Mulling The Implications of Trump’s Second Term

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It definitely seems these days that America has collectively given the fuck up. A solid 38% of the electorate hates democracy and wants the establishment of a white Christian autocratic ethnostate. As such, it makes one wonder what Trump’s second term might be like.

Marjorie Taylor Greene and Donald Trump at a campaign rally in Dalton, Ga., on Jan. 4, 2021.

I think a lot depends on if Democrats take the House in 2024 or not. I don’t think they will be a very effective check on Autocrat Trump, but there is a real chance that he will be impeached again for various dictatorial actions. And given all the pretty dark things we know Trump wants to do in his second term, it does make you wonder about if there are any conditions that might cause the Senate to convict.

The short answer, is, of course, no. And even if they did somehow convict Trump, I can only imagine that his veep would be even fucking worse than Trump for various reasons.

So, I think we have to accept that Trump’s second term will likely cause a significant center-Left brain drain out of the United States starting Election Day night. All those fucking smug Twitter liberals with their circle jerk podcasts will use their second passports to decamp to various places around the globe. We Poors will be forced to fend for themselves.

What’s more, I think early in Trump’s second term, the demand for a Constitutional Convention will reach a critical mass. Soon enough, a MAGA-run Constitutional Convention will reimagine the Constitution so it has MAGA Enabling Acts built into it.

Even before that happens, Trump will fire several hundred thousand members of the “deep state” in an illegal act that will produce chaos and will only eventually be sorted in the courts one way or another. But, lulz, Trump may just ignore whatever rulings go against his tyrannical desires.

And, really, there is one thing that Trump might do that could potentially cause his downfall — if he somehow manages to fuck with America’s self-perception of itself as a democracy. Just as the Romans hated kings, so, too, do Americans perceive themselves as a democracy, even if the MAGA fucktards babble on about how we’re “actually a constitutional republic.”

It is also possible that should Trump do what we all fear he will do — weaponize the existing ICE infrastructure — that a lot of well meaning Traditionalists who, to date, have supported Trump’s bonkers fascist policies might, at last, sit up and take notice because people close to them might be “disappeared.”

So, I think the weakness of apparently inevitable transition into a white Christian ethnostate will be in the implementation. If Trump rushes the final strangle of American democracy because he’s a fucking chaos agent, then it’s possible there COULD be some sort of popular revolt against his tyranny. But that’s very, very speculative.

There are just way too many known unknowns. In general, America is probably going to peacefully transition into a white Christian ethnostate. But….it’s at least possible that something rather historic might happen if Trump manages to fuckup or decent into that new form of government.

Who knows.

Life In Weimar America

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The United States is far less stable than any of us realize. All the conditions exist on a macro basis for a dramatic shift in everyday life in the United States starting in late 2024, early 2025. The only question is, of course, what shape that dramatic shift will take.

I can’t predict the future. I just don’t know.

At the moment, it seems as though the United States is going to go from the middle status between democracy and autocracy known as anocracy to shifting into full blown autocracy like exists in varying degrees in Russia, Turkey and Hungary.

And it’s not like MAGA Nazis are hiding that sort of transformation is their goal They want the United States to be an autocratic state of blood and soil. They want a one party state. They want to “burn it all down” to the point that the United States leaves NATO, pulls troops out of South Korea and potentially goes so far as to form some sort of alliance with Russia.

But for how big and diverse the United States is, I would say it was all over but the shouting for such a dystopian hellscape to happen. Add to this volatile mix how stupid and lazy Trump is and you have a recipe for fucking disaster. There is at least a small chance that Trump bungles our transition into a full-blown autocracy and there is some sort of “Resistance Revolution” bent on toppling his regime.

And, yet, as I keep saying, I just don’t see that happening — the smug, wealthy Twitter liberals who would lead such a revolution will be too busy using their second passports to worry about the fate of us Poors.

Meanwhile, if the Good Guys “win,” and we think we’ve punted our problems down the road another four years, there is a really good chance that Trump will single-handedly, unto himself, cause a “National Divorce” because he doesn’t want to go to jail.

The point is — late 2024, early 2025 has the potential to live up to its billing as the so-called point at which the “Fourth Turning” will happen. All the conditions, on a systemic basis, are there for absolute chaos to erupt in the United States between Election Day and Certification Day, no matter who the fuck wins.

And, yet, who knows. I didn’t predict the “third way” that we managed to squeeze out in 2020 – 2021, so it’s at least possible that MAGA really is all talk and they just don’t have it in them to burn the country to the ground if they don’t get what they want.

But things aren’t looking so great in late 2023.

The Conundrum That Is The Placement Of Spicy Scenes In Chronology Of My Novel’s Plot

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Other than a general need to have a three act structure, there really aren’t any hard, fast rules about how to write a novel. At least, not in my opinion. But I am of the general opinion that that one should delay putting spicy scenes in your novel until as late as possible.

In my personal opinion, it’s bad form to open a novel with a sex scene. I’m not saying it should never be done, just that in general it’s not my style. I’m of the opinion that spicy scenes should only happen after you’ve given your audience a little bit of time to grow accustomed to the characters and universe that your presenting to them.

Having said all that, I have a spicy scene in my first chapter and much of the second scene has sex in it. Ugh. And, yet, these scenes aren’t gratuitous and do, in fact, serve to further the plot. It’s just I don’t know. It makes me uneasy to have spicy scenes so early in the novel.

But, as I keep saying, I’m doing all of this in a vacuum so, lulz, who knows. It could be that I’m fine and no one will blink an eye that there is so much spicy content so early in the novel. I do have a tendency to overthink things a great deal with this novel.

The only thing that makes me feel better is if someone, say, an editor, asked me why I had this or that spicy scene I can tell them specifically why I felt it was necessary. I have given the nature of these spicy scenes a great deal of thought.

Well, On A Personal Note, America’s Transformation Into An Autocracy In 2025 Would Help My Novel Project Be A Success

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I started working on a novel a number of years ago because of my white hot rage against the rise of Trumplandia. I had all this anger that I needed to do something with so I decided to write a novel that would be an analogy about the problems in the modern America.

That one novel turned into two novels and then when Trump lost, I decided to tell the backstory of how the unique situation in the small town I dreamed up came to be. Soon enough, I had six novels I was working on. The novel I’m currently working on is the first and is set in late 1994, early 1995.

If we do, in fact, turn into an autocracy in 2025, then the whole point of the six novel project will be pretty timely. I may have to write the novels in exile because a weaponized ICE might want to murder me for being a loudmouth crank, but, lulz, at least project will be as popular as I believe it should be.

Of course, it’s possible that we’ll have a civil war (Reds) or a revolution (Blues) starting in late 2024, early 2025 and, well, there you go. I may be too busy being a domestic political refugee to worry about finishing any sort of novel.

The General Has Begun: ‘Hysterical Doom Shit’ Edition

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The 2024 general election campaign has begun — at least in the mind of malignant ding-dong Donald Trump. You know this because of how Trump is banking to the center when it comes to the issue of abortion rights. Trump knows that he has an absolute grip on the nomination so he doesn’t have to pander to the pro-Life absolutists who otherwise have a stranglehold on the Republican nomination process.

This, if nothing else, should make people sit up and take notice that there is no stopping the Trump Train at the moment. Barring something I just can’t predict, Trump is going to win the 2024 election. And if you factor in Biden’s advanced age…oh boy…a repeat of the 1872 nightmare scenario is definitely something you have to ponder.

The fact that even ding-dong Trump has the wherewithal to lean into his lock on the nomination to campaign as if he’s trying to win re-election is rather alarming. We have to accept that there is absolutely nothing that can be done to stop Trump from being president again.

We have to start to prepare for America’s final transition into an autocracy of blood and soil. The entire post World War II liberal order is probably going to come crashing down. The US is going to leave NATO and pull out its tripwire troops stationed in South Korea. Ukraine will have to sue for peace and, that’s it. That’s all she wrote.

Meanwhile, on the domestic front, some pretty dark shit is going to start to happen. Trump will end birthright citizenship, which might be part of a broader attempt to redefine citizenship as narrowly as possible. And it’s at least within the realm of possibility that some of my “hysterical doom shit” may become reality as the existing ICE camp infrastructure is weaponize.

That’s probably our reality starting in early 2025. I can’t predict the future, of course, so it’s possible we’ll manage to punt our problems down the road via some sort of “third way.”

I find this very dubious, however. No matter what happens, 2024 is shaping up to be the most significant election in American history since 1860.

Things Fall Apart

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It’s definitely interesting how things stay the same for a long time then everything falls apart at the same time. I have a number of mini-crisis taking place in my life at the moment, from a toothache, to computer failing me to my refrigerator’s thermostat malfunctioning.

It makes me wonder if this is some sort of portent about the future. Am I about to enter a transitional phase in my life? And if so, exactly what am I transitioning into? Ugh.

I am definitely feeling my mortality these days. I’m feeling a lot of internal pressure to speed up the pace on this novel. I’m not going to live forever and it would be pretty pathetic if my only legacy was a failed expat magazine and an unfinished novel.

But you have to work with what you got, I suppose. I just have no idea what the future brings me. Things could go a lot of different ways between now and early 2025. It could be that just about the time I begin querying my first novel, the United States collapses into chaos and anarchy.

Though, on the up side, if we just slide peacefully into autocracy, my grand macro plan for this six novel project becomes extremely timely and potentially popular.

But, who knows. No fate but what we make and all that.

The Conundrum That Is Having A Tooth Ache When You’re Living In Poverty

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Thing about having a tooth ache that is careening towards going abscess when you’re poor is you know that even if you fill out the paperwork to get it done on the cheap, you’re still going to have to wait a while to have it fixed one way or another.

As such, you can find yourself sort of stuck in neutral as you contemplate that you’re facing a not-unsignificant amount of time ahead of you being in pain. Because of this, I find myself just being unhappy in general.

No matter what I do, for the time being, I’m going to be in pain. It all sucks very bad. There are no ready answers to this particular situation. I’m going to have to suffer for a while, no matter what the ultimate endgame.

Anyway, have a toothache sucks.

Some Thoughts On The New, Reimagined Beginning of My Novel

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I have reimagined and significantly improved — at least in my view — the beginning of my first novel. One thing I’ve notice from my re-reading of Stieg Larsson’s “The Girl Who Played With Fire” is how much time he spends on establishing character, universe and relationships.

The ideal name for my first novel, if I had my wish.

With that in mind, I have given a great deal of thought to how I can pull readers in with engaging characters so when The Big Event happens, they care enough about them enough to finish the rest of the novel. That, at least, is the goal.

But, as I keep saying, I’m doing all of this in a vacuum. I just don’t know. It could be that even though I love what I’m doing with this novel, the audience will be repelled. If nothing else, I have come up with some pretty provocative plot points that will make readers sit up and take notice.

I talk about periods and the specifics of sex from a female point of view. I have a female “consultant” that I talk to about these things so I don’t make a fool out of myself. I’m not a very dark — or serious — person by nature and as such, rather than shocking the audience with explicit violence, I hope to intrigue them discussion things you usually don’t see in novels.

Anyway. I continue to realize that I need to stop making my heroine so fucking passive. She’s suppose to be the prime mover of the novel. She’s suppose to be ornery and have agency and be someone you like and care enough about that you want to spend the time necessary to read roughly 100,000 words about her life.

In the end, I just can’t overthink things. I need to just write and come back and edit things as necessary. There’s a reason why they say all novels are abandoned rather than finished.

The Third Draft Of My Novel Is Getting Really Good…I Think?

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

My computer is going to kick the bucket at any moment it seems, but in the meantime I’m trying to write as much as I can on the third draft of my first novel. I continue to do all of this in a vacuum so I have no idea if this novel is anywhere near as good as I think it is.

I have come up with a very ‘Barry’-like dichotomy for my heroine. And, yet, I just don’t know. I don’t know if women — who read a lot of novels — will like the surreal situation I’ve come up with or if it will only lead them to throw the book across the room.

And that doesn’t even begin to address the issue of me being a male author frequently writing from a female POV. When I started working on this novel several years ago, I just decided, in general, to do what Stieg Larsson did, not knowing there had been a “woke cancel culture” shift in audience expectations.

Ugh. Sometimes, you just can’t win. I can’t help how old I am. I can’t help that I’m a CIS white male. Not everyone can be a undocumented transgendered woman.

I’m really feeling my mortality these days. I have a limited amount of time to put up or shut up on the novel front. It doesn’t help that I have a growing problem with one of my teeth just as my computer is just about to crash on me. It’s definitely interesting how everything seems to decide to fail at the same time after a long time of nothing changing.

So, we’ll see. It could be that I will spend all this time on my first novel, only to drop dead of a heart attack like Larsson did.

We Live In Existential Times

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

MAGA has gone septic. I say this because if the entire fate of your democracy depends on pro-democratic forces winning every election for the foreseeable future — you got a problem. That’s not how democracy is supposed to work. In a functioning democracy, there is an ebb and flow with governance going back and forth between different parties.

But here we are.

If Trump wins in 2024, that’s it. America will officially being its transition into an autocracy based on blood and soil. We will wake up at some point in the next 20 years wondering why we’re invading Canada to crush the “woke mind virus” that our autocrat keeps babbling about.

I wish I was kidding.

The worst part about all of this is it’s happening right in front of us, right before our eyes. There is a solid 38% of the electorate that hates democracy and sees it only as a means to an end — their ruling the country forever. To me, the only question at the moment is not that things will get bad, but how bad they will get.

There is, of course, the greater-than-zero-sum-chance that there might be some sort of “Resistance Revolution” in late 2024, early 2025 if either Trump wins by the corruption of the administration of the election or his incoming second term agenda is just so radical that Blues decide to strike back.

I find that possibility extremely dubious, however. Not only is there no assurance that it would work, it’s just not the collective temperament of Blues to do such a thing. The people who would be the leadership of such a revolution will be too busy fleeing the country using their second passports to do anything to stop our slide into autocracy.

All good things must come to an end, I guess. I just hope I manage to avoid being put in a weaponized ICE camp.