Month: June 2021

DeSantis: The Autocratic Next Time


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

All macro political trends indicate that the United States is drifting — maybe careening — towards a transition into an autocratic managed democracy like is found in Russia. The man who could very well be the once to tip the balance is current Florida governor, Ron DeSantis.

He’s the political creature that we’ve long feared: Trumpism without Trump.

So, it’s easy to imagine he becomes POTUS and makes autocratic rule palatable enough that it won’t be until Tom Cotton, or Josh Hawley or Mike Pompeo inevitable become POTUS that the ICE infrastructure is weaponized and loudmouths like me start to get pushed out of windows. But for the duration of the DeSantis Administration we’ll see a dynamic whereby hard power is weld by MAGA and cultural soft power continues to exerted by liberals in the media.

We’ll just drift into a Russian-style government so by the time the media is purged and ICE pushed me out of a window we won’t even think about it. About 50% of the population won’t even notice or care that the United States is no longer a liberal democracy because they will, at last, “just be left alone.”

That, at least, is one option.

But there are two other scenarios to think about when feeling bad about how dark America’s future is right now.

One is, Trump is so stupid and craven that he completely fucks up what is otherwise a done deal. He either kneecaps DeSantis out of envy or he somehow bungles our transition into autocratic managed democracy by embracing the “24 or before” slogan and everything goes wrong. In a sense, this would simply delay the rise of fascism in the United States, not stop it.

Meanwhile, the other option is, well, a fucking civil war.

I hate violence and I don’t want a civil war. But if you look at the United States on a macro historical level, we’re very similar to the America of the late 1850s — there may come a point where we have to chose between continued domination by Slave Power (MAGA) or we are forced to slice this particular boil once and for all.

But there are no assurances that the “good guys” would win in such a situation. So, I don’t know what to tell you. We’re fucked.

The Duality Of Maggie Haberman — And Speculation On Why She’s Enraging Trumplandia Right Now


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The thing about “Trump Whisperer” Maggie Haberman is she is, at the same time, both way too close to Trumplandia AND a great journalist. So the Twitter liberals who defend her no matter what and the populist pitchfork crowd on Twittter who hate her both have vaild arguments.

Recently, however, Trumplandia “thought leaders” like Sean Hannity are freaking out about her, apparently out of the blue. It makes you think maybe she’s up to something that she’s asking questions about and they’re doing a pre-emptive freak out to prepare to base for whatever bombshell she’s about to drop.

What I HOPE she’s going to tell us is exactly why Trump was so absolutely desperate to remove 1/3 of America’s troops from Germany right before the 2020 election. I have yet to get any explanation for this directive on Trump’s part and, as best I can tell, the whole thing was off the books to begin with.

Trump just started demanding it happen, without going through any proper channels at all.

This was and is very suspicious.

At the time, I kept ranting about how I thought it was YET ANOTHER quid pro quo between Trumplandia and Russia — Trump removes a big chunk of our troops from Germany, the Russians hack into our election systems.

But…the Russians this go round strangely sat on their hands, even though Trump did everything in his power to give them a major geopolitical windfall in Europe.

But, I’m just a hayseed rube in the rural part of a flyover state. Though, if I guess that this is what Maggie Haberman is about to drop, well, I take back all my snarky comments about her being an “access journalist” and will want to buy her a beer.

Ms. Haberman, however, has to produce the goods. It could be whatever she’s looking into isn’t nearly as momentous as the scenario I’ve proposed. But I will note that my 2020 ranting about this topic is beginning to get just a tick of traffic out of the blue, as if other people, out there in the aether are thinking about what I was thinking.

Trump Is Powerful But Not Popular


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Right now, Trump has completely dropped off the public stage relative to my center-Left echo chamber. It’s like he never existed, or, at least, doesn’t exist now. And, yet, within the MAGA echo chamber, they love him so much they’re struggling to think up ways to get him back into office as soon as possible — even if it requires fantastical — and extra-legal — means.

So, it’s going to be very jarring to a lot of people when Trump magically pops out again in a rather abrupt and unexpected way. It seems to me now possible that Cyber Ninjas will “prove” that Trump “won” in Arizona and this will be at best used as a talking point to win the 2022 mid-terms and at worst used as the catalyst for some sort of weird nullification crisis.

Another possible dystopian hellscape scenario is that even though Trump — who looks like shit right now — has seen his support outside of the MAGA base evaporate will demand he become Speaker of the House should MAGA win the House. Then he impeaches both Biden and Harris and gets a conviction in the Senate by inciting political violence. Democrats in the Senate will be cowed into voting for conviction because the nation appears on the cusp of a civil war if they don’t.

Or something. Something like that.

The point is — we are in a very surreal post-Trump era. While Biden does everything in his power to bring back “normal,” Trump is lurking in the shadows like some sort of movie monster waiting to come back for the sequel. It’s very strange and is not exactly the sign of a stable liberal democracy.

Fucking With Texas: Leaving The Union Would Not End Well For You


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Texas is an interesting state because it has the same political dynamic as the United States as a whole — white Republicans are hysterical about demographic trends and given a choice between revamping their political views or turning into an autocratic American National Socialists party, they are rushing headlong into the latter option.

But, just like other states controlled on a political level by MAGA, the moment we’re no longer talking about politics but the existential threat of organized political violence…oh boy. It’s easy to imagine MAGA Republicans joining the states who want to leave the Union either now (when Cyber Ninjas “prove” Trump “won” in Arizona) or later (Speaker of the House Trump impeaches Biden/Harris and incites national violence to get a convention in the Senate or because of some sort of Congressional nullification crisis in January 2025).

As such, while the fucking MAGA cocksuckers would get to yet again live in the Lone Star Republic…their joy would likely be extremely short lived. The very demographic trends that are making white conservatives in Texas hysterical are also an existential problem for them when all hell breaks loose.

I’m not from Texas and I’m not an expert on their internal state politics, but just a back of the envelope scenario would suggest the moment Texas joins Trumplandia, the whole state will implode to the point that it gets knocked out of the broader political birthing process of Trumplandia.

But the MAGA far right is SOOOOO FUCKING EXCITED at the prospect of either some sort of Glorious MAGA Revolution or a civil war to found Trumplandia that they are totally, completely ignoring the cold, hard facts on the ground. The very people that white MAGA Republican conservatives in Texas are moving mountains to disenfranchise — brown, black and progressive people — would be the very ones who would have a vested interest in making their lives hell should an actual fighting war start.

The point of this is, I wish there was some way to get the far Right in Texas to just fucking shut up about secession. It’s in everyone’s vested interest for cooler heads to prevail and we figure out some way, anyway, to live peacefully in this great, colorful Union of ours.

‘While I Breathe, I Hope:’ White People In South Carolina Would Live To Regret A Second American Civil War


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

If you want to understand how fucked up any talk of a “second American civil war” is, look no farther than South Carolina. South Carolina was the first to leave the Union the first go round, and it’s easy to imagine a situation where on a political level, the MAGA National Socialists there get ahead of their skis and are the first to declare themselves a member of “real” America — Trumplandia.

But that would be the white Republican Party thinking strictly in terms of political power — they have it, and the “libs” don’t. What’s the ultimate “own the libs” play for South Carolina but to leave the Union AGAIN because they think Trump is really won the 2020 election.

So, South Carolina Republicans get all excited, bolt the Union…and then a race war starts. That’s because there’s a big difference between political power and the type of power necessary to found a new nation. The very reasons why South Carolina would want to be first to leave the Union — a historical connection to The Lost Cause, the browning of America and a historical-political fuck you to libs — would be the very reasons why black people in the Palmetto State would likely take up arms to stay IN the Union the moment secession was declared.

That, in turn, would cause the white establishment in South Carolina to grow radicalized and before you know it, we’re talking about Zyklon B being used in race-based concentration camps across South Carolina. I wish I was kidding or being hyperbolic — I’m not. If America really does have a second civil war, all bets are off. WMD will be used, there will be Qanon themed killing fields and race concentration camps. It will not be pretty. It will be a tragedy and everyone — even white people in South Carolina — will live to regret how excited they were at the prospect of taking up arms against their fellow Americans.

But it definitely seems as though we’re careening towards something along those lines pretty soon — or, at least, at some point between now and January 2025.

Good luck.

It Definitely Feels Like We’re Careening Towards A Second American Civil War Sooner Rather Than Later


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Almost all the Web traffic this site gets is what seems to be Southern “Lost Cause” types stroking one out to the idea that there will be a Second American Civil War sometime soon. Or, at least, the idea of a such a tragedy is so much in the forefront of some people’s minds that they search for the discussion of the possibility of a second civil war and stumble across my dystopian hellscape scenarios.

One reason why I’m growing ever more concerned about America’s political fate is even people like me find myself beginning to feel squeezed. My hatred of MAGA is center-of-the-sun-white-hot, and, yet, there are growing number of excesses on the part of the center-Left that have begun to really get on my nerves.

If someone like me is beginning to feel like a political orphan, that means the far Left and far Right are consuming what is left of the middle. To the point that you wake up one morning and realize all you have is negative polarization. And that’s all the other side has, too. That is not a recipe for a stable liberal democracy.

And I don’t have any ready answer for how we get out of this situation. Trump’s power with the MAGA base is still absolute to the point that should Cyber Ninjas “prove” he “won” in Arizona, there’s a serious possibility of severe political violence across the nation up to and including a secession crisis that starts a civil war.

Or not.

It could be this is a passing political phase for the United States. We’ll punt the structural problems we face constantly down the road and all my hysterical, dystopian hellscape predictions will looked back upon as just silly. But as the old saying goes, a person goes “bankrupt gradually then all at once.”

So it’s at least possible that we’re careening towards the biggest geopolitical shock since the fall of France to the Nazis in 1940 — the most powerful nation in the world could very well buckle and start to bomb itself into oblivion because…. Of scary brown people?

Who knows. I just continue to be uneasy.

Stieg Larsson & My Decision To Write Four Novels At Once


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Just in the last few days, the novel project I’ve been working on for years now took a hard left turn. For some time now, I’ve been struggling with how to give myself the occasional opportunity to switch gears whenever I feel the novels I’m currently developing and writing have begun to wear me down some.

I’ve figured out how to do it, and it’s greatly expanded the task before me, but in a great way. I’ve decided to develop and write four novels all at once. This allows me to switch gears like I want, but to also stay in-universe. As such, I don’t have to re invent the wheel when it comes to basic universe building things like names and locations.

One key thing is all this new work is flowing really easily, so I don’t have to struggle with that kind of stuff.

All this gets me thinking about Stieg Larsson and how he wrote a trilogy, sold it and then dropped dead days after doing so. This is almost taking on the air of a Twilight Zone episode — I’m well on my way to writing FOUR novels, potentially selling them…then dropping dead soon after I do so. But, “they shoot writers, don’t they” as they old saying goes, so I guess I need stop complaining and accept that the life of a writer is often tragic and unexpectedly cut short.

And, yet, no fate but what we make. So, it’s at least possible that if I should miraculously sell four novels that I will live to fight another day. An issue writing four novels at once brings up is now I have to defuse my creative energies over four novels and think about how important the first book is. The first book is supposed to set the tone of any series and I’ve come up with a great concept.

It’s pretty much totally different than what I expected to write when I started all of this about three years ago, but that’s good because if I ever get restless working on one of the four books, I can always switch gears and start development and writing on another one — all while staying in-universe.

I figure that while this new approach may slow me down some simply because I have two more books to work on, it will actually make it more likely that I finish the entire project because even when I “take a break” from one book, I will still be within the universe I’ve come up with.

That, at least, is the plan.

May Develop 2 Prequels As I Write These 2 Novels


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

There’s a chance that I will at least map out in a lot of detail two prequels to the two novels set in the modern era that I’m working on. I would do this because the plots are flowing pretty easily and it would also help a lot when it came to fleshing out the characters in these two novels that are connected via a cliffhanger.

The first of the two prequels would be kind of the Ur text of how this whole situation began. The second book happens seven years before the beginning of the current “first” book. There are a few problems with both these books that would have to be dealt with in a creative fashion…but nothing impossible to fix.

Also, it might be a way to distract myself from these two novels one story while still staying in-universe. I haven’t totally decided to do this yet, but on the weekends, at least, I find myself creatively restless and the idea of switching gears while still being in-universe is quite appealing.

But I’m kind of just drifting in that direction for the time being. I need to do something, anything distract myself now and again to keep my forward momentum fresh and creative.

Things Apparently Have Finally Clicked With This Novel


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

A lot can still go wrong with this novel. Any number of things both within my control — and not — could happen to derail this novel in unexpected ways. But, for the time being, I’m allowing myself to be content.

I’m well aware that, in a sense, my personality is unusual for a novelist. Or, at least, it’s a bit rare. I have more of a Truman Capote or Tom Wolfe larger-than-life personality than the typical lone wolf introvert personality that most novelists have.

The point is, I have a story to tell — and something to say — and I’ve finally figured how I want to tell it. It’s just taken me a lot longer to figure that out than expected. And, honestly, I never thought I would write a thriller as my first novel — given how much I love scifi, I always expected any first novel I wrote would be of that genre. But this novel does have a lot of speculative fiction in it, so I guess in a sense I was right.

Anyway, writing a novel — at least the way I expect myself to — has turned out to be far, far more work than I ever imagined. And I haven’t even gotten to the extensive reading I feel I need to do to flesh out my characters.

But that should come. At least, I hope it does.

I’m kind of embarrassed with how obsessed with this novel I’ve become and I only rarely feel like showing any of what I’ve written to anybody. The next step is to finish a first draft of the first book in this two book story. Then turn around and work on the second book for maybe a month before writing a first book second draft.

The point is — I still have a huge amount of work to do. But at least things have stabilized significantly.

Fashion In The Novel I’m Developing & Writing


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The thing I’ve learned over the last few years of working on this novel is readers are acutely aware of anything you point out to them on the page. As such, I’ve had some alpha readers take note of how much fashion there is in what I’ve written to date.

I really like fashion as an art form. There was a point when I wanted to be a fashion photographer until it dawned on me how impractical that was given where I was in my life. But I still have a dream that maybe someday, someway, I’ll get an opportunity to prove my photographic chops by taking pictures of models. I have an eye for beauty.

Since the character at the center of this novel is a young woman, I feel what she wears is really important at times in driving the plot along. I struggle to make my heroine as dark and interesting as Lisbeth Salander while also making her more accessible — what she wears at any particular moment helps a lot with that.

Some of this comes from the inspiration for the heroine. The late Annie Shapiro in Seoul was a kook and was a hipster before I even knew what a hipster was. Though, I have to note, some of what she wore at any particular moment while we were working on ROKon Magazine was her reflecting my own wardrobe. But all that was so long ago. So very long ago. A totally different era in my life.

But I’ve been working so hard — and so long — on this novel at this point that I’m kind of tired of being too conspicuous about talking about it. I’m kind of embarrassed, in fact. I need to just throw myself into this thing and get it done, knowing that once I finish this novel, I have another in the series to finish.

I no longer think about who will play any particular character in the film adaptation. All I can about is just finishing the damn thing so I can move on to the next book. B