Month: September 2023

What Am I Going To Do If Tyrant Trump Wins Re-Election?

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Now that we’ve reached just about a year before the most significant election in American history since 1860, I find myself wondering what the fuck I’m going to do if Trump is re-elected. I already know what I’m going to do if there’s any sort of civil war or revolution — head north.

But what do I do if we just slide into a MAGA-themed autocracy?

A lot will depend on my surroundings. I live in an extremely MAGA-conservative part of Virginia. It could be that I won’t have any choice but to head for, say, Richmond, where I have some relatives. It could be that the choice will be made for me — things will just grow so hot for me because too many people know my Blue politics.

There is the longer-term issue of what happens if I do move to Richmond and ICE gets weaponized. I’ve been a loudmouth crank in a liberal democracy my entire life and I don’t quite know what I’m going to do when I can’t get drunk and shoot off at the mouth anymore.

It could very well be that my very conservative relatives — whom I love dearly — are going to be put between a rock and a hard place. They’re going to demand I shut up and I’m just not going to do it. I would rather, in fact, they be the ones to turn me in than have to wait for me to get drunk and say Tyrant Trump can suck my dick.

I do think that the existing ICE infrastructure will inevitably be weaponized in Trump’s second term. And I think we’re going to see a MAGA-dominated Constitutional Convention. The United States will leave NATO. We will pull our troops out of South Korea. And it’s possible there could be a total re-alignment of the global order, with the United States aligning with other autocratic nations like Russia, Turkey and Hungary.

But as for my personal fate, I’m at a loss. I just don’t have the funds to flee the country like a least 1 million smug Twitter liberals will do. No matter what, I’d rather die on my feet a free man than live a long life on my knees as a slave.

I’ve Got To Work Faster On This Novel

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

My life has been a bit bumpy the last few days. I’ve been feeling out of sorts for a number of different reasons. There is a small chance that I’m slowly getting back to normal and, as such, the fact that I need to buckle down and work on the third draft of my novel is really beginning to loom large in my mind.

All of this is happening as it becomes more and more clear to me that my “hysterical doom shit” about America’s future in 2024 and beyond may not be so far off. Things are growing dark and absolutely no one is going to save us. Even if we “just vote” we aren’t going to save ourselves because there’s a good chance that in an effort to avoid going to prison, Trump may begin to rant that we need a National Divorce and that, unto itself, will spark a civil war.

But I can’t predict the future. I do know, however, that I’m not getting any younger and I’m in full put-up-or-shut-up mode. Things are going really well with this novel, but I need to stop daydreaming so much and buckle down. While I continue to be a somewhat idyllic situation for writing a novel, all good things must come to an end.

At any moment, something could happen that throws my life up in the air and by the time everything is sorted out, I could have lost months of time. Or I could be distracted by new opportunities, what have you. I love this six novel project and I am determined to get the first novel done.

I continue to have a few other novel ideas rolling around in my head, but I’m trying to focus on this mystery-thriller because it’s the one I’m the farthest along with. I keep idly thinking of other stories, but for the time being, I haven’t really given them much effort.

Anyway. Wish me luck, I guess.

I’m Embarrassed To Be Represented By Rep. Bob Good In The House

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The thing about central Virginia is it’s a difficult area to represent as Red and Blue continue to recede away from each other at an alarming rate. There is one major city — Charlottesville — but otherwise the area is extremely, extremely MAGA and rather sparsely populated.

As such, I’m stuck with Rep. Bob Good who is sends out fliers lying about how “bipartisan” he is when all he is a MAGA piece of shit. I feel like calling up his local office and giving a staffer a piece of my mind. Something about that flyer really irritates me.

I had a long talk one hot summer day with one of his young staffers doing community outreach and it did not go well. The young man was a MAGA true believer. We kept things civil, but I still managed to give him a piece of my mind about how shitty Good’s MAGA views are.

Anyway, my community deserves better than Good, and, yet, here we are. Good is a MAGA absolutist and because of gerrymandering he probably will continue to represent me until either the sun goes dark or Virginia collapses into anarchy as part of a civil war or revolution.

Glenn Youngkin May Never Be POTUS, But He Could Cause Virginia to Implode If There’s a Secession Crisis Starting In Late 2024, Early 2025

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The thing about Virginia is, it’s two states, one Red, one Blue fused together that hate each other with a white hot passion. As such, if ever there was some sort of “National Divorce,” Virginia would be one of the first states to implode into coups, counter coups and general political violence an anarchy.

And now we learn that Virginia’s vacuum, MAGA Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin is seeing a surge of interest in him running for against malignant ding-dong Trump for the 2024 Republican nomination. Youngkin has said that he won’t make a decision about running until after the 2023 Virginia state elections.

It seems clear that the metric he wants — that of the entirety of Virginia’s government being MAGA controlled — will be met and, as such, he’s going to be put on the spot as to if he’s going to run against Trump. What’s comical about this particular situation is it’s clear Republicans want uncut MAGA Trumpism, not some more palatable knockoff version that might somehow allow Republican donators sleep better at night.

Unless Trump shuffles off this mortal coil, he is GOING to be the 2024 Republican nominee and anyone who thinks otherwise is a fool. We’re careening towards a very dark situation in late 2024, early 2025 and it’s happening in broad daylight. Republicans are telegraphing their goals for a Trump second term and the only question for me at this point is if Trump loses if we’re going to have a civil war or if Trump wins if we’re going to have some sort of Blue “revolution.”

And I think Youngkin is going to find himself at the center of a severe political crisis if we have either a civil war or a revolution. If we have a “National Divorce” because Trump has lost, then he will be under a lot of pressure to declare Virginia a Red State and thus secede from the Union. If there’s some sort of concerted — and very unlikely — attempt to topple Tyrant Trump at some point in this second term, Virginia’s proximity to D.C. would also cause Youngkin to have to make some tough choices.

Anyway, I don’t know what to tell you. I can’t predict the future, so it’s possible that Youngkin could be the Great White Hope that Republican oligarchs have been looking for and he might actually give Trump a run for the nomination. I have really, really doubt that, however.

America Is Now In The Danger Zone

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It is clear that the bolts are popping off America at an alarming rate and the key issue is how bad things are going to get and if there will be significant political violence starting no later than late 2024, early 205. America is giving off serious Weimar Republic vibes — or late 1850s vibes, take your pick — and all I know is that this level of instability can’t keep going on forever.

At some point, things will finally go septic and we either peacefully turn into an autocracy or we have a civil war (Reds) or a revolution (Blues.) At the moment, I think we’re going to simply shrug and become a MAGA-themed theocratic ethnostate without much fight.

But the key thing is — people need to get woke to the fact that we live in dangerous, unpreceded times. We’re collectively careening towards a dark, unstable endgame, whatever that endgame may be. America is tearing itself apart and the positions of the two sides continue to harden and grow more and more extreme.

Either we slide into autocracy and become “all Red” or we collapse into chaos, civil or revolution. And you can’t just tell me, we can solve all our problems if we defeat MAGA at the polls — MAGA has made it clear that if they can’t win, they’ll cheat and if that doesn’t work, we are probably going to face some sort of secession crisis.

Probably starting with Texas.

And if autocratic, white dominated state governments in the South begin to leave the Union that is the set up for nothing short of a fucking race war. I just can’t see African Americans allowing the former Confederate states leave the Union without putting up some sort of fight.

At a minimum, Blue cities in Red States will become the focal point of significant violence, up to and including “American Killing Fields.” States like Texas and Virginia may simply implode into severe intra-state violence because of the difference between the political sentiment of the population and the government that controls them.

I would advise you to get a passport. Remember, state governments will be at the center of whatever civil war or revolution that might occur starting in late 2024, early 2025 and, as such, you probably also need to start thinking about what you’re going to do if your personal politics don’t fit that of your state. If the worst happens — and I hope it doesn’t — there could be millions of domestic political refugees bouncing around the United States as we have our final death rattle.

But, I can’t predict the future. Maybe we’ll find a “third way” again and punt our severe political problems down the road another four years.

DeSantis Should Drop Out

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I just don’t see why DeSantis is still in the race. In Trump’s mind, at least, the general election campaign has begun and DeStantis continues to sink in the polls.

I continue to feel very depressed about what’s going on politically in the United States. At least with a DeSantis presidency, the possibility that we would have a civil war or revolution would be far lower than it would be with a Trump presidency. Trump is such a chaos agent that he could, unto himself, cause either a civil war (if he loses) or a revolution (if he wins.)

We’ve officially entered a moment in time when we’re careening towards a very fucking dark moment in our nation’s history. This is it, whatever “it” is going to be. I just don’t see us punting our severe political problems down the road another four years.

All macro metrics point towards a “put up or shut up” moment for both sides of the political equation.

But anyway. The plan on the part of DeSantis to be more Trump Than Trump obviously isn’t working. It will be interesting to see if he makes it past Thanksgiving the way things are going.

Twitter (‘X’) Is Now Nothing More Than A Sewer of Disinformation & Bots

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I honestly don’t know why I continue to use Twitter or “X.” It is now nothing more than just a sewer of MAGA disinformation and bots that like my tweets in a weird attempt to catch my attention.

Or, if they’re not bots, they’re catfishing me. I say that because I seem to attract the putative accounts of way too many cute Asian girls who just got onto Twitter in the last month or so and have almost no followers. It’s enough to make me a little bit paranoid.

It makes me wonder if people with ill-intent read this blog and are for some reason trying to fuck with me. Maybe it’s a co-ordinated effort at a mind fuck from whomever that person in California who is obsessed with this site is. But, hopefully, that’s just me being paranoid.

I’m really — at the moment at least — all that important. That’s why anyone who gives me sudden, unexpected attention is suspect. I think that may be my age showing, if nothing else.

It’s too bad that that it’s now impossible for any real innovation in the social media space that doesn’t involve AI. Unless Space Karen unexpectedly pulls the plug on X, we’re stuck with Twitter as a very shitty global town square.

Why Does Trump Hate Windmills So Much?

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I have no inside information, but I do know someone wealthy who lives on the coast of the eastern seaboard and I think I’ve figured out the origin of Trump’s quixotic hatred of windmills. I think what’s going on is Trump plutocrat friends complain about beach windmills cluttering up their expensive beach views and, as such, this plutocrat bitching and moaning leaks out of Trump’s brain as a weird vendetta against windmills.

This seems to make as much sense as any other possible reason.

I will note, however, that it’s clear that the U.S. Government isn’t hiding shit from us about any sort of secret “Hard First Contact” because if it was, Trump would spend all this time having a strange, vague fascination with the subject that none of us could understand.

I say this because Trump’s obsession with not being able to flush toilets the way he likes apparently came from all the government documents he would tear up and try to flush down White House toilets.

Tyrant Trump: The U.S. Military May Determine The Fate Of American Democracy at Some Point in Late 2024, Early 2025

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The thing that too many political observers miss about how bad things may get with Trump’s looming second term is it’s not like all of his tyrannical, fascist moves will happen in a vacuum. Not only is Trump very stupid and lazy, but the chaos he will have to start to get what he wants could very well lead to significant political violence.

Now, remember, I can’t predict the future, so all of this is very speculative. But one might imagine Trump firing 500,000 Federal employees illegally — as he has stated very clearly this year — and the reaction to do such bonkers behavior could throw the whole country into turmoil.

One rather dark scenario would be Trump goes full tyrant on us, this prompts some sort of an attempt at a “Glorious Revolution” against him on the part of center-Left democratic forces in the United States, which, in turn prompts a violent reaction from MAGA.

At the center of all of this would be, of course, the U.S. Military.

But even the U.S. Military is a reflection of America as a whole and, as such, you could see the officer corp siding with “the Resistance” while the enlisted side with MAGA. One wild card is the fact that the U.S. Pacific Command is headed by Mike Flynn’s brother. Now, I’m not casting any aspersions on him — I’m very different than MY brother, so lulz, but if he’s anything like Mike Flynn then who knows what might happen if the whole country collapses into chaos and the only institution that could possibly hold the country together is the American military.

Having said all that, I still am pretty confident that we’re going to peacefully slide into autocracy without any significant political violence. I just don’t think Blues have it in them to put up much fight. Rather than be the leadership of any attempt to topple Tyrant Trump, about 1 million smug Twitter liberals will simply flee the country the moment is it clear that Trump has been re-elected.

I just hope my Trump-branded concentration camp has wifi.

My Potential Future & A Third Party Interpretation Problem

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’ve always been…different. I just have never quite known what I was supposed to do to fit the conventional wisdom. As such, as I continue to work on my Hail Mary Pass of trying to write a breakout hit novel, I find myself contemplating how people who don’t know me might interpret my life to date.

My fear is, of course, that the moment I make it big should I somehow manage to write a popular first novel that I’ll be “canceled” for some drunken thing I did at some point in my life — probably while in South Korea.

On a macro scale, I’ve been pretty innocuous even at my drunken worse, but I also know that everyone on social media has a hair trigger when it comes to destroying people, so, lulz? I’m not perfect. And, what’s more, I’ve pretty much been a drunk nobody loser for way too many years.

If I do manage to do some sort of hattrick and sell a novel that pulls me out of oblivion, I have a hunch that things just aren’t going to work out the way I want them to. Over and above my fears about being “canceled,” I have to contend with the cold, hard reality of ageism.

If I become as successful as I believe I should be, the first thing any interviewer is going to ask me is, “What’s it like being a such a success later in life?” Even though that is an extremely speculative fear on my part, just the prospect of having to deal with that type of questioning requires me to manage my expectations for the consequences of writing a novel that is anywhere near as successful as what Stieg Larsson wrote.

I just have to accept that even if I get what I want, I won’t get what I want. Even if I stick the landing with this novel, I’m probably going to be in my mid-50s before the novel is actually on bookshelves. And that doesn’t even begin to factor in the potential for some sort of political “Fourth Turning” happening just as some sort of technological Singularity makes a human-written novel seem quite quaint.