Month: December 2020

Gen. Mike Flynn’s Sedition Crazy Train Express


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

So. General Mike Flynn. His latest suggestion is Trump order the U.S. Military to force “redo” elections in various states he lost. This is dumb, dangerous and problematic for number of reasons.

Now that the Electors have voted, I just don’t see how Trump could order the U.S. Military to do such a thing. To call Flynn’s suggestion a pipedream is to give pipedreams a bad name.

But what he suggests does give us some sense of what a dangerous period in American history we’re in. There are people on the Far Right who are so wrapped up in MAGA that they have completely lost sight of what’s going on. Their devotion to Trump is so absolute and so disconnected to reality that it’s nothing more than a political grunt.

Trump good. Liberals bad.

That’s it. That’s all they got.

Flynn — who I think is Trump’s Russian handler — is telegraphing to Trump want the Russians want Trump to do in the name of destroying the country. But what may be really going on is an expectations game.

The Russians through Flynn hope that if MAGA expectations are raised enough that when they, at last, have the Great Disappointment, that they’ll start murdering people and blowing shit up. It seems as though such a “Great Disappointment” might happen sometime between January 6th and January 20th.

That would be when a number of things align — Trump may go transactional in his craziness and MAGA people will finally flip the fuck out because there’s simply no way for Trump to win….or “not lose.” But, again, I struggle to imagine any situation where there’s a secession crisis.

And if there was, it would only be Mountain states with small populations and no black people. Such a secessionist crisis would definitely give good old boys in the old CSA political boners, but, alas, black people in the South are simply never, ever going to sit back and let a bunch of Cooters bring back the CSA.

You thought the fight over Confederate statutes was bad — just wait until the battle is about Neo-Confederacy!

So, fucking cocksucker shithead Neo-Confederates can stroke one out to the “South Shall Rise Again” all they want to, but the Dear Leader totally bungled this situation. He has waited to late. And not even January 6 shenanigans will save them.

Of ‘The Patriot Party’


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

In a sense, the Republican Party is down low imploding. On one end of the spectrum, you have conservative NeverTrumpers openly talking about starting their own party. Meanwhile, MAGA hates the Republican Party so much that it wants to start its own “Patriot Party.”

It seems to me that the Patriot Party is more about the fire next time than it is anything going on right now. The goal of a “Patriot Party” would be that it would be an honest-to-God fascist party that would completely ignore any law or norm that got in the way of them obtaining and maintaining power.

But there’s an immediate problem with this. One is, if you slice the MAGA base from the Republican Party, then the rump Republican Party is far more likely to snap back to some semblance of being a “normal” party again.

At least for one election cycle.

The long-term consequences of a Patriot Party would be the United States would finally turn into the autocracy that MAGA wants it to be — and it would be, but for Trump being a total ding-dong and not an autocrat.

So, I guess in a sense, what I thought would happen — a civil war now, has just been punted down the road to sometime between 2023 and 2025. Or not. Trump could still lose his fucking mind and go transactional on Twitter between now and January 20 and somehow cause the United States to buckle into severe political violence.

All I can say is — fuck you, MAGA, you fucking cocksuckers.

Novel Update: ‘Just Write’


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Several years ago, at the beginning of my quest to write a novel, I got into a huge fight with someone on Periscope. They wanted me to “just write” and not do any development. This person was a fucking piece of shit and I never want them in my life again for any fucking reason.

In the end, I was right to excise them from my creative life — here I am years later exactly where I want to be. If I had “just wrote” as this person demanded, I would have wasted a lot of time and never actually finished anything. But I believed in myself and so here I am just about to “just write” on my own terms and produce the first draft of a novel I can be proud of.

I still have a huge amount of work to do, but now that I’ve figured out some pretty basic elements of the story, things will move very, very fast now. I don’t know exactly how long it’s going to take, but I’m very relieved because at last I see land ahead of me.

This is a really great story and I’m very pleased. I got this far because I stayed true to my creative vision and didn’t let random, insane cocksuckers on the Internet tell me what to do.

A Second American Civil War Is Coming…But….


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The United States politically is running on fumes. And, all things being equal, we’re on the cusp of a civil war. But. There’s a big difference between MAGA wanting to murder liberals in cold blood in the abstract and actually doing it. And, now that Trump blew his golden opportunity to drive Blue States out of the Union, we’re in a very murky situation indeed.

Several different things are happening at the same time. Time is running out for Trump to such an extent that even if he started to actively goad Blue States to secede in some way, all Blue States have to do is wait out the clock. On January 20th, that’s it — Biden becomes POTUS and Trump’s best case is to fly to Alabama and try to get Red States to leave the Union en mass.

Now, I’m aware of the Jan 6th shenanigans that Republicans want to pull, but that gambit is extremely quixotic. Republicans don’t control the House and the Senate leadership has made it clear they’re not interested in anyone voting to replace Electors.

As such, again, in the abstract MAGA really wants to start killing liberals on the field of battle….but a civil war doesn’t just happen magically. You would need troops, a government, you name it. As it stands, MAGA are just sore losers who are triggered because they got their fee-fees hurt.

So, in that sense, the case could be made that we’re on the very edge of the beginning of a process that will ultimately lead to some sort of secession crisis. What MAGA is doing is significantly more serious than what happened in 2016 and we can only assume that the 2024 election situation will be even MORE serious than this 2020.

The crux of the issue is that because of existential problems in our political system, the United States is two different nations that are receding from each other at an alarming rate. On an abstract level, MAGA’s dream of America is my nightmare and vis-versa. MAGA wants a fascist white ethno state that is pretty much a clone of Russia. Or, to put it another, more poetic way, to “make America great again,” they want 1950s America with wifi and Disney+.

It’s still very possible that if there was some sort of political 9/11 that a civil war would break out in the United States sooner rather than later, and, yet, as I keep writing — Blue States are in a far better position than Red States to the point that Red States wanting a civil war is rather foolish in the extreme.

All I can figure out is Red State MAGA people are looking at what’s going on politically and assuming they could make short work of Blue State people for various reasons — including MAGA is a bunch of racist, misogynistic cocksucking fuck who are so wrapped up in their love of the Dear Leader that they have deluded themselves into thinking they can somehow just leave the Union without African Americans picking up arms to destroy them.

When it comes to a near-term civil war in the United States, it will be because Trump snaps at some point and goes transactional Twitter. But even then, it might be rolling political violence instead of an actual civil war. And, remember, Biden is going to become POTUS on January 20th, so, again, it grows very difficult for Trump to push Blue States out of the Union then turn around and take them over via some sort of MAGA Reconstruction.

Again — one can only conclude that while a Second American Civil War is likely to happen between now and, say, 2025-ish, for the time being we’ve been spared that tragedy. And if we aren’t, it will be specifically because Trump finally loses his fucking mind.

The Fate Of The Mueller Report in Post-Trump America



by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

One of the many examples of how short-sighted everything and everyone in the Trump Era has been is how suddenly we face the prospect of the full Mueller Report popping out once Biden is president.

Now, let me be clear — Trump is going to get away with all his crimes, no matter how big. There simply won’t be any political will to do anything about anything he’s done be it on a state or Federal level. There will be a lot of talk about New York State crimes, but in the end, even there, Trump’s crimes will go down the memory hole. In large part, this will happen because of significant threat of violence, if nothing else.

The only reason why I want the full Mueller Report released is it would be, in a sense, the final closure for the Trump Era. It would be a value free way of giving people like me some sense that we have, in fact, put Trump behind us for the time being.

Its release would be totally value free because Trump will be out of office and, as such, the MAGA cocksuckers on Twitter can simply shrug and say, “So what, he’s not president anymore.” But, at least, we’ll know the truth. Trump’s collusion with the Russians will be a modern day version of Iraq’s WMD — it will take 20 years for some people to admit the truth, but they finally will.

But I guess there’s a chance that we’ll never see the full Mueller Report for various political reasons. And, again, Trump is never, ever going to see justice for any crime he’s ever committed. He’ll be a former president and he probably will have pardoned himself, anyway.

And even the hint of State crimes being looked into in any real sense will likely lead to significant political violence. Though there is a wildcard — if Trump does, in fact, refuse to physically leave the White House, that might make people so angry that for a brief moment the political will do bring Trump to justice might, just might, exist.

‘9/10ths’ — Gaming Out Trump Refusing To Physically Leave The White House


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The thing about Trump is he spit balls different ideas in a rather conspicuous manner. He telegraphs the different options he’s weighing so we all know well in advance different decisions he’s weighing.

Right now, he’s mulling simply not physically leaving the White House on January 20th, after specifically saying he would. Let’s game this out to see why he might do it.

Why He Might
Ratings
What better way to wrap up the Trump Show than a spectacular series finale, one that will be talked about for decades? He would finally get the ratings he’s always wanted.

“Stab in The Back” Martyrdom
Trump could use the imagery of him being frogwalked out of the Oval Office as the ultimate fuck you to the incoming Biden Administration and cause as much damage to the country as possible. Trump might see this is as a great way to kickstart his 2024 presidential bid.

Avoiding Prosecution
What better way to avoid any form of prosecution than to hold up in the White House and use the assurance of the State of New York not going after him as a condition for peacefully leaving? I’m really, really giving Trump too much credit here when it comes to abstract thought, but he might stumble into this logic out of desperation

Why He Might Not
Trump’s a Coward
I just can’t see Trump having it in him to put himself in physical harm. He’s always been just talk. For Trump to do something this crazy, he really would have had to have snapped after January 6th. I could see him doing such a thing in the context of going transactional on Twitter, but otherwise, he probably will just slink away on January 20th or have a big campaign rally somewhere symbolic.

Here’s something I wrote some time ago about this very scenario, but in a different context.

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

April, 2019

The eyes of the world were on the White House.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Things began to move rapidly at this point.

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

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

With that, they left.

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

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

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

The End.



Trump Era Final Days Predictions


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’m always wrong when it comes to Trump, in large part because I give him way more political credit than he deserves. But, just for fun, let’s attempt to predict what may happen between now and January 20th.

The Pardons
The first thing I think we can know for sure is there are going to be a massive amount of pardons while Trump still has it within in power to do so. The first wave will be around Christmas. It will probably start as early as Dec 23. Or maybe we’ll get a heads up on Dec. 23rd that something is about to happen. But a staggering amount of pardons will happen Christmas Eve while everyone is too busy enjoying the holiday to notice. The next wave will probably happen at some point after January 6th when it starts to sink in to Trump that he is, in fact, going to leave office one way or another. It’s probably at some point after January 6th that Trump pardons himself.

The Special Counsels
I could see, at a minimum, two bogus Special Counsels being named — one for Hunter Biden and one for the 2020 Election. There could be a whole shitstorm surrounding the naming of these, especially if Trump has to find someone crazy to head Justice to get what he wants.

The Firings
While I think this is very possible, a lot depends on how much of a crackup Trump goes through post January 6th. If he really snaps, then I think Wray at FBI and Haspel at CIA could get fired and Trump toadies be named simply out of spite. And, in an effort to strike back at The Deep State, Trump could just begin to fire anyone he doesn’t like in the Intelligence Community or pretty much anywhere — specifically someone like Dr. Fouchi. (This would be very moot for a number of reasons, but it would make Trump feel better just to be able to do it.)

The Executive Orders
I could see Trump thinking up some pretty crazy Executive Orders on his way out the door, just to cause as much chaos as possible. The specific one I can think of off the top of my head is one fucking with the 14th Amendment’s birthright citizenship clause. He would do this for no other reason than to force SCOTUS to vote on it. Even if Biden rescinded it, he would have made his point.

The Congressional Elector Certification Clusterfuck
It’s looking as though for no other reason than he’s a spiteful crybaby, Trump could really lean on Republican Senators to vote for his last-ditch effort to overturn the election on January 6th. This is extremely quixotic for a number of reasons, but he would have proven his point. Also, there’s a good chance that Pence will attempt to nullify the whole thing by simply not doing his Constitutional duty. As I understand it, this would be very dumb because if he did that, then the statue says the certification at the state level by governors has precedence and fuck you Mike Pence.

The Transactional Tweets
It’s possible that after Trump is finally defeated on January 6th, that he will fucking snap in a pretty spectacular fashion. Remember, most of his ideas are simply far, far, far, far Right wetdreams that slowly work their way towards him via OANN. So, it’s at least possible that Trump will begin to actively either goad his followers into violence or to demand Red States convene snap Conventions to leave the Union. This would work pretty well in Mountain states, but in the South, this would lead only to a race war.

The White House Squatter
Laura Loomer is already suggesting Trump simply not physically leave the White House, so that’s definitely now a possibility. That would be a fitting way to wrap up Trump Era — everyone staring in horror as we have the Taking of the White House surrounded by MAGA cocksuckers.

Wildcards
There are a number of things I simply can’t predict. One is any number of “political 9/11s” that might pop out of nowhere that Trump might used to take “total control” and simply never leave office. Among them being wars with the DPRK or Iran or some sort of Oklahoma City type bombing somewhere for any reason. We also have an expectations problem ahead of us and the likelihood of significant violence will increase the closer we approach January 20th.

The Looming Second American Civil War: Race & The Paradox Of The Neo-Confederates


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I will admit that it definitely FEELS like the United States has finally run out of political gas and we’re just about to implode into a Second American Civil War. In an abstract manner, you could say there are about 20 states in the Mountain area of the United States that could secede and make then try to negotiate their peaceful exit from the Union. (This, of course, will never happen, but they can try.)

But that’s not really the issue. The issue is the former states of the Confederacy. It’s all the good old boys in across the South who are itching to see the South “rise again.” But, as I’ve said, ironically, it would make a lot more sense for Trump to drive Blue States out of the Union, then crush them using the Insurrection Act than it would for Red (CSA) States to attempt to leave the Union.

The issues: race and economics.

And effort to leave the Union by the old CSA states slam into two pretty huge problems. The first, of course, is race. No amount of pouting by easily triggered snowflake good old boys is going to convince the Southern black community that they could get a better deal in a New Confederacy. It’s a dead on arrival concept.

It’s that specific issue that makes me believe that even if Trump snapped at some point after January 6th and went transactional on Twitter about secession that it just wouldn’t work out. It might cause rolling political — and racial — violence across huge swaths of the country, but it wouldn’t be a civil war. And even if there was a secession crisis, I can’t think of a single old CSA state that cold leave the Union cleanly via a convention.

Andy secession would have to happen after a violent coup and even then, how secessionists would be able to take places like Atlanta, Richmond or Austin is a puzzle. So, at best, they might control big parts of the old CSA and declare some sort of Neo-Nazi state and start murdering black and liberals wholesale. But the whole “South Shall Rise Again” mythos would be…..not quite what the good old boys think it will be.

Let’s talk about economics.

The South, which would do much better as part of a Red State USA instead of a Neo-CSA, is not uniform anymore. States like Texas, Virginia and Florida are far more modern and urban than the Southern Good Old Boys would have us to believe. As I mentioned, Atlanta in itself is such a huge city that it would likely rather stay in the Union by itself than join any secessionist movement by the rest of the state.

As such, not only would you have to have some sort of political 9/11 for secession to take off, but your best bet as a Southern Good Old Boy would be for it to be BLUE states that leave the Union, not Red States.

But good old boys gonna good old boy.

A Second American Civil War Won’t Just Magically Happen


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I keep getting a lot of pings on this Website from people living in the Usual Suspects of the “Lost Cause” — South Carolina, Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia and Texas to name a few. They seem really excited about my dystopian hellscape scenarios about a Second American Civil War.

But I suspect a lot of the interest in such a second American Civil War comes from the recent soft coup by 17 states at SCOTUS. I don’t think people really appricate how ingrained the concept of “the South shall rise again” is in the lives of the average Southerner. So, for a lot of good old boys, even the hint of a new CSA is just too much for their poor old minds to comprehend.

With that in mind, let’s think about how we get from where we are to where we would need to be for an actual civil war to happen.

One reason why I think that this is sort of the end of the beginning of a long-term drive towards a civil war is there just isn’t any armed force big enough to challenge the U.S. Military. The Proud Boys are a small, angry disorganized group of assholes. They might blow shit up or murder someone in cold blood, but they aren’t even really even a militia. So, Cooter in Mobile can lust after Yankee blood all he wants to, but as of right now, such bloodlust is extremely misguided.

It would make a lot more sense for Red States to drive Blue States out of the Union, THEN use the U.S. Military on THEM rather than Red States leave and have the U.S. Military crush them. That’s a prime example of what a ding-dong Trump is — if he was anywhere near the political genus that Maggie Haberman would have us believe, Trump would have done a Reichstag Fire falseflag around Election, taken “total control” driven Blue States to revolt then crushed them via the Insurrection Act.

As it stands, he’s pretty much just ranted on Twitter. In other words — he’s done jackshit. It’s truly ironic it’s specifically because Trump, as a person, is so bad at his job as an autocrat that the United States may have dodged an actual fighting civil war because Trump just can’t get his act together.

So, in a sense, all the good old boy boners about a civil war NOW makes no sense. But the passions that Trump’s soft coup attempt has unleashed gives a lot Neo-Confederates a lot of expectations about what might happen — that aren’t based in reality. They FEEL like a new civil war is about to happen, but only in the abstract. It makes them feel good to think, in the abstract, that they can leave the Union and murder as many liberals as possible in the process.

The Good Old Boys’ best bet right now for what they want sooner rather than later would be Trump finally losing his fucking mind and starting to rant on Twitter about how Red States MUST leave the Union immediately. Or, put another way, Trump would have to go transactional on Twitter in some way.

For the time being, however, it seems that Trump may cause a lot of mischief on his way out, but unless we have a “political 9/11” in the next few weeks, it’s going to be closer to 2024-2025 before the conditions are right for a Second Civil War.

Our Craven Ding-Dong POTUS Faces His Final Political Test



by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

A number of different things are happening at the same time. One issue is that several different macro trends in American politics have come to a head. The rage that 38% of the electorate feels about the changing nature of American society combined with how white working class men can’t get laid has led to significant rot in the American political system.

Red State rural areas and Blue State urban areas simply have a fundamental difference of opinion about what constitutes America. MAGA and MAGA friendly people think that by definition to be conservative is to risk being “canceled” — have their life ruined — for simply being conservative. And that, is the source of a lot of the rage and willful ignorance on the part of such people.

There are a number of pretty huge problems standing in the way of MAGA getting want they apparently want right now — 4 more years of Trumplandia. The biggest obstacle to this goal, ironically enough, is Trump himself. If he struck in some autocratic fashion before the election was called — or even before the election — then he probably would have gotten away with it. There are many, many different autocratic things he could have done that would have allowed him to stay in office to varying degrees of success.

But he didn’t do any of them and now that the Electoral College has voted, it’s now much, much harder for Rudy to use his usual disinformation techniques to run slipshod over democracy since we’re now, again, in a political crisis. The reason we’re in a political crisis — even if we don’t see it for that — is only through extra-political measures can Trump stay in power.

Or, put another way, the soft coup techniques he used in the courts recently would have to be replaced by hard coup techniques of an actual autocrat. But there are a lot — a lot — of problems for Trump going forward to pull such a thing off.

Many of his followers are begging Trump to go full-autocrat and declare martial law, or what have you. But there’s an important element of this they miss — Trump can’t just do this out of the blue. If he did — no one would follow his order.

What he COULD do, is goad his followers into some sort of Reichstag Fire event which he could then, in turn, use to invoke the Insurrection Act and attempt to maybe stay in power no matter what. But, again, even then, now that the Electoral College has voted…that’s a pretty dubious strategy. Even if something happened out of the blue — like a war with Iran or the DPRK or a coordinated series of political killings or Oklahoma City type bombings — Trump’s time in office is growing to an end.

Really, it seems to me Trump has one ace up his sleeve — in a sense: he could just snap and go completely fucking bonkers and thrash around, trying to destroy the country as much as possible on his way out. There are any number of pretty insane things he could do. He could start tweeting about how Red states need to leave the Union before January 20th. He could attempt to arrest any number of people he doesn’t like as a negotiating tactic so HE doesn’t go to prison after he leaves office.

But, remember, pretty much at any moment now, some pretty lit extra-political events might happen because Trump is hoping he can win in Congress Jan. 6th because that’s a POLITICAL event.

And, yet, I’ve overestimated Trump’s actual political ability so many times over the years, that what’s more likely to happen is we’re just going to drift into the Biden Era. Things will be in political neutral for about two years until the House flips and Biden is impeached for Hunter Biden’s laptop (or whatever) and there will be a lot — a lot — of surreal political discourse as suddenly our political norms snap back into place while, at the same time, Trump keeps doing what he’s always been doing an we just shrug.

Like we always do.

But there is a good chance that the weeks leading up to Jan. 20th are going to be unpredictable, unstable and extremely bumpy. How, exactly, all the plays out is anyone’s guess.