Tag: Wuflu

Slow Your Roll, Twitter Liberals #COVID19

Shelton Bumgarner

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Trump isn’t going anywhere. His presidency isn’t over. He’s well on his way to losing the popular vote and winning the Electoral College. Or he’ll bribe Electors or dox them, or intimidate them on Twitter. He’s going to dump Pence and name Don Jr. his VP. Or Steve King.

He’s just not going anywhere. Ever. Period.

Or, put another way, things would have to get so bad for Trump to finally have any form of political accountability that it would be a historic national tragedy of such proportions that neither side would be able to find any reason — any reason — to find any political advantage from it. For Trump’s core base of 35% of the electorate to go down in any way, we would be facing nothing short of the Apocalypse. Or it would have to feel like it.

And, really, there would have to be a very specific set of circumstances such that Tom Cotton or Kris Kobach or The Kooch or name your young fascist wannabe wouldn’t be able to somehow rise to power to do everything Trump has wanted to do but was too old, unfocused and incompetent to do. I honestly don’t even know exactly what that would look like.

In general, the current crisis is only going to accelerate and deepen our decent into dystopian authoritarianism. We may be identical to Putin’s Russia in a few months. ICE will be weaponized. Any dissent will be crushed or managed out of existence. I have no hope. It’s over. We’re in political hell.

Just trying to imagine any scenario whereby we abruptly go back to any sense of the American we had before Trump came to power is a struggle. I guess, maybe, if Trump lost his mind and started using the Presidential Alert System to shoot out dickpics to people’s cellphones on a daily basis, then maybe we might get his support down to about 30%. But his enablers have invested so much of their self-identity in MAGA that even that probably won’t phase them. MAGA is a death cult, pure and simple.

And, really, even if Trump was, say, blamed for 1 million unnecessary, preventable deaths, House Trump might get the wind knocked out of it for one election cycle. They’d come back in 2024 with Don Jr. and act as if nothing happened. Any Democratic president will be impeached the moment Republicans control the House and be hobbled politically during the second half of their four year administration.

Things would have to be a singularity of the horrific for House Trump to have any form of political accountability. It would have to be a waking nightmare. So bad that political level the entire country, both Red and Blue would feel as though they were being horrifically tortured specifically because of things we could prove House Trump did.

It would be so bad that liberals would look back and think we would have been better off if the pandemic never happened and Trump cruised into his second term. MAGA people would have to proof that they, personally, had loved ones who died directly and specifically because of Trump. But they’re a death cult, so lulz. I just don’t see a million preventable deaths being enough for them to stop worrying about the browning of America, or feminists or transgender Olympians.

And, really, they would simply gloat that they got what they wanted — a massive tax cut and young hack MAGA judges. The moment we all came to our senses after a horrific few months — if it ever came to that — they would bounce back and act like nothing happen. Or they would blame liberals, or Asians, or whomever. MAGA is all set to murder liberals in cold blood in a Little Terror if need be. They just aren’t functioning in reality anymore.

Prove me wrong.

If you think I suffer from “Trump Derangement Disorder,” you can fuck off, you shithead fucktard cocksucker. Eat shit.

#COVID19 #Pandemic Scenarios: How A Continuation Of Government Crisis Might Play Out

Shelton Bumgarner

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It’s very possible that all of our events at “blunting the curve” will work and we’ll walk away from our current panic rather unscathed. Trump will crow that he was right all along, indict Joe Biden, and lose the popular vote and win the Electoral College. That’s a very real possibility at this point.

But let’s assume the absolute worst happens. What are some the different ways we might find ourselves wondering who, exactly, the president is in the next 10 days or so.

Since “death be not proud” there are a lot — a LOT — of different combinations and spectrums that might occur. Everything from Trump being the last man standing, only to go completely bonkers, to Nancy Peolosi serving as a caretaker president for a few months to ensure we have a functioning government so we can have free-and-fair elections in the fall.

But those are just the most obvious.

There are also so pretty some surreal situations. Depending on how quick the crisis developed and the exact sequence of events you could have everything from President Hakeem Jeffries to, glup, a more obscure member of Trump’s shitty cabinet being president during a period of unprecedented rebuilding. I could even see severe political violence over the issue of who, exactly, president is if there was some question in the context of replacing a lot of SCOTUS. That would be a recipe for something akin to a civil war, in fact, given how absolutely obsessed the most extreme sides of the two parties are about its make up.

If things got bad enough, it’s within the realm of possibility that out of sheer desperation the military might step in and tell everyone to cool it just long enough to stabilize the country so the Census and the 2020 Election can take place in peace.

Or, if you really want to get into the absolute worst case scenario, you might have Trump finally fucking snap in a rather spectacular fashion and Congress is so sick that it can’t summon the energy to do anything about it. We find ourselves being bombarded with racist rants and cockpics for a few weeks in the middle of a pandemic crisis via the Presidential Alert System. There simply wouldn’t be anything we could do until the people who might impeach-and-convict Trump got well enough to physically be in the same place at the same time to do it.

But I can’t predict the future. I have no idea what’s going to happen. For the time being, all I can say is it looks as though Trump will, AGAIN, escape any form of political accountability, no matter how many people die uncessary deaths.

There’s just no political will to do anything about him until sometime in his second term.

Something I Don’t Understand #COVID19

Shelton Bumgarner

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

There’s something about this pandemic I don’t understand.

I don’t understand why Wuhan was such a hotzone while for some time there were very few deaths outside of it. That has changed recently in Italy and Iran, but there was a while there when there was an eerie lack of deaths outside of the original hotzone.

That’s something that I, as a layperson, can’t grok.

It seems as though in the United States right now, there are two Wuhan-like hotzones: Kirkland County in Washington State and just outside of NYC. The Washington hotzone definitely seems a bit more ominous than what’s going on in New York, however.

What I don’t understand is what makes a hotzone like Wuhan or Kirkland County different. And is there a chance that whatever it is that’s happening in the Pacific Northwest might spring up elsewhere in the United States in a big way?

I dunno. It’s an interesting situation.

The Gray Plague: A Historic, Preventable Tragedy #COVID19

Shelton Bumgarner

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I can’t predict the future. I don’t have reveled truth. But some pretty basic datapoints indicate that if we don’t realize soon how many elderly Americans in rest homes are at risk of dying in the United States (about 1.4 million), then, well, we’re going to have unprecedented national grief. I wrote the below some time ago in something of a panic:

The elderly 65+ are most at risk of succumbing to COVID19.
People in close proximity to each other (like a cruise ship or…a rest home) can be all infected quite quickly. (A mental institution in South Korea saw something like 90% infection rate).
We’re totally luzling this in the United States.
About 47 million Americans are 65+.

We already have a case of ONE rest home in Washington State being, essentially, a strategic super-spreader of COVID19.

So, logically, if we’re not taking this seriously and “jungle rules” are applying right now to the spread of COVID19, then, well, it’s looking pretty grim.

The thing I didn’t realize is one reason why The Gray Plague may be far, far more deadly than I initally realized is where the most at-risk elderly people in any one community are: all together in one spot.

A rest home.

And since I first wrote the above a few days ago, I’ve begun to hear rumblings about similar outbreaks popping up in other rest homes across the country. It seems as though if we don’t take this threat far more seriously that two things may happen.

One, a staggering number of elderly people may die early, preventable deaths. Like, close to a million in a very, very short amount of time.

Meanwhile, it’s possible that each of the 15,600 rest homes across the country that become COVID19 hotzones might serve as something of virus “signal amplifiers” across the country as people visit them and then go home and spread the virus in communities all over the country that might not otherwise be infected.

It does seem as though some effort is being put into saving these high-risk elderly people. But my concern is it’s too little, too late. My concern is we’re going to have to process a staggering number of elderly people dying over the next, say, 100 days.

But, who knows. I know I don’t.

Maybe I’m wrong. But I’m just a doofus in the middle of no where, right, Maggie Haberman? Go talk to her about this. She’s soul her sold for access to Dr. Trump, I’m sure she knows more about it than I do.

#COVID19 Threat Assessment For March 11th: ‘It’s Not A Toomha’

Shelton Bumgarner

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I am feeling pretty good right now. Now that understand what’s going on happen — there’s going to be a sharp, brief spike in cases across the country before the situation stabilize — I’m not feeling as nervous. At this point, the only reason why I’m really concerned at all is what’s going on in Italy and Iran. China and South Korea have proven that with the proper measures, you can have a suddenly severe spike in cases that subsides to a manageable level rather abruptly. We’re probably going to get the shit scared out of us on an unprecedented level nationally, but we will live to fight another day.

At least, that’s what should happen.

The biggest threat to American security right now is not COVID19, but our own president’s reaction to it. He’s probably going to switch gears tonight and go full paranoid racist demagogue on the situation. He will see this pandemic as an opportunity to further consolidation power, not to bring the nation together.

Trump never loses on a political level because of his nature as an avatar for the MAGA base’s hatred of liberals, the browning of America and feminists. So, for the time being, Trump, is as always, his own worst enemy. In a sense, Trump may become a “War President” and, as such, he will have far more power than he might otherwise. If he really was the “very stable genius” that he and Maggie Haberman would have us believe, he would be in a very good position to dominate Joe Biden. Trump’s dream of losing the popular vote and winning the Electoral College in the fall would be a foregone conclusion.

But.

This is Trump we’re talking about, so he’s going to self-own. I’m not prepared to say his self-own will be existential. He’s just too lucky for that to be an issue. But the context of his ultimate, inevitable victory in the fall may be a bit more different than he would like. He’s such a malignant force in American politics that 60% of the electorate is going to be seething about House Trump’s surreal control of America going into his second term. How that might manifest itself is anyone’s guess.

My best guess is he gets impeached again at some point in his second term, but by that point, Don Jr. or Steve King will be his veep so, lulz.

Another option is Trump implodes or explodes on a mental level just as the crisis reaches its denouement and there’s a momentary pause in the rise of the Fourth Reich and the Thousand Year Trump. I don’t want that to happen. I really don’t. That would be among the absolute worst case scenarios out there — I mean, do we really want all 328 million of us to see a picture of Trump’s cock on our phones via the Presidential Alert System?

Or, to put it another way, the only way House Trump doesn’t endup on top because of this crisis is Trump himself. That’s it. Otherwise, no matter what, they will be far more powerful, far quicker than they might have been otherwise in two years.

But, sadly, there are some other things that could make what might otherwise be a short, scary event in our nation’s history turn into not The Little One, but, THE BIG ONE. Besides Trump’s generally fuckery, there is The Gray Plague and the WuFlop to worry about.

If the Gray Plague begins to strike in any big fashion, then that would be a preventable tragedy of such proportions that I don’t want to think about it all that much. It definitely would give one pause for thought. The WuFlop, too, would likely cause so much panic in the United States if a recorded instance of it showed up on TV that the nation might buckle for a few days in abject terror.

Or, put another way, there are simply too many wild card known unknowns for me to properly gauge what is going to happen in the next, say, 60 days. In general, we’re going to get the shit scared out of us a few times, but House Trump will simply grow stronger and more hateful in the end. But if history decides to wake up in a big way, we all –even me — may be shocked by how surreal, how weird things get in a rather abrupt, unpredictable fashion.

History, Please Stay Asleep

Shelton Bumgarner

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’m enough of a student of history to know the conditions are there for the next, say, 60 days, to be some of the most surreal, jaw-dropping days in American history. I say this only because of what’s happening in Italy. Italy is imploding and it could very well be they’re us in about 10 days.

I refuse to articulate what I fear my happen because it would be bad taste. But I will note what has happened to Iran because of COVID19 — the entire power structure of the country is now wrapped up in the contagion. Maybe it’s because I like scenarios and to think up stories, but it definitely seems as though it’s possible we may want to slow our collective roll and what may — or may not — happen in American politics long term.

I have no inside information. I’m not a part of the Deep State. I just am well enough versed in the conditions of the pandemic bouncing around the planet right now to know that anything is possible. The Gray Plague. The WuFlop. If either one of those two things make a significant appearance the entire context of the 2020 campaign might not be at all what we think right now.

I don’t want to be right. I really don’t. But I do want to simply prepare myself for the possibility that the best laid plans of mice and men often go astray.

#COVID19 As Trump’s ‘Chernobyl’

Trumplandia.
Shelton Bumgarner

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

First, Trump is nothing more than a political avatar. You could have a hateful catatonic person do a better job than Trump is right now. So, really, I would say even if Trump’s criminally incompetent reponse to COVID19 became an existential threat to House Trump, it would not really matter.

Nothing matters. Lulz.

A million people — mostly elderly could die unnecessary deaths in the next 60 days and nothing would happen to him on a political level. No accountability. Nothing. He will lose the popular vote and win the Electoral College through any means necessary.

So, I guess, really, if you propose that COVID19 might be House Trump’s “Chernobyl,” what you’re really saying is the context of his thuggish regime might be different for 60% of the electorate who isn’t part of the MAGA death cult. And, honestly, any political accountability Trump had would be far enough in the future that he would have plenty of time to name Don Jr. or Steve King his veep. The worst COVID19 becomes, the more Trump has a vested interest in making it politically impossible to get rid of House Trump by replacing Pence with Don Jr.

Now, as I keep saying — I have no personal ill will towards Trump. I could care less. I would like to him to spend the rest of his life in prison, but I with him the best of health otherwise. But given he keeps shaking hands, it is worth contemplating what might happen if he was sufficiently incapacitated that Pence became president and was in the position to name his replacement.

As I’ve written before, there’s only one person he would name: Ivanka Trump. He would do so because she would be a place holder while he figured out what else he mind do to get into the good graces of the MAGA base who currently don’t care for him. He would say Ivanka as a “threefer:” a woman, a Jewish person and a Trump. She would be approved by the Senate at lightening speed if there was any type of crisis because, well, the MAGA coward Republican Senators wouldn’t want Nancy Pelosi so close to the Presidency.

The point is, however, that barring something, uh, historic (?), because MAGA is now a death cult, House Trump will use this crisis to simply consolidate power even more, more quickly. If traditional political gravity did begin to work again with House Trump, we might be in for a few surreal days. We would look at each other in astonishment as Trump’s enablers rather abruptly changed their tune.

But that’s so fantastical, I just don’t want to waste time on that. In the end, it won’t be COVID19 that is House Trump’s Chernobyl, it will be Trump himself. In other words, he such a self-own artist that the only way the traditional rules of politics ever come back in regards to him will be he goes so fucking insane that we will all grow quite well awaited with this size and shape of his cock. That’s it. That’s the only way I could possible see House Trump being knocked off its feet — everyone in America gets a presidential cock pic via the Presidential Alert System at the height of a historic pandemic.

Even then, it’s debatable.

We’ll probably forget it soon enough, like we do everything else with him. Even if Trump nukes us all to hell, Hugh Hewitt will continue to be a Trump apologist in some bunker.

Lulz?

Potential Post-Pandemic Art

Shelton Bumgarner

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’m currently developing a novel that aims to be a rather physological rumination of the Trump Era in the guise of a political spy thriller. I’ve been working on it for about a year now and it’s getting really, really good.

But there’s a problem.

Given when it’s set — the immediate past — the context might be far different than I could ever otherwise imagine. If Trump bungles the response to a brief, severe pandemic outbreak in the United States, enough people will finally hate him that I might be able to use his name in the novel. Right now, the novel is something of a scenario with *A* president not *THE* president involved.

But there are a lot of known unknowns. Trump could simply use the COVID19 situation to consolidate power in a big enough manner that I’ll be lucky not to be put in prison for the novel, much less having to worry about selling it.

I do think, however, that there’s likely to be a huge glut of new content in 2021 for no other reason than a lot of writers are going to be either inspired to finally finish their passion project or they’re going to be jiggled in some way out of their usual drunken stupor. (Or is that just me?)

Anyway. The point for me is to finish a novel for myself. That’s it. If I can get one person to read it all the way through and ask, “What happens next?” then all this work will be worth it. I just don’t want to embarrass myself.

‘The Hundred Days’ #COVID19

USA! USA! USA!
Shelton Bumgarner

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’ve radically reassessed the COVID19 threat. It seems as though with the proper community spread containment measures, it’s actually something that can be managed and ultimately defeated rather quickly in say, no more than maybe 100 days.

It’s already happened in China, Singapore and South Korea.

So, really, it’s possible that at its worse it could be a short (100 days) but severe event. It will be severe enough to really throw Americans for a loop, but short enough that the 2020 presidential campaign can resume without that much of a problem.

Or, put another way, if Trump wasn’t a massive self-own artist, he really would be able to crow about how his magical thinking wrapped everything up by maybe lat April at the earliest. It would be, however, very on-brand for Trump to — at the height of this short, severe, crisis — to finally snap mentally and scare the shit out of all of us.

This raises the question: how many dead?

No where near 1 million. I say that because it just won’t last long enough. At the absolute worst, maybe 100,000? But that would be mostly older people in rest homes who were sitting ducks. Otherwise, I think while it will be painful and cause a lot of economic suffering for the duration of its existance, but we could be in for the economy to gradually pick up just in time for Trump to win re-election and, at last, establish his personal dream of a Fourth Reich. (If you think this is a good thing, please eat shit, you fucking fascist.)

Anyway, so, in the end, both sides will be able to go back to their respective echo chambers and point fingers. The next 100 days in America may be historic, scary and dark, but not The Big One. It may be The Little One that is only thought of as The Big One in America because we don’t have anything to compare it to. The historical analogy would be the World Trade Center bombing before 9/11. We thought it was horrible, but in reality, something far worse was going to happen down the road.

#COVID19 Threat Assessment For March 9th: Back In Black

Shelton Bumgarner

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

There must be a psychologically term for when you reach the crisis moment you’ve feared and then think to yourself, “Gee, this isn’t as bad as I expected.” I felt that a lot today. Psychologically, I’m about two weeks ahead of everyone, and I’m feeling rather calm. It was interesting, however, noticing how many cable news anchors were wearing black today. They were taking the pandemic seriously, if no one else.

The Economy
I have said for some time now, that our metric should be saving lives at this point, not the stock market. I would, in fact, write it off for the time being. Do whatever is necessary to save as many lives as possible, even if it spooks the markets. But, in a sense, we’re now so far beyond the ability to warn the market in advance about this that, well, we’re all very fucked. We should have let the steam out of the market slowly over the last, say six weeks, not wait until the entire economy implodes over a 48 hour period as the severity of this situation grows apparent and extreme “social distancing” is mandated by state after state.

Continuation of Government
This is, for the moment, a low level threat. Trump is so oblivious as to his own personal risk that he’s freaking out about some Deep State operative journalist intentionally getting infected to hurt him that he doesn’t realize that he should stop shaking people’s hands altogether. But there he was, shaking people’s hands. We know from Iran that it’s possible for the power structure of a nation to become immobilize by COVID19 and given how poorly we are managing this situation, there’s on reason to believe the same thing won’t happen to us. All of Congress — especially the older members — may be, well, “indisposed” pretty soon. We’re not prepared for what happens when COVID19 lops off the entire Federal government’s political command and control infrastructure.

A Political Gray Plague
Don’t sleep on how history is often made by some rather prosaic events. That a bunch of bonkers CPAC attendees were not on Capitol Hill at this point could be huge. They could endup being some of the only law makers not knock out of commission as the crisis advances. They will, of course, use this to consolidate power and, like, found a real-life Gilead. If you think this is great possibility, then, well, fuck you, you piece of shit. If you think the best case scenario of a pandemic is a dystopian state the, fuck off and eat shit. Or, they could simply be overwhelmed by the crisis and be responsible for the military stepping in to keep the nation safe. There are a lot of known unknowns on this front. I just don’t know how bad things may get. If we go the Iranian route, they will get very bad, indeed. It gives me no pleasure to contemplate how dark things may get on that front.

“Crisis”
Remember, history is still asleep right now. The Queen is well. The President is well. The Pope is fine. Biden is fine. Sanders is fine. All is well. No one has dropped from the WuFlop in America, or at least recorded having done so. There is no indication that the Kirkland rest home situation has been replicated elsewhere. If we manage to get through the next two weeks without some jaw-dropping history being made, then, great. I’ll be quite content. I do have a novel to develop. The next two weeks are crucial, however.

“Death Cult”
I just don’t know on this one. For MAGA thought leaders to distance themselves from The Dear Leader, things would have to get so horrific that it just wouldn’t be worth it. For them to finally, like, tell the truth and stop worrying about Hillary Clinton’s email server, things would have to be so demonstrably dire that it just wouldn’t be worth it. That’s the thing that Twitter liberals keep missing. They’re so exciting about a pandemic giving them a potential policy advantage they they totally miss the astonishing human toll we would all have to go through to get it. It will be a tragedy and we will only give it value later, out of desperation and grief.

Trump Hasn’t Bit Bonkers…Yet
Trump isn’t taking this seriously, yet. While his plutocrat friends are nervous, the base is obviously not concerned. When THEY are concerned, then, well, YIKES. When the base makes it clear that they are unhappy with his performance — if that ever happens — then Trump could snap mentally in a rather dramatic fashion. Historic fashion. Like, oh my God, what is happening fashion.

Anyway, no one listens to me. I have a novel to develop.