Month: August 2020

A Liberal Fever Dream About A House Trump ‘Interregnum’



by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Let me stress that Trump is never leaving office for any reason. Or, if he does, the level of bloodshed involved in actually physically removing Trump from the White House will be so severe as to be a 9/11-level tragedy.

I say this because autocrats never lose. Also, for Trump to remain this popular after all his bullshit is a self-evident sign that there are some deep, deep existential flaws in the American body politic. At this point, we’re doomed to an autocratic “managed democracy” one way or another, it’s just a matter of who does it and how. Trump’s just the guy who crashed through the norms to get us to this point.

So, instead of any House Trump “Interregnum,” we’re far more likely to have either a mini-civil war, rolling political violence or maybe even some sort of “Unity Government” meant to punt the crisis down the road until the 2022 mid-terms. I’m being absolutely serious. House Trump is a reality and, baring something like Trump bungling a limited nuclear exchange with the DPRK, it’s ultimate dream of an illiberal white entho state is going to become a reality at some point in the next decade. It’s an absolute law of political science at this now, at least on the macro level.

But, let’s just imagine there is an Interregnum. How would it play out?

Well, I’m going to work on the assumption that what ultimately forces Trump out of office is Trump loses in a massive landslide so huge that it’s difficult for the Russians to pull off a hack of our election systems without someone noticing. So, while there will be violence and law suits and Trump ranting at the top of his lungs that he’s still president no matter what, at some point around Christmas, Senate Republicans realize not so much that they have any backbone, but the mood of the country is such that the U. S Military isn’t going to support their efforts to keep Trump in office. They begin to make it clear that Trump needs to leave office. We still have to frog walk him out of the Oval Office, but we do, in fact, manage to get him physically out of the building after a few weeks of tense negotiation.

What happens next is MAGA doesn’t blink an eye. The same bullshit echochamber that kept Trump at 40% of the electorate will now rant constantly about how Biden is an illegitimate president. Republicans will stonewall anything the Biden Administration does and begin to plot how to regain control of the House so they can impeach Biden (and his Veep.)

Now, it’s not too difficult to sketch out a scenario where MAGA continues to be so absolute in its support of The Dear Leader that when they do finally take control of the House, they name him Speaker and then do everything in their power to remove Biden and his veep from office so Trump can become president again. They will demand they both resign at every opportunity. They will scream that Biden “stole” the election and pound to table that the entire administration is based on a lie and has to be removed.

And, so, that’s what’s going to happen.

Either they push Biden and his veep out of off somehow and Trump becomes president again, or they spend the next two years screams at the top of their lungs about any possible thing the Biden Administration might have done wrong. If necessary they’ll simply lie about whatever they need to lie about.

In 2024, Mike Pompeo or Tom Cotton is the Republican nominee and they win, thus able to do everything that Trump would have done in his second term.

The End.

Let’s Address #MAGA Talking Points


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Here are some of the current MAGA talking points as best I can determine. I’ll try to address them as best I can.

“We’re A Constitutional Republic, Not A Democracy’
If someone is using this to defend Trump, what they’re really saying is when Trump brazenly steals the election in the fall, all that matters is he stays in power and fuck you. In fact, I would go so far as to say this is something of a fallback position while they think of some other bullshit reason to defend the indefensible. They want to get into a squabble over terminology and not address the issues at hand.

As always, Trump himself does them no favors when he tweets out a suggestion that the fall election be “delayed.” This goes beyond simply laying the groundwork for being cool with Trump outright stealing the election because “we’re a constitutional republic and not a democracy” straight to outright fascist thuggery. Usually, when you bring such things up, they say Trump is “just joking” and you’ve fallen for his trolling again, libtard.

Trump As Master Troll
For this to work, you have to essentially posit that nothing Trump says should be taken seriously, even after he makes it clear it IS meant to be taken seriously. Trump does this constantly to his supporters. They call you a fool for falling for Trump’s trolling then he turns around and makes it absolutely clear that he was not joking. In fact, he doubles down, triples down in all seriousness the thing that his followers throw in your face as simply a “troll” that has “triggered” you. Remember, all MAGA talking points are based on the concept of “owning the moment” on a tactical level. Strategically, they could care less. Fuck you. This leads them to some pretty astonishing self-owns on a strategic level, but lulz, they have no shame and don’t care about anything but power and greed.

“Trump Is Protecting My Family From Violent Communists And Anarchists“
This is straight out of the fascist playbook. Fascists want to draw the lines of political debate so absolutely on an abstract level that there is absolutely no room for compromise or debate. This is why Trump sent his Little Green Men to Portland — he wanted to feature the resulting violence in campaign ads.

MAGA wants to conflate violent protests with peaceful protests. It’s like whenever gun control is brought up, gun rights advocates immediately go insane with notions that you want to “take” their guns not “control” them. There are plenty of valid concerns that conservative-but-not-MAGA people about how swiftly perceptions have changed about some things. Usually, this is more a result of them being zoned out because they’re so busy raising their kids and paying their mortgage that they “don’t have time for politics.” When that bubble is pierced by this or that thing on Fox News, they get all upset and pretty much are so overwhelmed with their abstract fears about what MIGHT happen, that it’s difficult — if not impossible — to talk to them about the actual fascist behavior of Trump.

Projection
This is another tried and true form of gas-lighting on the part of MAGA these days. What they want is to have a big argument about what Biden has — or hasn’t done — so you spend a lot of time fighting over this and not the very concrete fuckups that Trump has done. That’s why Hunter Biden and the Durham Investigation are so existential to MAGA — they want to distract the average person who “doesn’t have time for politics” with the things that Biden may have done wrong, so there’s no time left over for the obscene amount of things that House Trump has, in fact, done.

“You’re Going To Have To Learn Chinese And Russian If Biden Is Elected”
This talking point is so delusional and beyond any basis in fact as to be darkly comical. Now, I will admit that over the last five years, I’ve probably come across as rather hysterical about our march towards fascism. But, in hindsight, I wasn’t wrong, I was just wrong about chronology. That and Trump simply is too stupid, incompetent and lay to do much of the stuff he obviously wants to do. And, lulz, he always has a stolen second term to do all the stuff I’ve feared he would do in his first. All the indicators are pointing in a very, very dark direction

But the point of this talking point, I guess, is that Biden is soft on Russia and China. This talking point, like so many of MAGA’s talking points, is meant to either make you so angry that you just start screaming at each other, or to muddle the waters while you attempt to explain that, if anything, it’s Trump who is extremely “soft” on both China and Russia. Trump begged President Xi to help him win re-election and said he was cool with concentration camps. Meanwhile, Trump has always been soft on Russia and has called him about every two weeks since March. But by the time everything gets sorted out, they either walk away, have attacked you personally, or have pull some other bullshit out of their ass

Lastly, there’s The Big Lie
This talking point reminds you that the lines have been drawn and there’s no going back. This talking point is pretty much just “Fuck you” dressed up in any number of extremely stupid or surreal gross misinterpretations of facts that are pretty much just “I’m scared of the Browning of America” said with different words.

In the end, there’s simply nothing you can do with MAGA people. There are some extremely complicated, existential flaws in the American political system that aren’t going anywhere. And demographic trends don’t suggest liberal democracy in the United States is going to survive MAGA.

Becoming More Methodical With Development of This #Novel



by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The general conceit of this novel is very strong. After about two years of struggle, I’ve come up with up with a reasonable way to explore the universe I’ve constructed that isn’t too convoluted.

But now that I’m going from the abstract of development to actually writing, I’m really bumping up against some serious problems on occasion. I have a general way I sketch out individual scenes in the outline I’ve come up with and sometimes I have to throw out entire scenes because they just don’t work. There’s no there there, as they say.

I have decided to do three chapters at a time now in hopes of speed the process up some. I’ve been doing about a chapter a week since I started writing again and that’s just way too slow.

I also need to start reading some of the 30-odd books I have floating around. They say if you have time to write you have time to read and I really agree with that.

One thing that’s difficult to deal with is the temperature. It’s brutally hot, even with the air conditioning on. So, that slows me down a little bit. But I’m giving myself an arbitrary deadline of Sunday afternoon to wrap up a the scene summary of a three chapter segment. Hopefully, if I can do that, then I can maybe wrap up three chapters in a week, no just one.

There’s so much to do still. It’s rather overwhelming, but at least I’m moving forward. The story still isn’t dark enough, but I’m hoping I can get there on that front with the second draft.

That’s the goal, at least.

Dear Seth Rogen — About That ‘Alien Test’ Movie Concept You Talked About On Howard Stern



by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I saw on YouTube today that funny man Seth Rogen has the following idea for a movie: someone like him is the guy aliens pick to take a test that will determine humanity’s fate.

Well, I, too, have been thinking about something like this and he’s what I can contribute to your idea.

The reason why your character is chosen amongst all the people in the world is the aliens have been monitoring humanity’s radio signals for decades and they really like the morning show you have where you play Rock ‘N Roll. (For IP reasons, I would suggest something like it’s an 80s music morning show.)

The aliens REALLY LOVE Rock music and, as such, they love how you’re able to tell a story by stringing songs together. They communicate with humanity by doing this very thing and they make it clear they want YOU to be the person to take the test for humanity.

The test would be a test of Rock music knowledge, not an IQ test or anything like that. Conflict arises when the governments of the world try to screw you over by finding people they think can do what you do, better.

In the end, you take the test and pass it with flying colors — but then the real test begins. You have to use your new-found global celebrity to united humanity to take advantage of the offer given by the aliens — they are willing to re-settle much of humanity to a new solar systems, but humanity has to work together to achieve this goal.

I was thinking this would be deathly serious film, but it probably wouldn’t take a lot to flip it into something really funny.

Countdown To American Fascism: Trump’s ‘Plan’



by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

For a variety of reasons, I believe that right now, Trump is still in the “abstract fear” phase of his efforts to brazenly steal the election. He knows that he’s assembled a dozen different things that in conjunction will help him steal the election in such a way that Twitter liberals will squabble amongst themselves for a decade as to which one, specifically, did the trick.

So, in a vague sense, Trump simply wants to win. He really doesn’t care how it happens, as long as he wins and is sworn in on Jan 20th, 2021. He’s willing to burn everything — EVERYTHING — to the ground to accomplish this goal. Though it’s unlikely he’s actually articulated to himself yet, he’s even willing to have blood run in the streets.

But as has been mentioned on Twitter by others, it definitely seems as though his basic fail safe at the moment is to announce his victory Election Night (no matter where things stand) then denounce anything after that as fraudulent. Remember, as I understand it, election results have to be certified a number of times before the Electors vote. It seems pretty obvious that if the half-dozen different things Trump is doing to steal the election don’t work by the Election, that he will pressure Red State legislatures to not certify election results, or if they do, do so in his favor. (I think Pence, acting as the president of the Senate also has to certify the votes near the end of the process.)

Anyway, all Trump wants to do is win, so fuck you. Even if everyone, EVERYONE knows that what is happening is wrong, Trump won’t care. All he cares is staying in power and so Twitter liberals can rant all they want to on Twitter, in the end, Trump gets sworn in and people start getting pushed out of windows as part of Trump’s stolen second term.

The absolute fall back position Trump vaguely has in his mind at this point is to sow such doubt in the public’s mind as to the nature of Biden’s victory –should it somehow happen despite Trump’s skulduggery — that Republicans can make the case that the entire Biden Administration is illegitimate. This is something people like me think about the Trump Administration and, as such, MAGA is going to absolutely believe this no matter what.

How this absolute belief in the “illegitimacy” of the Biden Administration on the part of MAGA expresses itself is a huge question. It’s very likely that the first 100 days of any Biden Administration would be simply struggling to keep the country together. There could be rolling political violence across the country as MAGA people of all stripes freak the fuck out that The Dear Leader has been “overthrown” by Godless Communist progressive liberals.

There are a number of scenarios where things grow so dire that there is some sort of “Unity Government” formed out of desperation, maybe negotiated by the U.S. Military. The aim of this would be to simply punt the near-civil war the country was at because of Trump’s thuggish behavior for about two years until they’re another election.

I could see a scenario where there’s a huge conference where it’s decided that Electors might vote for Biden as POTUS and Pence (or whomever) as Veep and the cabinet would be made up of both Democrats and Republicans. This would not work, of course, because Republicans want to murder Democrats in cold blood by this point.

But we might try.

The point is, Trump wants, at the very least, MAGA to not see the Biden Administration as legitimate so the Republican Party can run on that in two years. Things could grow extremely surreal if Republicans win the House and then name Trump as Speaker of the House so Trump would be in the line of succession.

Don’t laugh. This could really happen.

Wait, What? Are Kaia Gerber & Cara Delevingne Dating?



by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’m simply a rando nobody in the rural portion of a purple flyover state. I don’t know anything about anything. Please actively ignore me. And maybe this speculation is a big “duh” to people who are more clued in than me, but it definitely seems as though Kaia Gerber and Cara Delevingne are dating.

The reason why I think this is there’s “normal world” and then there’s the tight little bubble of “showbiz world.” Or, in this particular situation, its subset “fashion world.” Both women are bombshells and Ms. Delevingne seems to bounce around a lot (no hating, she’s just doing what men do all the time — I’m looking at YOU Pete Davidson.)

But from Ms. Gerber’s side, it makes a huge amount of sense. She’s only 18 and she probably simply wants to sow her wild oats as quickly as possible — hence her brief relationship with — you guessed it — Pete Davidson. I guess because I’m ancient as all get out the fact that Cindy Crawford’s daughter may be dating female Lothario Cara Delevingne makes my eyebrows rise just a little bit. It takes a moment to process not because there’s anything wrong with it, just Ms. Crawford is such an icon that it takes my old brain a moment to fit into the new reality.

As an aside, I will note a picture exists of Cara Delevingne with BOTH Kaia Gerber AND Margaret Qualley. The latter two women both had brief relationships with Pete Davidson so it comes off as a little surreal. And in the picture Ms. Delevingne is making Ms. Qualley laugh for some reason.

Make of that what you will.

So, it seems as though it’s EXTREMELY LIKELY that Ms. Delevingne has beded both Ms. Gerber AND Ms. Qualley recently. It makes one’s head spin. But, remember, in the upper reaches of showbiz — especially fashion — same sex relationships are completely accepted (as they should be.) And let me stress — I’m simply making an informed observation. Maybe I’m pulling all of this out of my butt. I’m notorious for coming to the wrong conclusions, so this time is probably wrong, too.

The only reason why I even mention any of this is how showbiz news simply states things factually about Ms. Gerber and Ms. Delevingne as if it’s “Oh, you know, just two friends doing friends stuff. Nothing to see here.”

Maybe I’m wrong. I probably am. I wish both women well, regardless.