How The United States Could Have A Second Civil War


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I continue to get a steady stream of people to this site interested in my dystopian predictions about America’s future. A lot — and I mean A LOT — of people have a Second American Civil War on the brain, apparently.

While I still contend any such civil war will likely happen in about four years, there is one scenario where it happens NOW. It revolves around Trump being the Mad King.

Right now, a lot of MAGA suck ups continue to make political calculations while Trump — at least in my opinion — has totally gone off the reservation. He’s thinking strictly in terms of self-preservation in the context of him having a tenuous, at best, connection to reality.

Now, at this point, let me tell the MAGA people who are drinking a cold one and smoking a doobie in Alabama who think there’s going to be some sort of conservative “revolution” to slow their roll — that’s just not going to happen. You guys have plenty of guns, yes, but you want to fuck them, not use them. There’s a big difference between hating libtards in the abstract and actually, like, running around murdering them in cold blood because you’re afraid your going to be “canceled” for simply being conservative.

So, back to the civil war.

Here’s how it could happen. Trump, having lost his mind, does a number of transactional things that are simply, at last, inexcusable on a political level. He declares martial law. He actively begins to tell Red States to leave the Union — and they do.

If you want a civil war — which apparently some of you fucking Right wing cocksuckers do — that’s how you get one. Trump goes full Col. Kurtz on us and actively begins to either do things that cause Blue States to want to leave the Union or goads Red States into leaving the Union…while he’s still president of the Union.

If none of those type things happen between now and January 20th, then you’re just going to have to wait for your civil war. You just going to have to risk being canceled a few more years.

The Abstract Rage Of Rep. Louie Gohmert


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Let’s look at what’s going on with Rep. Louie Gohmert’s lawsuit against Mike Pence of all people. It seems to me there are a few reasons — in his mind — for the lawsuit.

  1. Catch Pence’s Attention
    Gohmert’s suit is about, in part, simply catching Pence’s attention and reminding him of what he might be able to do if he was so inclined. While Pence could be a dick and throw the nation into chaos, up until fairly recently, he was a pretty traditional — if far Right — politician. So, for him to do something crazy on January 6th would at least appear to be out of character.
  2. Remind Pence of his Duty
    By bringing attention to what Pence’s responsibilities are, Gohmert is attempting to put pressure on Pence to fuck things up. Again, Pence came up through the ranks as a pretty “normal” politician, so it would really be wild for him to do what Gohmert and others want.
  3. Make Everyone Talk About What Pence Could Do
    Another aspect to the suit is to get everyone talking about what Pence may — or may not — do when the opportunities arises. This is where the suit has been the most successful, by far — I mean, I’m talking about it right now.

    Now, let’s talk about how bonkers all of this is to begin with. Gohmert is definitely ahead of the curve in the whole fascist take over of America. And, if he would just fucking be patient, he would definitely get what he wanted. America is a center-Right nation and obviously had Trump in 2016 been the “guy from The Apprentice” then we would be an autocratic, managed democracy right now. Our democracy would, at last, be dead and we would just have House Trump in power for the foreseeable future.

    But there’s a problem — Trump.

    Trump is just a very lucky ding-dong — and now a very lucky DERANGED ding-dong — and so it’s possible that Trump could do something so fucking insane between now and January 20th that we don’t just punt Gohmert’s fascist dreams down the road one election cycle, but for a generation.

    I don’t know. Everything is still very much up in the air. Not until around January 6th will we have a better understanding of what, if anything, is going to happen with all of this.

No, You Fucking Right Wing Nutjobs, You Aren’t Going To Start A Revolution


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Looking at my Webstats, I definitely get the sense that there’s a lot of talk out there in Right Wing circles about some sort of Revolution if They Don’t Get Their Way and Trump stays in power despite him losing the election.

While it’s easy to imagine some sort of major political violence in, say, about four years, if the tree of liberty is watered with the blood of fucking Right Wing cocksuckers right NOW, it will be in vain. The far Right has an abstract rage against “libtards” but I honestly don’t understand what, exactly, they think they would get out of any sort of “revolution” at the moment.

Americans, in general, are pretty copacetic and there’s a quantum leap from having an abstract rage against people who disagree with you politically and actually running around murdering them. There would be real-world consequences to doing so and I don’t think the far Right is prepared to have to deal with that — yet.

Give them four years for the Proud Boys to turn into the SA / SS and the Republican Party to turn into the National Socialist American Worker’s Party and we can talk. When you’re REALLY willing to risk dying or spending the rest of your life in prison because of the vague notion that you might be “canceled” by the evil globalist cuck overlords then, well, I’ll take you seriously.

Now, though, meh. You fucking cowards.

The absolute craziest part of all of this is it may be Trump, himself, who destroys any possibility of a Right Wing “revolution” anytime soon. Trump is not fucking well mentally and it definitely seems as though he is on the cusp of forcing the issue of some sort of coup very, very soon.

Or, put another way, it’s possible that Trump could do something so insane in the waning days of his administration that he kind of slices the boil when it comes to such matters and the whole decent into revolution and civil war that an alarming number of Republicans seem to be looking forward to will be punted down the road a generation.

But, as I keep saying, for that to happen, Trump would extract a pound of political flesh from us. It would be horrific. It would be a quantum leap beyond what happened on 9/11. It would be a New Era for a number of reasons.

The issue is — we’re now entering a very unstable moment in our nations history. If we can just make it past January 20th without Trump nuking us all into the stone age, then we worry about if fucking Right Wing nutjob cocksucker shitheads will get their “revolution” or not.

Four Days That May Shake The World


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

As I keep saying, I’m always wrong. Always. I make all these wild predictions and then…nothing. But the following is, if nothing else, entertaining in its own dark, disturbing manner. It’s possible that Jan 3rd to January 6th may be some of the most eventful in American history.

Here’s why:

The one year anniversary of the assassination of Iranian military leader Qasem Soleimani is on January 3rd. It’s easy to imagine Iran striking either in the Middle East or the American homeland in retaliation. Depending on what exactly occurred, that, in itself, could be Trump’s “Reichstag Fire” that makes him a wartime president.

Trump is already extremely unhinged right now, and it’s easy to see him wagging the dog right before Congress is set to certify the Electoral College vote on January 6th.

If you throw in Proud Boys in DC flipping out and causing a lot of mayhem in DC on or about January 6th as well, that’s the excuse Trump might need to invoke the Insurrection Act in DC. Additionally, as all of this chaos is going on, Pence might REALLY take things to the next level and nullify the certification vote by not doing him job.

That would really destabilize the country and…then…I don’t know. There are some basic elements of a successful coup that Trump hasn’t done. He hasn’t done his autocratic homework, if you will. So, in a sense, he’s thrashing about in desperation, making everyone else’s life hell because he’s not an autocrat at all, but a deranged ding-dong.

Ugh.

As such, while in the abstract it gives the Far Right a boner to think about how they can overturn the results of the election this way, the moment they actually do anything…it definitely seems everything will fall apart. For no other reason than Trump isn’t even an autocrat, but just a very lucky ding-dong. We’re an autocracy without an autocrat. We need to marinate in our pre-fascist juices for about one more election cycle before we finally descend into a Russian-style managed democracy.

But there’s one thing to keep in mind — Trump is no longer thinking in political terms, but rather strictly in terms of self-preservation. So it’s possible Trump is so deranged that he might force the issue of some sort of coup well before we’re ready and not even the rotting rage found within our political system will be enough to save him.

He may so enrage the 60% of the electorate who don’t support MAGA that all the people who have totally invested in Trump’s rise to power over the last five years might, at last, find him a lability and cut him loose. But what’s more likely to happen is we’re just going to punt all these problems down the road one election cycle and someone like Tom Cotton or Josh Hawley or Mike Pompeo will be the one to finally strangle traditional American democracy.

Trump is not an autocrat.

It’s a very curious situation we’re in for the next few days. And, really, if we make it past January 6th, that’s just the end of the beginning of this shitshow. It’s possible that once Trump doesn’t have ANY hope of overturning the election, he just explodes mentally and things grow extremely dire. So dire, in fact, that we might have some sort of snap impeachment and conviction of Trump, but not without him extracting one last pound of political flesh from the nation on his way out the door.

My fear, of course, is things grow really, really dark. That Trump goes the literal Hitler-in-the-bunker route. I hate to even think about the implications of that, but if we were honest with ourselves, it’s something we would begin to game out.

The Conditions Exist For A Severe Political Crisis


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

No one listens to me and they probably shouldn’t. But I would like to note that it’s self-evident that the most powerful country in the world is careening towards an unprecedented political crisis.

It’s going to be abrupt, it’s going to be severe and it’s going to scare the shit out of everyone.

Now, let’s break things down a little bit. A number of macro trends are all coming to a head at the same time and it’s only a matter of if they come crashing down on us now or in, say, the 2024 timeframe. Given that it’s self-evident that Trump has totally lost his fucking mind and, is, as such goading otherwise sane people to do bonkers things, it definitely seem as though our “political 9/11” is going to happen NOW, not later.

A huge amount of what’s going on doesn’t make any sense politically and that’s because the person who is forcing this issue isn’t sane — Trump is thinking now not about about his political future but cold, hard self-preservation. So, he’s willing to take risks and do things that could blow up in his face first because he’s not thinking clearly and two he doesn’t care — he just wants to stay in power so he doesn’t risk going to prison. You could also speculate he’s a fucking traitor and he’s doing all of this at the behest of Putin, but lulz, nothing matters.

It’s easy to imagine something like this happening in the next few days — there’s a major domestic terror attack on the part of Iranians for the assassination of Soleimani on January 3rd. This, in turn, gives Trump the opportunity to bomb the hell out of Iran and, as a “war president” take “total control.”

It’s easy to imagine a situation that in the context of the Proud Boys causing problems in D.C. on January 6th just a Congress is meeting to certify the vote, Trump invokes the Insurrection Act thinking it’s some sort of fascist panacea (it’s not) and all his problems will go away.

Now, this is when Trump’s tenuous connection to reality would smash up against some pretty cold, hard facts. The U. S. Military isn’t going to follow an illegal order. And even though I consider SCOTUS controlled by a bunch of MAGA hacks, it’s a dubious supposition to imagine them throwing their lot entirely with a tyrant when he needed them in such a massive Constitutional crisis.

But we have to be clear — the conditions are there, at least, for not only rolling political violence between January 3 and January 20th (and beyond) but Trump, having completely fucking lost his mind, pushing the Constitution to its limit and scaring the shit out of all of us when he starts to grow not only transactional on Twitter, but extremely passive aggressive.

Let me be clear — I can’t predict the future. I’m just talking about the conditions for a severe political crisis. I’m almost always wrong and it could be that this whole thing is going to — thankfully — be a dud. But when you have someone as crazy as Trump feeling like a caged rat for a few weeks with zero accountability, anything and I mean ANYTHING is possible.

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.

‘#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.

How Trump Could Start World War 3


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I love me some worst case scenarios and it’s pretty easy to imagine The Darkest Scenario whereby Trump starts World War 3. It goes something like this — Trump successfully boxes Iran into a corner and they strike Israel in some major fashion.

Israel sees this as an existential threat and nukes Tehran. The entire Middle East descends into war. But what, there’s more. Once the taboo of using nuclear weapons is broken a number of the Usual Suspects begin to saber rattle. While India-Pakistan and China-India are obvious, it’s possible that the DPRK might make significant military moves again ROK.

Put this in context — because of Trump’s “love letters” with Kim Jung-un, our problems with the DPRK have evaporated. But once Trump is out of office, the DPRK could come roaring back to the front of our consciousness.

Or, put another way, given how unstable Trump is, it’s not too difficult to imagine something happening in the final weeks of Trump’s time in office that causes him to switch gears with the DPRK in some dramatic fashion.

Remember — the DPRK has the means, motive and opportunity to use city-killer bombs on the United States.

‘Downfall’


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner


I feel I have a certain insight into Trump’s mind because he reminds me a great deal of my late mother — if you added testosterone and a wealthy Queens upbringing.

Anyway, the thing I learned from my mother’s behavior is people like Trump have a certain power from their instability. You just never know how they’re going to react to something. Are they going to flip out or are they going to take it calmly like a normal human being.

Having said that, there’s an element of Trump’s mentality that we’ve been kind of eyes wide shut about. Let’s call it the “Downfall” endgame. In this scenario, Trump’s mind falls into a logic trap and he snaps mentally. It would be at this point that he scares the shit out all of us.

So, let’s say his last-ditch effort to overturn the election fails on Jan 6th. He has about two weeks to wreak havoc. He could go transactional on Twitter in any number of different ways. He would demand MAGA murder liberals in cold blood. He could demand secessionist conventions in Red States. Or, things could get far, far darker.

He might start to get really, really passive aggressive on Twitter. To the extent that he starts talking about his ability to launch nuclear weapons and how he’s “protecting America” by being in office. If that wasn’t enough to scare the shit out of everyone, he might start to whine about how everyone hates him and liberals would be happy if he was dead.

I’m not joking — this is a real possibility.

This brings up the idea that Trump could very well hold up in the White House and refuse to leave. While a lot of Twitter liberals seem to express a certain glee at this prospect, in reality having to coax Trump out of the White House isn’t exactly something I would like to see the country have to go through.

But it gets worse.

What if, by that point, he’s so far gone that he goes the Downfall route. The implications of this would be staggering. It would be his final selfish act. Because it would be something that would-be Patriot Party people could hang an ideological agenda on.

Trunp-as-martyr would scramble our politics for a generation.

And, yet, that scenario is so fucking dark that I don’t like to think about it for no other reason than in the end Trump is a physical coward and for him to do something so drastic would mean he REALLY had lost his mind.

Anyway, he’s something I wrote about trying to get Trump out of the White House a few years ago.

9/10ths
a story fragment of a possible near future
by Shelton Bumgarner

April, 2019

The eyes of the world were on the White House.

Just moments before, President Donald J. Trump, 45th president of the United States, had been convicted by 67 members of the Senate for a whole list of high crimes and misdemeanors. Trump had for weeks now been ranting on Gab about his case in the Senate, bouncing back and forth between threats to start a war with Iran or the DPRK and not-so-subtle hints that he might take his own life should he be convicted by the Senate.

And, now, at last, the moment of truth had arrived.

Trump legally, at least, was no longer president, but he had been oddly silent since the verdict had been announced with great fanfare from the well of the Senate. Trump’s conviction had come after months of investigations on the part of the now Democratic Congress. The length and breath of Trump’s malfeasance discovered by these hearings had rocked the nation to its very core. On more than one occasion, MAGA talking heads on cable news had been interrupted by astonishing breaking news that left them, for once, unable or unwilling to defend the president.

The hearings had ground on for months to such an extent that Trump’s approval had slowly drifted to the 20s and stayed there consistently. Trump’s support was now made up of the very rich and the very poor. Oddly, despite Trump’s near constant demands on Twitter for violence on the part of his supporters, little, if any was reported. Trump had grown so frustrated that he had all but abandoned Twitter at one point for the more receptive Gab social media platform. Though on more than one occasion Rudy Giuliani had made it very clear it was within the rights of the president to declare martial law if he deemed it in the best interests of the nation. More than one delegation of Senate Republicans had gone to the White House to explain to Trump that he was going to be convicted, no avail. Trump made it clear to them, in not so many words that his simply living in the White House made him president, a sentiment best expressed by the legal saw that, “Possession is 9/10ths of the law.”

Finally, a post to Gab came out: “My so-called ‘conviction’ is the work of the Deep State and as such illegitimate. I remain president.”

This set off a chain of events, the likes of which Americans had never seen. Suddenly, everyone on Twitter became a Constitutional scholar as everyone studied the exact wording of the Constitution as to what happens if the president is removed from office by the Senate. The wording is quite clear: he or she is no longer president and that’s it.

Nowhere in the Constitution did it explain what to do if the president simply decided to ignore the Senate. What’s more, nowhere in the Constitution did it state what to do with the nuclear launch codes should a president be removed from office and he refuse to accept the decision of the Senate.

The next few hours were chilling as they were surreal for millions of people not just in the United States but around the globe. The issue of Trump’s physical access to America’s nuclear launch codes was suddenly at the forefront of everyone’s mind. Though it was finally announced that while the nuclear football remained in Trump’s possession, Sec. of Defense Mattis had ordered the American armed forces to stand down for the duration of the crisis.

Trump, on Twitter, was as defiant and unhinged as usual.He threatened to kill himself. He threatened to start a nuclear war. He vowed to declare martial law.

The usual suspects on cable news did their best to spin all of this for Trump. As an anxious nation waited for the now former president to leave the White House, a cavalcade of former Republican Senators and Trump White House staffers attempted to make the former president’s case. Their final argument was that for the good of the country, Trump should be allowed to remain president, despite his lawful conviction by the Senate.

Things began to move rapidly at this point.

Vice President Pence was sworn in but Chief Justice Roberts in a dark, somber event in the Old Executive Building. Meanwhile, it was learned Trump had quietly replaced his Secret Service detail with a private security force that made it clear it was prepared to defend Trump until the bloody end.

At this point, two things happened. A final bipartisan delegation of Congressional leaders came to the White House grounds under the flag of truce. During the course of an hour-long meeting, Trump screamed at them that they had never supported him and the world would be better off if it just ended instead of allowed the forces of the Deep State to ruin America. He made it absolutely clear that he would never leave the Oval Office willingly.

With that, they left.

Next, a surreal, bizarre event, the FBI slowly began to surround the White House. There was much debate online and on TV about how long the nation should wait for Trump to leave the White House. CNN went so far as to do a deep dive into the exact amount of food the White House grounds might have available at any one moment.

Finally, shots rang out from the White House as the battle was joined. It took several hours but in the end, the FBI was finally able to secure the facility. Nearly a dozen personnel on both sides died during the course of the Battle of The White House.

In what would become ionic footage, Trump was quietly escorted from the White House grounds. He spent the remainder of his days ranting on Twitter and Gab that he was the rightful president.

The End.



Republicans Have Become The ‘Leopards Eating People’s Faces Party’


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner


It is becoming clear that Trump is no longer thinking in terms of politics but rather strictly in terms of self-preservation. As such, we’re careening towards a moment in time when Trump goes extra-legal and extra-political in his attempts to stay in power. There are a number of things that are concerning me about this.

The Defense Department
Trump keeps cramming the Defense Department with cronies. I’ve read somewhere that this may be an effort on the part of Trump to find out how much he could, in fact, get away with if push comes to shove. That’s really nerve wracking because what if Trump somehow manages to move the autocratic dial a little bit. Just a little bit would freak us all the fuck out.

Mike Pence
I’m growing concerned that on Jan. 6th Trump will goad Mike Pence to simply nullify the certification of Electoral College votes by not doing his job — or not doing it in a manner that follows the spirit of the law. Remember, the point of this would be to throw things to SCOTUS in such a partisan manner that they’re absolutely boxed into a up-or-down corner. Trump wants a replay of 2000 because he’s a craven ding-dong who’s actual political skill is little more than that of Chauncy Gardner in Being There. So, it’s very possible that there will be extreme, rancorous debate in Congress over the certification of votes, but in the end, Trump will lose. Even if Pence tries to be a spanner in the works.

Trump Going Transactional
This is a real wildcard. As it becomes more and more clear that Trump is, in fact, going to actually have to leave office, it’s possible that he stops “joking” and insinuating about violence against his enemies and flat out tells MAGA to murder liberals in cold blood. Or he could begin to demand Red States hold snap conventions so they secede. Pretty much anything is on the table once Trump finally snaps mentally.

‘Downfall’
This is probably my worse fear. If we get to this stage of things, then Trump really has lost his mind. This is a very dark situation, indeed. Everything from Trump blackmailing America by suddenly bringing up his ability to use nuclear weapons to him going the literal Hitler-in-the-bunker route would be possible under this scenario.

But there are some things to take into consideration. One is Trump is not nearly as well-put-together as we keep thinking and he’s so unstable and lazy that any transactional things he does may be so half-hearted and poorly thought out that they aren’t very successful.

Yet, we’ve now officially entered the most dangerous phase of the Trump Era. Anything could happen. We could all get the shit scared out of us before it’s over with. There will be no narrative, no value as it all happens.