Tag: Tim Pool

Someone Needs To Tell Tim Pool That A Second American Civil War Would Fucking Suck


By Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Apparently, I’m not the only one with a second American civil war on the brain. I still am curious what green haired woman at Vice broke that poor man’s heart to the point that he turned to a raving MAGA lunatic. But, anyway, while I write a lot about a civil war, it’s not like I *want* one.

I just feel compelled to game different scenarios out because I don’t want to have some sort of abstract fear hanging over my head.

Anyway, it’s par for the course for people like Pool to scream at the top of their lungs that we *should* have a civil war. Ugh. A civil war would be a massive tragedy not just for how much it would fucking suck in the US, but how WW3 would break out if it actually happened.

Did A Leftist Manic Pixie Dream Girl At Vice Break Tim Pool’s Heart?



by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I honestly don’t give a shit about weird MAGA New Right “thought leader” Tim Pool. Whatever, live the fuck on and prosper. But I remember when Tim Pool worked at Vice and was just another one of their asshole Leftist that the old Gawker would make fun of for how needlessly over-the-top they were.

But, at some point, all that changed. Pool became an enfant terrible of the MAGA New Right for some reason. It’s not so much that he “switch sides” that interests me — I mean, people change — but for it happen out of the blue makes me wonder if maybe something personal was involved.

Tim Pool

And I know enough about the human psyche to know it’s very easy to imagine a scenario where some cute Leftist girl — a manic pixie dream girl, if you will — broke that poor boy’s heart and he vowed to get back at her by turning into a rabid New Right person. At least, that makes sense to me.

But I will note that Pool’s conversion proves that the MAGA New Right grift has an exceeding low bar of entry. I mean, it’s so fucking low that if I sold my soul to Trumplandia I could probably be having dinner with Trump himself within six months.

The books I’ve been reading about the macro issues involved in America’s transition to anocracy really are very illuminating about all of this bullshit. A lot of white men feel very insecure about the social changes taking place in America right now and there is a huge demand for articulate people to express that rage.

One last thing. It is within the realm of possibility that I’m related — through marriage — to Pool. He’s apparently from the Hampton Roads area and I have a cousin there married to a Pool. I have nothing personal against the guy. It would be interesting to have dinner with him and ask, “What was her name?”

Triggered: Kyle Rittenhouse & The End Of American Democracy


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Americans generally believe any political problem can simply be muddled through and punted down the road until it’s not a big deal anymore. We have every reason to think this way — generally, in our history, political issues have been “solved’ in a half-assed way, but finally, at last “sloved.”

We have before us, with the 2020 Election, something of a spectrum. On one end of the spectrum, House Trump wins fairly easily and their gradual consolidation of power continues. A Constitutional Convention is called and the very idea of liberal democracy in the United States will be rather quaint. On the other end of the spectrum, House Trump has to fight to stay in power and it burns the entire country to the ground in the process.

Or, put another way, the very things that House Trump would do anyway at one end of the spectrum, they do at the other end of the spectrum only, much, much quicker. Instead of years, it’s days and weeks.

At the center of this clusterfuck is 17-year-old AR-15 shooter Kyle Rittenhouse. If you want some sense of how tight America is right now, how much our traditional political system has collapsed, simply look at his situation. He murdered two people in cold blood, but in the eyes of MAGA-Qanon, he’s a regular second coming of John Brown.

Kyle Rittenhouse lies at the intersection of the entire fucking clusterfuck we find ourselves in because MAGA-Qanon is now fine with extra-legal killings in the pursuit of their agenda. On a macro level, we’re pretty much just about where the Wiemar Republic was in 1933. MAGA-Qanon no longer sees liberal democracy as legitimate. They see it as a means to an end. If they can’t get what they want using it, then they’ll start murdering people until they do get what they want.

This is why people like former Vice Magazine writer Tim Pool are so important to understanding what’s going on. (Please, MAGA-Qanon fucktards — eat shit. I’m not obsessed with him and he’s just a good shorthand for how completely fucked our situation is. Please fuck off.) Anyway, he calls himself a “disillusioned liberal.” He seems like a pretty smart guy — if extremely intense. His abrupt hatred for liberalism almost makes you think his last girlfriend was liberal and she really broke his heart or something. His hatred of liberalism is personal for some reason.

But Pool is emblematic of what’s going on in America — he’s a smart guy who has come up with a cogent reason why he supports a fascist. According to Pool’s logic, both Trump and Hitler are just “assholes.” It’s better to destroy 240 years of democracy than let a “coward” like Joe Biden become president. Sure, Pool. Sure. Whatever floats your boat.

(I keep expecting Pool to notice me writing about him and either block me on Twitter or swoop in and put me on blast. He’s a successful guy — especially compared to me — and so, lulz, maybe he doesn’t see me as worth his time. But I am prepared to “own” my views.)

So, fascism is here. Tyranny is victorious. America is finally “great” again.

Regardless, the point is, America is either going to gradually become more an more a fascist state or it’s going to implode and it will all happen a lot quicker than we imagine.

The same logic that the Right uses to defend Kyle Rittenhouse will be used for significant political violence against anyone MAGA-Qanon doesn’t like. There’s no norm or law that is going to stop this fate.

America is Russia. Russia is America.

Addressing Tim Pool’s ‘Asshole’ Versus ‘The Coward’ Argument



Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

What bothers me about former Vice Magazine writer Tim Pool boiling down the debate between Trump and Biden to the political grunt of “Trump may be an asshole but Biden is a coward” is how effective it is for men who watch Joe Rogan and declare themselves “centrists.”

This argument is effective because it narrows down the strategic threat of Trump destroying the entire Republic to simply calling him “an asshole.” Meanwhile, it taps into the earnest masculinity of Joe Rogan viewers by calling Biden a “coward.”

I guess a similar 1933 situation would be something like a WWI veteran supporting Herr Hitler because he promises to re-militarize the Rhineland. It totally ignores the insane, corrupt racism of the rest of the Nazi agenda and focuses on something you agree with him on. So,in a sense, for Pool, he accepts that Trump is a outrageously corrupt racist misogynistic bigot because he’s a tough guy, a “strong man,” if you will. All the things Pool doesn’t like about Trump is baked into the cake and ignored and accepted because Pool believes Biden is a “coward.”

This allows him to ignore that Trump is actively doing everything in his power to destroy the very Republic itself. He simply focuses on one subject and one subject only — his belief that Biden is a “coward” for not addressing the riots in Wisconsin the way he thinks she should.

To me, at least, it all rather surreal.

We need to begin to accept that darkness is here. MAGA and Qanon are fused now and the ICE camps will become Trumplandia death camps soon enough. We’re simply not prepared for how brazenly Trump is going to steal the election, to the point where he encourages a civil war.

Sometimes, the bad guys win.

Barring something pretty spectacular that I can’t predict, America has passed the event horizon of tyranny. All the macro trends indicate that Trump is either going to eek out some sort of victory outright, or he’s going to burn the entire country down to win one way or another.

We are so fucked.

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.