February 2020 – Page 3 – The Trumplandia Report

All Things Being Equal, We Should Suspend The 2020 Presidential Campaign #Primaries #COVID19 #CoronaVirus

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It definitely seems as though we may look back on 2020 as a worst case scenario when it comes to COVID19. Not only is Campaign 2020 now in full swing, but we’re supposed to have a Census this year. Lulz! But if we’re going to be honest with ourselves, we need to suspend all presidential campaign activities until we learn how bad things are going to get.

Or, at least, we figure out some work arounds.

It’s growing more and more self-evident that it’s just not safe for there to be primaries or campaign rallies. All those people in the same place at the same time will only spread COVID19 even more. And, really, the whole issue may be moot if the contagion grows so large in the American population that everyone is too sick — or too scared of getting sick — to participate in the campaign to begin with.

Right now, COVID19 is still an abstract. Once everyone in the States knows at least one person in their extended social circle who has gotten sick or died from COVID19, it might be a lot easier to implement some of the more drastic preventive measures that have been seen in China and elsewhere. But I’m just speculating. It could go either way, I guess.

I do think, however, that leadership is going to spring up at some point. Someone, somewhere, is going to take a risk and tell the truth to the public so they can stabilize this growing clusterfuck. But I do think we need to rethink, at the very least, some pretty basic elements of modern American society, starting with the on-going presidential campaign. If we don’t a lot more people than necessary may get sick and or die.

It will be interesting to see exactly the sequence of events going forward. I think what will happen is people will start to get sick on TV and that will be the thing that prompts some rather radical rethinking of what’s going on the States right now. We don’t have any leadership in Washington for the time being and Trump would probably keep having his dumb Nuremberg rallies until the last MAGA dipshit keeled over and did the WuFlop. Ignorant morons.

But that’s what they want, I guess. They want a tyrant. See you at the polls.

Mike Pence, Fall Guy #CoronaVirus #COVID19

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It seems rather self-evident that Vice President Mike Pence has been set up to fail. In Trump’s deranged mind, he know’s he needs to ditch Pence to placate the MAGA base, and, as such, in the end, if the Trump Administrator bungles its response to COVID19 – which it will — he can lay all the blame on Pence. That is, when Trump’s blaming liberals and or the Deep State.

Given that there apparently is already evidence of communal transmission in the United States — and we’re effectively not testing for COVID19’s spread — that the only way we’ll know what’s going on is when a lot, and I mean A LOT, of people get sick all at once all over the United States. For a few days, it may get kind of scary.

And the person who will suffer the political blame won’t be Trump, but Pence. And so President Crazypants can simply drop Pence from the ticket and cruise into a second term of bigotry, tyranny and hate. And if you think that’s my “Trump Derangement Disorder” coming out — fuck you, you piece of shit. How simply pointing out that Trump is a hate-filled ignorant tyrant is any type of “disorder” leaves me at a loss. When you think my rage against a tyrant is nothing more than an over-reaction to a policy disagreement, then, well, whoa buddy.

Anyway, it definitely seems as though we’re going to know soon enough one way or another. My gut tells me that COVID19 is spreading like wildfire in the United States and it’s going to get really bad, really soon. The whole thing may be seen as rather dramatic in hindsight. Or not. Maybe I’m overacting without even realizing it. Maybe that’s my own form of confirmation bias.

I do wish that the Trump Administration had the best interests of the nation, not the stock market, at heart. But Trump has plutocrats to placate if he’s going to win re-election and, as such, fuck you America.

‘The State Of The Union’ #Lyrics To A #Pandemic #PopRock #Protest Song

With this one, I cribbed the structure from Neil Young’s “Southern Man.” Anyway, this would be a really angry rock song like that song. Or something. It makes me feel better to vent in verse sometimes.

The State Of The Union
lyrics by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
please give credit if you produce or perform

(hook)
we all bleed
the same colored blood
we all bleed
the same colored blood
we all bleed
the same colored blood

Verse
we are no longer red nor blue
we are only
patriots, citizens and humans

Chorus
get away from me with your hate
there’s no time for that
at this late date
we’ve all fallen short
that is the glory that is God
that is God
that is God

(hook)
we all bleed
the same colored blood
we all bleed
the same colored blood
we all bleed
the same colored blood

Chorus
get away from me with your hate
there’s not time for that
at this late date
we’ve all fallen short
that is the glory that is God
that is God
that is God

‘All Will Be Remembered’ #Lyrics To A #Pop #Ballad #BillieEilish #Pandemic

I occasionally get in moods where I need to express myself in verse. I know nothing about music, but I am a reasonably good writer. So, using what little I know about the structure of pop lyrics, here’s a rough sketch of a pandemic-themed pop-song. It’s barely a rough draft. But it makes me feel better to write it. I see this as a Billie Eilish-type jam.

All Will Be Remembered
lyrics by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
please give credit if you produce or perform

we saw the world
in shades of blue and red
shout at each other in our minds

as the storm clouds began to rise
in the east but we gave it no mind
we blamed each other as it rushed our way
not caring we were all in its way

heroes would be made
cowards would be shamed
all would be remembered
all would be remembered
remembered, remembered, remembered
for what they did
in the vortex

a crack of thunder and it began
people began to flee from this world
head into the next
the headwinds of fate
crashed against our faces
we realized to secure in place
in the vortex

heroes are made
cowards are shamed
all are remembered
all are remembered
remembered, remembered, remembered
for what they did
in the vortex
in the vortex
in the vortex

(Bridge)
all was calm
for so long
we felt we had it all
but now we
see it was all gall
in the vortex

heroes were made
cowards were shamed
all were remembered
all were remembered
remembered, remembered, remembered
for what they did
in the vortex
in the vortex
in the vortex
in the vortex
in the vortex
in the vortex

Mulling The Possible Arrival Of The ‘#WuFlop’ To America #CoronaVirus #COVID19

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

One of the more alarming things to come out of CoronaVirus is the “WuFlop.” This is when someone just out of the blue faceplants, sometimes writhing on the ground aftewards. It’s crazy whack. To date, that hasn’t happened in the United States.

And I’m saying if it did happen in, say Times Square, and it was recorded it would likely be seen on TV immediately and would freak people out so badly that the entire country would come to a grinding halt. In fact, I would say that, along with a lot of elderly people dying in South Florida and the entire nation of, say, Iceland abruptly getting sick, would be a major indication that what’s happening to Italy, Iran and South Korea was about to happen to the United States in a big way.

It would be, albeit for a few days, something out of a horror movie. We would abruptly realize that a huge, deep swath of the population was sick with COVID19 and that the nation was going to be as weak as it was on 9/11 not for hours, but for days, weeks and months. The entire world order would then collapse –as would the global economy — and, well, heroes would be made, cowards would be shamed and all would be remembered. I think it goes without saying that Mike Pence — someone the MAGA base doesn’t really like all that much — is being set up for a fall so some ethno-state advocate like The Kooch can take his place.

Anyway. I have no idea what is going to happen. but we’re pretty much one WuFlop away from mass panic in the United States. I might not get a lot of play on the cable nets at first, but if started to happen too much, it would quickly bounce from The Drudge Report to more mainstream outlets. That’s the way such scandalous things have happened in the past. A lot of WuFlops happening out in public would not be easy to hide. WuFlops are just too dramatic, too surreal.

If they started to happen a lot, they would be noticed.

The Gray Plague & TMZ’s Moment Of Journalistic Glory

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Someone read one of my posts about possibility of The Gray Plague and was quite sure I had “Trump Derangement Disorder” the likes of which they had never seen. First, fuck that guy. Second, if you ain’t got haters you ain’t poppin. And, second, I think we definitely need to keep and eye on South Florida. If we started to get reports of an unusual number of deaths there then, well, we know my fears of a Gray Plague are being realized.

I only think this is even possible because we don’t have any metric for how many cases are in the United States right now. While South Korea has tested 20,000 people, the United States has tested about 500. So, the only metric we will have to measure if it’s here or not is any unusual levels of sickness in the general populace. While I have been talking about how I think Iceland will suffer for the sins of our healthcare system because of how many Americans visit there in a year — I also think there’s one thing we would notice: a lot of old powerful and well known people dying in a rather abrupt fashion.

If you had between 1.3% and 15% of the elderly population of South Florida — or the rest of the country for that matter — being to die at a rather rapid rate, someone, somewhere would notice. The one organization that would likely benefit briefly by a surreal number of elderly celebrities dying would be, of course, TMZ. They would be something of our trip wire because they would the the one organization that would break the news of 40 elderly celebrities dying in 24 hours. One thing I just don’t know is how many elderly people, in real terms, would die if the absolute worst happened. Are we talking 1 million? 10 Million? What? I can’t imagine it could possibly be 10 million, but who knows. I know I don’t.

Or, put another way, we are likely about to enter about a year of unprecedented instability on a global scale. Living through history of such a a scope will suck big time. When it’s all over, some basic assumptions about life that we have now may no longer be accurate, for better or worse. I would prefer a few hundred thousand old people not die in the next year directly from COVID19. It would be a tragedy just like the Civil War or the first two world wars. I hope everything works out and I can, at last, give my full attention to the novel I’m developing.

‘Burn, Hollywood, Burn’ #COVID19

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Hollywood, we got a problem. It’s at least within the realm of possibility that not only will all entertainment production shut down soon because of a pandemic, but people will stop going to the movies for a solid year. If you work on the assumption that for about a year — until a vaccine is finally approved and mass produced — some fundimental assumptions about everyday life will be suspended then Hollywood as we know it is a Dead Man Walking.

By the time things go “back to normal,” we may not even have a traditional Hollywood anymore. “Immersive media” in the guise of VR and AR may pop out of the rubble and take over the entertainment world. But another thing to remember — when will the crisis reach such levels that there aren’t live studio audiences for late night talk shows? Or everyone on TV starts to wear a mask? The issue is if you see the coming pandemic in the United States as a process, not an event, a “new normal” will happen at some point where we move past the “event” stage into the “process” stage where everyday life begins to come back, albeit in a dramatically different form. It will be surreal, at first, but it will have to be done.

The whole thing is going to suck. But at some point The Powers That Be are going to encourage “normal” TV to come back for no other reason than to make the life of pandemic — where everyone has to stay inside — at least a bit more bearable. Remember, whatever the pandemic is called will be, will said in the same breath as the Civil War and World War 2. So, eventually, inevitably, we’ll figure out some way to go back to “normal” while we wait for it to end.

But one thing that will be interesting to look at will be the rise of Immersive Media. How fast will that happen? Telepresence will be a huge growth industry in the middle of a pandemic. It will be interesting to see how that will work out specifically.

I am curious what will happen to music. Will someone write a pop song that alludes to the effects of a pandemic? How would they pull it off? I’m tempted to write some doggerel. But I see writing song lyrics a huge waste of time when I have a novel to develop and write. But someone should start thinking about that.

In the end, even with a pandemic all around us, life will go on. People will have sex. Babies will be born. People will die.

Life will go on.

We Got This #COVID19

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

While it seems pretty obvious that we have a pandemic on our hands, it seems rather slow moving at this point. I guess it’s possible that it will burn itself out or otherwise not being the staggering clusterfuck catastrophe that people like me are beginning to think it may ultimately be.

Let’s look at what is known about what’s happened. China has gone to extraordinary lengths to stop the spread of COVID19 in their nation. To date, they’ve been quite successful. There’s the ironic chance that they will be REINFECTED from the outside despite all their hard work. That’s the problem with a pandemic — at least in my “Brian Fellows” view. It kind of feeds on itself. That, in a sense, is what a pandemic is.

So, right now, South Korea, Italy and Iran are the three major “warm zones” with a lot of people getting sick. Only Iran seems to be something close to a “hotzone” with the number of people actually dying growing exponentially. Iran is the one nation right now that seems like it might actually have some sort of historic political event take place because of this pandemic. You can only have so many major political figures dead, dying or really sick before historically bent up political pressures explode to the surface.

Italy, meanwhile, seems on the verge of collectively faceplanting. It’s possible that the entire nation of Italy will have to be written off by the end of the week. Things are bad in South Korea, yes, but not AS BAD as they are in northern Italy right now. And the rest of Europe is well on its way to being ravaged by COVID19 soon enough.

And, yet, America to date hasn’t seen any hot or warm zones. We have some cases, sure, but it’s not like New York City and LA are imploding like northern Italy. America is a lot bigger than a lot of other nations and, as such, the bigger they are, the bigger they fall and all that. My current belief is Iran’s present is our future — people are going to start being physically ill on TV. Or, put another way, there may be a pretty huge gap between what people are actually experiencing first hand and what the American media is reporting.

That hasn’t happened, but it’s possible. It’s as if there was a stealth zombie apocalypse. We already have a big gap between what we know to be true on social media and what MSM reports, so if things got as bad as I fear they will in the States, then that difference will grow rather extreme in a rather surreal manner. It’s going to get dark, like a real life horror movie.

Of course, because we’re leaderless and everyone is a doofus, what’s likely to happen is once we realize that 20% of the American population — especially the elderly — are REALLY SICK — then we’re going to freak out and panic will set in. Things are going to get really dark, really quick. But I do believe that leaders will begin to bubble to the surface.

It’s just human nature. We got this. It’s going to be scary at times, but we got this. We won WW2. We can win WWC.

The Vision Thing #Novel

by Shelt Garner
@SheltGarner

Development of the novel I’ve been working on for about the last year is going well. But I have to accept there are some existential issues that aren’t going anywhere. I’ve been using Stieg Larsson’s The Girl Who Played With Fire as my “textbook,” and, as such, I’ve picked up some of its macro structure, at least the first part of it.

As you may know, that novel actually has a “first part” that is more of a first adventure for the heroine than anything to do with the greater plot. That’s one of the reasons why that book’s word count is about 185,000 instead of the 165,000 of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. I’m growing so frustrated with how long development has taken — and it’s actually going really well — so I’ve decided that the metric I’m going to use is results. I’m going to keep going with development, finish it and the write a first, serious draft as quickly as possible.

Though any number of disasters could strike that would make finishing the novel at least more difficult. I know the general plot of the novel so well that it’s really just a matter of doing the hard work at this point. I’m fully prepare to do that, but I also don’t want to wake up and it be a year from now and I’m still struggling with the finer points of this or that plot point. I want to actually finish the damn thing and try to sell it.

I really enjoy this novel for a number of reasons. There’s a surprise on every page and it affords me the opportunity rant — in a very diffused manner — about a wide range of things that really piss me off about the modern Trumplandia Era. If I was a better writer, you wouldn’t be able to figure out my politics. But, alas, while I’m not going to preach at you, I think you’ll be able to figure out I fucking hate MAGA with a white hot creative rage.

I kind of — for the time being — have something of an idyllic situation for developing and writing a novel. I would prefer a pandemic not make that a lot more difficult. But time will tell, I guess.

Twitter Liberals Are So Oblivious: Putin, Pandemic & Trumplandia #COVID19

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The thing that so many Twitter Liberals are completely oblivious about is Trump shares the view of another autocrat, Russia’s Putin, when it comes to his relationship to power: as long as he’s still in power when the sun sets, it’s a win. If your only metric is still being in power, then you can, as a Twitter Liberal, nash your teeth all you want to — Trump’s never leaving office for any reason.

And, yet, there’s something of an “act of God” bouncing around the world at an alarming rate right now — the COVID19 pandemic. Even then, I am reluctant to assume that Trump will, in traditional terms, face any type of political consequences. He’s escaped conviction by the Senate, and he will do whatever necessary to stay in power as long as he likes — even call a Constitutional Convention, if need be — so lulz. Even if the COVID19 pandemic caused a sharp, brief global recession and many died in the States directly because of his bungled response, it would still be 2021 – 2022 before we got around to attempting to get rid of him again. So, for the time being, Trump’s a tyrant with absolute power in the United States. Lulz?

It does, however, make you wonder how bad things would have to get before people like Hugh Hewitt might change their tune on Trump. They might have a momentary pause — in private — about their support if we entered horror-movie territory. But more likely, they would become rather giddy at the prospect of Trump consolidating his power even more as notable center-Left figures got sick and maybe even died. Or, put another way, even the gates of hell opening and Satan telling us that Trump REALLY WAS the anti-Christ wouldn’t be enough to make people like Matt Schlapp stop sucking Trump’s political cock. I guess, maybe, if 20 million old people died because of Trump’s poor leadership they might think about it for no other reason than their base of angry old men would be dramatically reduced in size.

So, I guess what I’m saying is, slow your roll Twitter liberals. Trump’s not going anywhere for any reason unless his enablers feel they have, at last, gotten every fucking thing they could possibly get from him. Then Mike Pence — or Don Jr, or The Kooch or Steve King or Kris Kobach — will swoop in and finish the job of turning America into the Fourth Reich.

Lulz!

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: