Be The Power
by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls
I am simply not a good enough writer to accurately represent Trump in a screenplay. But maybe that might change once I finish something and then someone who is a better writer might be able to help me. Anyway, I talk about all this in this video. Enjoy.
by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls
There’s no way to tell the story I want to tell without talking about how Trump has changed America, so I’ve decided to make that the main theme of the story in the first place. But it’s going to be a while before I produce anything. I have to write a short story or novella first.
by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls
For otherwise grown adults, the Republican Party sure does collectively act like a bunch of little kids. They know the only way to get anyone’s attention is to cry and say this or that dumb conspiracy theory is “far worse than Watergate.” Republicans know they will catch liberals attention by invoking Watergate, even if it, in fact, has nothing to do with what’s going on.
I had a long, painful and weirdly insightful discussion with a Trump supporter recently that at first left me seething and now leavings me somewhat resigned. Talking to him about Trump was a textbook case of gaslighting and rhetorical shadowboxing. Even when I landed punches, he wouldn’t admit it. It was extremely frustrating.
But I did learn something about how to debate a Trump cult member. You have to give them specifics. You have to be prepared. If you’re going to engage, not enrage a Trump cultist, you need to be prepared. This is a really big mistake I’ve made in the past. Just because it’s self-evident to you that Trump and his ilk are bigoted, racist misogynists, doesn’t mean you’re not going to have to prove it to a Trump cult member.
The sooner we admit to ourselves that Trump supporters are in a deluded cult, the sooner we will better understand how to address them. They don’t see the fetid, rancid ideological dumpster fire of MAGA as that at all. All they care about is that the economy is “humming” and that ISIS has been largely defeated. It’s really weird that otherwise conservative people would embrace moral relativism in their efforts to support the Dear Leader, while a liberal like me has to stand on principle to get anything done.
Anyway, I guess the point is if you’re going talk to a Trump supporter, you can’t just yell at them the way you want to. You’re going to have to have cold hard facts — lots of them — at your disposal that you can throw at them. They will shadowbox, they will rhetorically bob and weave, but find your hill and die on it. Don’t get distracted by what a target rich environment MAGA is. Find a specific thing that really pisses you off about Trump, learn as much as you can about it and attack, attack, attack.
But we’re all doomed. I need some hope.
by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls
I had a long a painful discussion with a Trump supporter that just left me furious. It’s like they were living in a different universe than me. Their argument boiled down “Lulz, nothing matters” with a heavy dose of “the economy is doing well” and “Trump defeated ISIS” along with a side dish of “he’s securing the borders.”
What made me so angry was I would present the person with number of insane things Trump had done — things that would destroy any other politician — and they either lightly admitted it was outrageous or rationalized it out of existence.
The whole thing left me white hot angry that otherwise sane people could believe such stupid shit. It makes me so angry. I want to make Trump supporters furious. I want them to hate me. But weirdly enough they’re so numb to any disagreement that it’s like talking to someone in a well-medicated cult.
That’s really the only thing I can compare it to — a cult. Trump supporters are in a cult and they’re holding my country hostage. All I can do in response is vote. Maybe engage in some political activity to get help my little corner of the world.
But as of right now, things are looking kind of grim.
Trump, besides putting his grubby hands on a great Beatles lyric, is just a fountain head of lyrics today. So, here goes. The meaning of these lyrics is kind of muddled.
Have A Great Life
lyrics by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls
please give credit if you produce or perform
the end is near it seems between us
we’re going to have to accept
that the last lap has been run
we’re done, done, done
you’ll be gone soon enough
leaving all this behind
have a great life
is all I have to say
have a great life
I mention to my dismay
the powers that be have kicked you out
you had power over me now you’re just a lout
when we look back upon this time
we’ll struggle to figure out
how it happen at all
we will climb to a new fate
leaving me to wonder why we ever did date
these days are scary
with the tweeting going on
war seems about to happen
so I hide in the lyrics of a song
when it will be over is anyone’s guess
but will tell you now Godspeed and God bless
have a great life
is all I have to say
have a great life
I mention to my dismay
[bridge]
you’re quoting Beatles’ songs
much to may dismay
how would you do such a thing
I say with a sway
but goodbye is all I have to say
you’re gone now for good
at least that is your claim to fame
have a great life
is all I have to say
have a great life
I mention to my dismay
by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls
The existential question of the day is whether or not Donald Trump is a fluke or the dawn of a new, dystopian era in American history. One thing is fore sure, Trump’s rise to power is the culmination of structural, systemic issues in the American body politic. Not to invoke his name too lightly, but Trump, in a sense, is an American Hitler if you think of history but as the biography of great men.
It is possible that the United States will bounce back, at least momentarily, from this Bad King. I mean, Caligula in all his insanity didn’t manage to bring down the Roman Empire. But I do think Trump is endemic of the end of the American Republic. The entire system is so broken, so built to squash leadership in any meaningful way, that there’s a real chance the United States is fucked.
And, yet, it is at least possible to put a positive spin on things. But it would require some pretty astonishing things to happen. The crux of the issue is — has Trump so fundamentally warped American politics that we can’t go back to traditional politicians? Have we reached Idiotracy at last and from now one, our politicians have to be establish celebrities and our celebrities have to be politicians? The answer to that kind of question will come, probably about November 2018.
When people begin to throw their hats into the presidential ring in earnest in late 2018, that will determine the tempo of things. A lot, unfortunately, depends on one Donald J. Trump. If Trump manages to survive past 2020 and have a second term, it’s really likely that there really will be no turning back. It’s very possible that we will have entered a new era in American political life that really is dark and uncharted. A lot depends who Trump is going to be up against in 2020.
I have long suggested that the only type of person who could defeat Trump, who is nothing more than overgrown middle-school bully, would be the adult equivalent of a middle-school class clown. It seems readily apparent that someone like Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert or even Chelsea Handler might be the silver bullet that might be able to slay the political monster that is Trump. Handler, in particular is, in a weird way, perfectly suited to the task at hand. She’s got just the right acerbic wit combined with a tough as nails sensibility that she could effectively deal with whatever horrific vitriol the Right wing managed to throw at her. There is the issue of a sex tape released by a vengeful ex-boyfriend, but I would like to think in this bizarre political world we now live in that wouldn’t be held against her too much, at least by most voters.
Meanwhile, both Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert would be great candidates as well, but it’s highly unlikely that Stewart would leave his petting zoo in New Jersey or that Colbert would leave a successful late night talk show to run for president.
One thing we have to take seriously is how the Russians might try to meddle in the election again. The American political system is so fucked up in a structural way, that it’s very well possible they could throw the election to Trump AGAIN and nothing would happen. Trump really has a near mystical hold on his followers that is difficult to explain or break. It is very well possible that he will not only survive, but thrive and prosper in the coming days and that there really will be nothing to stop him from finishing two complete terms.
That, of course, would leave the issue of where will America be once he finally has to step down. I would, again, suggest that that will be settled by who his successor is. If Trump’s successor, after eight years in office, is another celebrity, then that would be a definitely different spin on things than if it was a career politician. At this point, it’s too early to tell which it will be. Right now, it seems as though Trump is going to plow his way through the American political system, doing as much damage as possible.
And, yet, if, say, someone like James Comey were to succeed Trump at some point in the future, the American Republic might bounce back a lot quicker than you might think. But that is being really optimistic. It is difficult for me to say in good faith that the United States is even a Republic at all anymore. We are careening towards a theocratic, autocratic plutocracy of sorts. No amount of leadership will fix such long term trends. Effective leadership might manage it, mitigate it or ameliorate it but it won’t eliminate it altogether.
Having said all that, I would also like to say that as an American, I have hope that American exceptionalism still burns in the hearts and minds of its citizens and we ultimately will reject the “managed democracy” of Russia. I’d like to think that at some point people power will kick in and we’ll take back our government from the kleptocracy that it’s succumb to for the time being. But I don’t know, I just don’t know. I can’t predict the future and it could go either way, it really could.
At this point, we’re just going to have to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune until November 2018. If the “Blue Wave” really does wash down on the shores of Washington, then we can talk. Then there is a real chance that this Trumpian nightmare will end sooner rather than later and we can put it behind us. But every day Trump is in office, we risk bigger and worse disasters.
A real chance exists that Trump will try to save his sorry ass politically by pulling the biggest “wag the dog” in American history by initiating a “preemptive war” against the DPRK. I could totally see him doing it by, say July 2018, so in about November 2018 his approval rating will be in the high 80s as TV and social media are awash with the spectacular images of the long-oppressed people of North Korea at last being liberated. We could all wake up in 2021 to a truly distopian future.
One fear I have is Trump is, really, the only thing keeping the United States away from a civil war. The peace of mind that Trump gives the insane Right wing may be a weird firebreak that we won’t realize we enjoy until it’s gone. The United States is, right now, effectively two different nations and it could tear itself apart if we don’t find some effective leadership in years ahead. But sometimes you don’t get leadership until there’s a reason for people to rise to the occasion, so who knows what will happen.
mulling over some things drinking bad black coffee #resist https://t.co/68LEx8N5oL
— Shelton Bumgarner ? (@bumgarls) November 15, 2017
by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls
It’s pretty obvious that we now have proof that the 2016 Trump Campaign knowingly and in a systematic manner colluded with the Russian government to rig the election in their favor.
The question, of course, is now what?
I’m afraid we’re just going to have to wait and hope that Congress is flipped in 2018. That’s all I got. I say that because, well, the Republican Party is so surreal in its partisanship that they would rather protect treasonous behavior on the part of Trump than potentially risk the passage of an enormous tax cut for the wealthiest amongst us.
So, in short, we’re fucked. We are so completely fucked that this lurch towards authoritarianism will grind on for at least another year. In the end, I think this scandal will be a lot like Iran-Contra. We’ll know the facts, the president might even admit what happened and say something akin to “I’m sorry,” but ultimately we won’t get rid of the fucker in any meaningful way.
I fear that even if we do flip Congress and impeach Trump, he won’t be convicted by the Senate. Or if he is convicted by the Senate, I worry he won’t see the vote as legitimate and we’ll have shoot out on the West Lawn between the FBI and the Secret Service.
The prospects of things going back to normal are extremely dim. We’ve entered a new age and the future is dark for the American Republic. I think when we look back upon this period 20 years from now, we’ll see it as the period where the United States finally transitioned from a constitutional democratic republic to an theocratic, autocratic quasi-fascist state.
by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls
The thing we have to understand is that because of gerrymandering, The Resistance could win 54% of the popular vote and still lose the House to Republicans. Let that sink in. That’s why if you love the United States as I do, you may have to seriously contemplate getting out of your comfort zone and begin to actively participate in politics in a way you never have.
The 2018 mid-terms are so crucial because House Republicans are so Vichy and callow that if we don’t vote them out of office in a big way, the morphing of the United States into autocracy. Trump is doing real damage to the American Republic and if nothing happens to change the current chronic Constitutional long-jam we’re in, there may be no stopping Trump completely seizing power.
There is an ebb and flow to politics and it was inevitable that Republicans would come back into power. What we didn’t fully appreciate is the hysterical rage caused by the bullshit echo chamber epitomized by FOX News would make the Republicans so bad at governing. So, we have a historical imperative to throw them out of office in at least the House, if not the Senate. If we could flip the Senate, then we could end the appointment of extremely Right wing, extremely unqualified judges to the federal bench. But we’re kind of desperate, so we need the House to flip more than anything else.
A lot of things could go wrong between now and November 2018. Chief amongst them being, Trump could do his failsafe and start a preemptive war against the DPRK. This is a serious possibility that we need to see with clear eyes. We can’t take for granted that Trump will “do the right thing” and not kill a few hundred thousand people by prompting the North Koreans to freak the fuck out. I am of the opinion that they have a vested interest in not starting a war on their own simply for the reason that they know that in the end they will lose, and lose badly.
Regardless, there is a real chance that 2018 will go down as 1968 as a year where the universe changed in a big way. In many ways, 1968 marked the beginning of the modern age and it will be interesting to see of something similar happens in 2018. We face a historical turning point. Either the Republic fails and we become an autocracy, or it bounces back and Trump is destroyed politically.
I am not very sanguine about our prospects. It seems as though the Republic has fallen already and we’re a “managed democracy” like they have in Russia. It’s all over but the shouting, as the say. But we have a small window of opportunity in 2018. It’s possible, just possible that I’m wrong.
One thing is for sure, we need new leadership. We need a new generation of people to fight the good fight. The current crop of leaders is old and out of touch. Trump isn’t going anywhere, but maybe we can mitigate his damage if we manage to flip Congress in 2018.
by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls
The Republican Party started about 1856 when several groups, including the Free Soil Party, The “Know Nothings” and the last vestiges of The Wig Party merged. Though they ran a candidate in 1856, a gentleman with the nickname of The Pathfinder, it wasn’t until the victory of Abraham Lincoln in 1860 that the party really came unto its own.
The Republican Party has proven to be surprisingly popular and resilient over the decades, but it appears one Donald J. Trump has killed it. I say this because while Republicans seem likely to grow in power due to the rot the Republic currently suffers, the GOP that I have known my entire life is effectively over. The Republican Party now has become an enormous fetid, rock hard diamond of ideological fecal material lodged in the sewers of the American government.
Because of the likes of faux populist intellectual Steve Bannon, the long-term trend of the party is grow in power while at the same time becoming a parody of itself. It is possible, not probable, that Trump himself on a personal level may smash the Republican Party to bits in 2020 simply because the divide between the Trump-loving base and the Republican Establishment will grow so enormous that the party will split in two like a sinking Titanic.
Unfortunately, the same forces threatening the Republican Party are also threatening the Democratic Party. Republicans have become so obsessed with power and winning at any cost that they are inflicting unprecedented pressure on the center-Left. The Progressive base of the Democratic Party may split from the centrist Democratic Establishment and we’ll have not two, or three, but four parties vying for the presidency in 2020. This, of course, opens an enormous hole for Trump to plow through and it’s very possible that he will sail through the Electoral College to a second term.
Should that happen, which it may not, we will possibly see the greatest political turbulence in American political life since the Civil War. And, remember, all of this is happening in the context of a gradual shift from a constitutional democratic republic to a simple autocracy bound only the populace’s unwillingness to admit this new harsh reality. And that doesn’t even begin to address the efforts of some on the Far Right to force through a Constitutional Convention through state legislatures.
But back to parties.
What might we see happen under this scenario? Depending on the self-evident mercurial personality of Donald Trump, Trump may either inherit the Republican Party brand simply because he controls the base with a near Messianic power, or he may out of sheer spite ditch the name and start a Trump branded party. Meanwhile, the Establishment wings of both the Democratic and Republican parties may merge, leaving a rump Progressive Party to fend for itself.
It’s possible that 20 years from now, there will again be two parties — the Trump Party and the ReDem. I can’t see a Progressive Party lasting very long for various reasons.
Remember, put all of this in context. In the next five to ten years, technology is likely to dramatically reshape the American economy in ways we can just barely fathom currently. So, it’s possible that Trump Party will grow in power accordingly and we’ll swerve into a Theocratic Fascist state out of default, if nothing else.
Regardless, it’s unlikely the current two party system is going to stay very stable in the coming years.
Shelton Bumgarner is a writer and photographer living in Richmond, Va.
by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls
It is too easy to look at the developments of the last year and say, “Lulz, nothing matters!” But that would be a grave injustice to the American experiment in self-governance. We are now in dangerous territory. We like to think only places like Russia and Turkey can succumb to the power of an autocrat and become a “managed democracy.”
At least, that’s what I used to think.
But recent developments make me realize that unless something changes we are slouching towards a new era in American governance. A number of things are coming together at the same time. Dark money, the rise of the Steve Bannon style of populism as well as Donald Trump himself are all shaking the foundations of the American Republic.
If this was an earlier age, historians would say our Republic was gradually slipping into an Empire, with a very specific quirk: the Emperor was elected every four years, but in fact only left office because the Constitution limited him or her to eight years in office. What’s more troublesome is it’s possible America is going to lurch into a “managed democracy” — or already has — and there’s no going back. When a nation has become so divided and partisan that not even accusations of pedophilia can knock a US Senate candidate as Alabama’s Roy Moore out of the race, you know something’s wrong.
All of this leads to the question of what to do. Are we doomed? Is this how the American democratic constitutional Republic ends? Are just one stop away from becoming a quasi-theocratic fascistic state?
Every time I get despondent and assume the worst, I realize I just can’t give up. I just can’t give up on the traditional concept of the United States that I was born to assume was always there. Here are some ideas on how to if not fix, at least ameliorate the problems facing us.
Don’t Enrage, Engage
This is something that the individual can do, regardless of social status or power. Instead of living in your personal political bubble, be willing to engage in cogent political discourse with someone who disagrees with you. Doing so in person is even better. President Obama said something to this effect in his parting speech. Social media — especially how easily it is to for outside forces to influence it — may be what we look back as the deathblow to our American democracy. We have to engage. We have to at least attempt to talk to people we don’t agree with, even if they are angry and think everything we believe is “fake news.” This is really tough and even I find myself not doing it nearly as much as I should.
Liberals Need More Empathy
I’m not suggesting liberals have to compromise everything they believe in. But liberals need to at least attempt to understand why they’re hated so much. Liberals are hated so much that the people who hate them don’t even really understand why they hate them. Liberals too often come off as smug. About half the country is really hurting and is only going to hurt more as technology takes low skill, high wage jobs like truck driver away. It’s a delicate balance given how the Right is full of rage and absolutely refuses to compromise in any way. The Right wants absolute power and absolute victory at all costs and liberals need to take this cold hard fact seriously.
Those are two pretty easy fixes, now let’s move on to some more existential solutions that are probably significantly more difficult to implement.
We Need A New Social Media Platform
We need to burn the village to save it. We need to kill Twitter. Twitter is a real threat to our democracy. I have repeatedly suggested that a new platform designed from the ground up to address the problems of Twitter should be designed. It also might be used to aide and abet people who wanted to protest the Trump Administration should it do something drastic like fire Bob Mueller. A new social media platform designed to fix the problems of Twitter marketed correctly would probably be a success from the get-go for several reasons. A lot of Left leaning celebrities would flock to such a service if they felt more safe. They, in turn, would bring fans and content along with them.
We Need New Leaders
If the rise of Donald Trump has show us anything, it’s that the world of celebrity and entertainment is now completely fused with politics. The center-Left needs to fight fire with fire and recruit leaders from the entertainment industry. I would suggest someone like Jon Stewart or Stephen Colbert would be a great start. But, really, I would even go so far as to say someone like Chelsea Handler might do the trick given how costic our political life has become.
Those solutions, too, don’t even begin to address the deep seated problems with the American Republic. The United States really is two different nations now and it is up to us to prevent a civil war. It is very possible that the Blue States will bolt the United States for no other reason than they feel they are no longer welcome. It will be interesting to see how that exactly plays out.
Should the worse happen and Trump fire Bob Mueller the gauntlet will be thrown down, the Rubicon will be crossed. We get our answer. We will learn once and for all if “American exceptionalism” has at last come to an end.
Shelton Bumgarner is a writer and photographer living in Richmond, Va. You can reach him at migukin (at) gmail.com.
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