of them. So, even under the most favorable of coup conditions…all Trump does is just destroy himself politically and damage the MAGA movement for a few years.

Wag The Dog
Under this scenario, Trump effectively starts WW3, thinking he can pull a Constitutional fast one one us — while we’re distracted by a war with Iran or the DPRK (or both) he simply never leaves office. This is just silly. Of all the civil society institutions in the United States, I have the most faith in our military to Do The Right Thing when the time comes. Even if WW3 starts, when January 20th comes around, Trump is no longer POTUS. The US. Military was able to wage a massive, global two front war, I think they can handle both waging WW3 and getting rid of an asshole POTUS. But given how stupid Trump is, I can definitely see why he might think he could pull such a thing off.

Downfall
In this scenario, Trump loses his fucking mind (probably at some point after January 6th) and really leans into going transactional on Twitter. He tells his MAGA shithead cocksucker followers to blow shit up or attempt to secede from the Union or whatever in a last ditch effort to stay in power no matter what. He might even — gulp — go so far as to blackmail the United States because he still has control over our nuclear arsenal. Or he might grow really fucking passive aggressive on Twitter, suggesting “liberals want him to kill himself” or some such bullshit. But in the end, this, too, would be very dumb.

The key thing we have to appricate is at this point, Trump staging a coup would be more a symptom of him being bonkers than any sort of actual autocratic ability. So, in the end, he will probably scare the shit out of us all in some way and pretty much just destroy himself on his way out the door.

Why Trump Was Not ‘America’s Hitler’


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Now, before we begin, let me note that Trump “not being Hitler” isn’t what you might think — Trump’s not Hitler not because he’s not a deranged lunatic, but he’s so lazy and incompetent he can’t exploit the conditions that would otherwise MAKE him Hitler.

Let’s put it this way — the people who voted for Trump in 2016 were on a spectrum. There were people who wanted Trump to be America’s Hitler. There were also a lot of conservatives-who-weren’t-MAGA were given a permission structure to “come home” to the Republican Party when it counted: election day. In this sense, all things being equal, Trump was set to be an American Hitler — then he blew it.

What people like me saw in Trump was a Hitler-like character. We spun all these dark, dystopian scenarios where Trump would go full-autocrat on us and start off at Putin and endup at Hitler before it was all over with. Then we spent 4 years expecting Trump to do all these autocratic things…that he never did. Trump never did some basic Hitler-like actions that could have destroyed American democracy and taken us on the path towards some semblance of a Trumplandian-Nazi America. So, the case could be made that while Trump slice the seal of autocracy and tyranny, we may have dodged a bullet for the time being because of it was Trump, specifically, who was elected in 2016. If it had been anyone else, then they would have had the wherewithal to actually be an American Hitler.

The surreal thing is Trump, in a frantic attempt to stay in power, may change the entire context of the Trump Era. If Trump destroys himself politically by attempting to seize power through extra-political or extra-legal means, then it’s possible that he will so enrage Americans that for one, brief moment, we’ll be united it how much we all hate Trump.

Then, of course, we’ll descend into finger-pointing and recriminations. And, remember, the conditions that put Trump in the position to become an American Hitler will still be there, so it could be someone younger and more focused who ultimately does the deed.

But it definitely seems as though we’re careening towards some sort of “political 9/11” between now and January 20th. How exactly that will happen is anyone’s guess. Even if Trump attempted some sort of American Reichstag Fire in an effort to stay in power, it’s just too late. He’s done none of the hard work that Hitler would have done in Trump’s position.

So, in the end, it’s possible Trump might, just might, punt America’s lurch towards Nazi-style tyranny down the road a decade or so. But we’re not out of the woods yet. Anything can happen now MAGA has enjoyed power for four years.

‘#ETTD’


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

America definitely has a Soviet Union in August 1991 vibe to it right now. If my Webstats are any indication, a lot of people across the country think — hope? — that we’re going to have some sort of Second American Civil War soon.

I generally don’t think that will happen now, but rather sometime in 2024-2025, but for one thing: Donald Trump. There are any number of different ways Trump could force the issue of a civil war as he attempts to stay in power. Now, we have to put this in perspective: Trump has done none of the prep work to do anything extra-political or extra-legal to stay in power. In other words — if he does stage a coup of some sort, it will be because he’s bonkers.

Also, if he makes any type of significant power grab, it would be, at last, a self-evident proof of what people like me have said about Trump all along: he’s a tyrant. To date, Trump has enjoyed a lot of negative-polarization support from conservatives-who-aren’t-MAGA because they like his policies but don’t like him. They just don’t feel they have any option — they support Trump because of things like cancel culture which they think will destroy them for simply being conservative.

The great irony of the Trump Era is the context of the whole thing may change in its waning days if Trump pulls some sort of extra-political or extra-legal stunt in a one last death rattle. If Trump could just control himself, then the entire Trump Era would be value free to huge swaths of the American politic. We would snap back to the political assumptions of the late Obama Administration and that would be that.

But if Trump goes transactional on Twitter in some way and real people begin to get hurt then those conservatives-who-aren’t-MAGA are going to, at last, have to face tyrannical behavior on Trump’s part that isn’t abstract. It can’t be dismissed as just Trump Derangement Syndrome. If Trump makes a power grab, it will be very difficult to say “both sides.”

Or, put another way, conservatives-who-aren’t-MAGA are going to face an existential decision — are they MAGA or not? Are they willing to support a tyrant because they fear cancel culture or not? There will be some who will realize they’re MAGA after all. But enough conservative-but-not-MAGA people will, at last, get woke and join some sort of United Front against Trump at the very last moment that Trump is going to destroy himself politically at last.

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.