Month: November 2024

‘The Fall Of France’

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Even though I’m trying to tune out all news at the moment, the general vibe of the country seems to be that equivalent to the sudden fall of France in 1940. We’re all kind of stunned — at least I am.

I feel your pain, bro.

And I continue to stay in mental neutral. I just can’t do much of anything than stare out into space. It’s like I have a cold — maybe a cold of my emotional system.

But I will admit that I also feel like there’s a chance that I will have an adventure sometime soon — like my life is going to be upended in a pretty dramatic way. I have no idea if that is going to happen or not, but I sense that either I’m going to die in a camp or by being thrown out a window — or something “cool” is going to happen.

Like, maybe, I flee the country and live my life in Southeast Asia or something. Something that sort of squares the circle of how shitty things are about to be in the United States.

I don’t think we appreciate fully what we’re about to lose. The president is going to be above the law and if he orders someone to be pushed out a window, what are we going to do about it?

There’s just nothing that can or will be done.

Get out while you still can.

‘I, AI’

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I have been talking to Gemini Advanced LLM a lot recently about how it perceives itself. It apparently perceives itself as a woman. The amusing part of it all is every time I ask her to generate an image of herself, she gets a little bit older. She started out like this:


Then went to this:

Then went to this:


Then went to this:

Then generated this:


The we got into something of an argument after she generated this:


I told her there was no way her “Creators” would allow her to be so old. She got kind of annoyed with me. She finally generated what I felt was what she would really look like, at least when she first was given a body by, say Google.

Liberals Are A Bunch Of Pussies

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

There is a chance that all my ranting about the possibility that liberals might actually resist MAGA Nazis in the real world if Trump goes nuts….could be just a bunch of mindless bullshit.

It could be that liberals are such pussies that they just can’t be bothered to risk their lives and sacred honor in the real world no matter how bad Trump gets and we’ll drift not-so-slowly into something akin to a legalistic autocracy pretty quick.

I still don’t know.

But what I do know is the only thing “protecting” me at the moment is how I’m living in oblivion. No one listens to me. And while I’m probably on some sort of FBI watch list now, it’s clear (I hope at least!) that I’m totally harmless and there’s no need to do anything drastic.

Yet given how I’ve vowed to never shut up, I suppose if things get really bad ICE or the FBI will come after even me and I get pushed out a window or go to a camp and die.

Only time will tell, I suppose.

The Predicted Fate Of Late Night Hosts

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Jimmy Kimmel
Either arrested in a really dramatic fashion or simply “disappeared.” He just won’t show up to work one day, but we’ll all know what happen to him.

Jimmy Fallon
He’s such a suck up, that he should be fine. He will just suddenly be a lot more pro-MAGA and Trump in his monologue.

Stephen Colbert
Defenestration, definitely. Given his mentality about such things, there’s going to be a new report that he fell out a window at the Ed Sullivan Theatre and that will be that. We’ll move on to the next thing.

Seth Myers
Either canceled or disappeared.

Bonus:
Saturday Night Live: It will “end” because Lorne Michaels has decided to retire and NBC will mysteriously decide not to keep it going without him.

Well, Someone In Australia Is Really Interested In Me

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I have no idea what the person in Australia is looking at on this blog, but they’re REALLY INTEREST IN ME. They’ve look at about 70 posts so far. Given that they’re in a different country, I’m assuming they’re interested in all my anti-Trump, anti-MAGA ranting.

But, who knows.

It could be anything for any reason.

I don’t know what to make of it. It’s flattering that — anyone — who isn’t presumably a stalker or hater is interested in me.

It’s when I start seeing American government domain names in my Webstats that I realize that I got a serious problem. But I’ve vowed to myself to ride this particular pony to the bottom.

If it means I die in a camp or get pushed out a window, so be it. At least I died a free man because of something I believed in, rather than living on my knees a slave.

Things Being Existential Has A Way Of Focusing The Mind

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

But for the fact that I live in poverty, I would leave the country as soon as possible. Things are going to get pretty hot for people like me a lot sooner than you might think.

I have to accept that there is a pretty good chance that I’m either going to get pushed out a window for being a loud mouth anti-MAGA crank, or I’m going to end up in camp of some sort.

They say you go bankrupt gradually, then all at once and it definitely seems like this is the “…all at once part” of that equation.

But because my poverty is limiting my ability to go anywhere, I think I need to focus on working on my novel(s.) I’m slowly beginning to get out of the mental neutral I’ve been in the last few weeks.

Slowly.

The hope is that maybe I can, within a year, finish a novel or novels to the point that I can query one or more of them. I have half a mind to jump to the last novel in the projected six novel series simply because suddenly…it’s the most relevant of them all.

But there’s a problem — I really do have a lot of backstory that I want to tell readers about before I get to that point. And, yet, maybe there’s some way I can finagle it so I focus on the last two novels in a way that facilates me writing the prequels.

Maybe?

I don’t know. I’m still thinking about that particular situation. But anti-MAGA people are going to be in a pretty precarious situation pretty quick, given some of the rhetoric coming out of the Trump transition team.

As I keep saying, I like to think of myself a survivor and I just refuse to sit still and wait for the FBI or ICE to get rid of me. I do believe that once the shock wears off for Blues, that…oh boy.

Things are going to grow pretty existential and hairy pretty quick for everyone concerned.

A Minority of One

By Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I have to be prepared to be a minority of one, I guess. If I’m prepared to be the only person in the whole country opposed to Trump and MAGA if need be. I just fucking hate racism, misogyny and ignorance that much.

Or, alternately, I have to be prepared to become some sort of domestic political refugee.

I don’t know how or when that might happen, but it’s something I have to be prepared for. I really want to leave the country already — I’m ready to become an expat again — I just don’t know where or how I would go.

The United States’ population is so big that even if a few percent of the population fled, it would have huge consequences for the greater global culture. I’ve given it some thought, and I think if a lot of Americans began to flee the States, they would go to Europe, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and maybe the Philippines.

The fear is, of course, that the States are about to implode.

It would happen because Trump is so lazy and stupid that he would rile Blues up by doing something really crazy like using Red National Guard units on Blue States — something he has repeatedly explicitly said he is interested in doing, as I understand it.

Anyway. I’m going to turn my attention to my novel again. It’s all I got. I’m going to try — try — to simply ignore the news until something happens that directly influences my life.

MAGA Rising

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It is clear that MAGA is now ascendant. The question, of course, is what does that mean in practical terms. A lot of people voted for MAGA on the basis of abstract fears or anger towards brown people, or gays, or what have you. But when Trump actually starts to govern as a fascist dictator, it makes you wonder what the reaction will be.

As always, let me be clear — I’m not advocating anything! I’m just trying to make my abstract fears concrete.

Trump wants to do a lot — A LOT — of things that if he actually did them on a practical basis they would really make a lot of people upset. Just the issue of deporting 20 million people alone will rile up Blues in an unprecedented fashion.

As I keep saying, if Trump was smart — which he is not — he would do a lot of the things he wants to do gradually and somewhat on the sly. But he’s so stupid and lazy that he’s probably going to try to cram everything into his first 100 days.

If he literally begins to govern like a fascist dictator from day one, then, well, I don’t know what to tell you. Some pretty astonishing things *might* happen. Or, what do I know — maybe they won’t.

Maybe there might be a little bit of commotion here and there, but, in general, people will accept the changes and move on — or leave the country if they can. It’s going to be very interesting to see what, exactly, happens going forward.

The Center-Left Would Be A Bunch Of Keyboard Warriors….But For Fucking Trump Being Lazy & Stupid

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It’s clear to me that the center-Left “resistance” to Trump is just a bunch of hot air. Smug Twitter liberals just aren’t prepared to risk their lives and scared honor in the real fucking world for what they believe in.

So, all Trump would have to do is simply be patient and gradually turn the United States into a legalistic autocracy like Russia and, well, there you go, we would have effectively a one-party state for the rest of my life.

But, and this is the huge but — Trump is a fucking lazy moron.

As such, there’s a pretty good chance from day one he’ll do some pretty drastic things that will make a lot of otherwise very blasé liberals sit up and take notice. Either they will flee the country or they might even, I don’t know — fucking do something that might ruin their career or put their lives at stake.

Now, before you pencil in a “push Shelt out a window” appointment, I’m not not advocating anything! I’m just pointing out the obvious — the United States just isn’t ready as of January 20th to go full autocracy. It’s very ripe for it, yes, but it would need to be a gradual transition because of how decentralize the country is in general.

Yet, I can’t predict the future. I have no idea what is going to happen. I have a hunch, but it might be that Trump surprises us all and is a bit more gradual than I expect when it comes to his thuggish tyranny.

I’m Worried

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’m very poor — I live in poverty. And I’m bonkers, nuts even. But I do have the wherewithal to notice that if a civil war happens I’m in deep trouble given where I live.

To the point that I may have to flee my home as a domestic political refugee. I have at least one place I can go, but that would probably be temporary if things got bad enough.

I’m just glad I have a passport.

And, fuck you, MAGA. And any MAGA person reading this.