We’re in a crisis. This weekend could be momentous. A process, a war, if you will against COVID19 may begin sometime in the next 48 hours. Our nations psyche will be torn open as millions grow sick and thousand die. We will enter an interregnum of the world orders.
Heroes will be made. Cowards will be shamed. All will be remembered.
And so we have to keep a calm mind. We have to realize that there will be battles won and lost. The fragile nature of human life, human existence will be shown more than once. Empire will fall. Empires will rise. A entire generation, the Millennial Generation, now know for “killing” this or that industry, may be know for saving civilization itself.
But it will take a concerted effort among individuals of all ages, genders and races to defeat this new foe that brings with it fear, hate, and death. The United States may be brought to its knees soon because of rank mismanagement on the part of the current administration. And our ruler, a would-be tyrant, may see this as an opportunity to finally strike a death blow to Columbia.
Whenever I have such doubts, however, I am reminded of my time in South Korea as an expat. One of the things I learned during my five years there, at a modern day Terminus, was great risk brings with it great opportunity as well. When an old order collapses, both the tyrant and the slave have opportunities they never had before. As such, if Trump, as I fear, comes completely bonkers and, at last, declares himself a king, I believe leaders from the common folk who will arise to defend Columbia from his threats. These “renagades of funk,” if you will, will use all their will to ensure that the covenant of Washington and Lincoln will, again, be renewed.
But such a renewal will not come easy. It will come at great cost. And just as Father Abraham lost his life at the end of his “fateful trip,” so, too, may new martyrs of liberty fly too close to the sun. But I am a man of peace. I would much rather have the power of rhetoric as my sword than any mere physical armament.
I am a man of peace. A man of ideas. And I am an American.
On 9/11, Rudy became America’s Mayor because he was a leader for one memorable afternoon. He soon became the toast of the nation and, but for him generally being a doofus otherwise, he might have even become president one day.
And now we have a new crisis on our hands. But this one is not one that will involve minutes or hours, but days, weeks and maybe even months. It’s not day-long event, it’s a month’s long process. This is when you have to start thinking about leadership on a practical level.
A fish rots from its head, so we can lulz the entire Federal executive at this point. And, really, I just don’t see anyone in the Legislation branch being in a position to step into the leadership void. So, it seems, it’s likely to be local and state leaders who may see their career’s taken to the next level. Leadership is like water — it flows wherever it happens to be. There thousands of qualified leaders on the local and state level and as it becomes apparent that the Federal government is brain dead a lot of talented people are going to find themselves pushed into the spotlight.
I’m still not totally prepared to say this is going to get as bad as it might. But the conditions sure are there. That people directly from the Wuhan hotzone essentially spread their version of COVID19 to people in California is, however, enough to give one pause for thought. The issue is because of how bad the Trump Administration is we’re giving COVID19 a lot more time to spread within the American population than it might otherwise. There are just so many social events taking place right now that once we finally realize we have The Stand on our hands, that it will be rather jaw dropping.
And that will be the moment when leadership will count most. And, yet, it won’t be just elected officials who will face a moment of truth. It will be people like Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert who will find themselves required to address the nation in ways they never imagined. And all because we — or the Russians — elected a doofus Right-wing Twitter troll as our president.
This is just a back-of-the-envelope scenario. Could go a lot of different ways.
Friday, February 28th Iceland reports a massive COVID19 outbreak that effectively brings the country to a standstill within 24 hours.
Saturday, Feb 29th The Democratic Primary in South Carolina occurs. No Mayor Pete.
During a Saturday Night Live, popular Not Ready For Prime Time Player Pete Davidson passes out in the middle of skit and begins to writhe uncontrollably on the ground.
This is a media explosion and it becomes apparent that COVID19 has, at last, struck the United States in broad daylight after weeks of a “shadow pandemic.” But the only information we get on the subject from the Trump Administration is a pained expression from Mike Pence. Larry Kudlow appears on Fox News that same night and waves the event off, saying Davidson was probably drunk.
Sunday, March 1st We learn that Mayor Pete doesn’t just have “a cold” but has COVID19 and will be out of the race for some time. This is the talk of all the Sunday shows. We learn that Davidson is in critical condition with COVID19. Pressure builds on the Trump Administration to be more transparent and pro-active but they ignore this because, lulz, Davidson for his BDE, is a liberal and fuck that guy.
That afternoon, we begin to hear reports that a number of well-known elderly celebrates have died in quick success after a “brief illness.” There are reports of panic buying here and there across the country. There are also isolated reports that hospitals are growing overwhelmed with people with “the flu.”
March 2 — March 6th Each day, things grow worst for the States. Even the Trump Administration can’t message the base about how bad things are by the end of the week. The number of elderly people reported dead, rich, poor, power and powerless, grows larger and larger by the day. By the end of the work week, the economy collapses because not only are too many people sick, but parents are afraid to let their children leave the house.
March 7 – March 13 Things by this point may go one of two ways. Either there is a continuation of government issue or Trump finally completely fucking loses his mind and starts ordering the Air Force to shoot passenger planes out of the sky.
I dunno. This is just a scenario. And no one can predict the future. But people are getting sick in the States and we’ve only tested 500 people out of 335 million.
A number of things brought down the Soviet Union. The Pope. Ronald Reagan’s massive military build up in the early 80s.
And Chernobyl.
Now, let me frame the following by saying living through history sucks. It’s only given a narrative after the fact. So Trump could very well simply use the coming chaos associated with a massive pandemic in the United States as just another excuse to consolidate power, weaponize the ICE Camps where I will quickly find myself dead. That’s a very real possibility.
Or, put another way, with great risk comes great opportunity — for both the good guys and the bad guys. So, there are any number of pretty dark scenarios that might happen in the next year or so. But let’s, for once, be hopeful and think about a situation where House Trump, at last, meets its political Waterloo.
The key issue is how bad things get on the ground. If what I fear will happen, happens and essentially nearly 100% of the American population is in some way exposed to COVID19 over the next, say, 28 days, then, well, The Thousand Year Trump may….have a problem? Trump on a basic level is very stupid and very lucky. He’s an idiot. He’s nothing more than a Right Wing celebrity Twitter troll who won the historical jackpot. If Trump had decided to play president in one of the Sharknato sequels, we probably would be talking about how James Woods was going to defeat President Hillary Clinton in the fall. Or something like that. It was inevitable — because of the absolute singularity of racism that is the Republican Party — that SOMEONE like Trump was going to become president. So, Maggie Haberman, you sold your soul for access to a very lucky doofus.
Anyway, for COVID19 to be House Trump’s downfall, things would have to grow so demonstrably bad that the base would begin to waver in ways we’ve never, to date, seen. If The Gray Plague culled about a million elderly people over the course of a few months then, well, I’d like to think someone, somewhere might notice and decide not to vote for Trump in 2020. While that might make Twitter Liberals have a spontaneous organism, there’s also a chance that, well, Trump will finally go completely fucking insane. He may snap at the prospect of “losing face” if you will. He’s already barely holding on as it is.
I’ve repeatedly said over the last few years that Trump, because he represents the fears of white people about long-term “browning of America”that essentially he’s a king, a tyrant and absolute dictator and the only thing that would bring him down would be something “extra-political.” So he was never going to be convicted by the Senate for anything he did that could, in any way, be construed as either a policy difference or the idea that the a lot of people didn’t like him. Whatever will bring Trump down will be something so jaw dropping, so debase, so completely surreal that is goes past the bounds of politics into something darker and far more scary.
So, I would propose that should Trump feel that because of something out of his control, like, say, a massive pandemic that brings the nation to its knees over the next two weeks, he may snap. And because he’s already successfully beat impeachment AND the 25th Amendment is a fucking dead letter — I have no idea what the end game might be. Probably would happen is Trump would bring us to the brink of the end of history by blowing us all up. If he didn’t manage to pull that off, then, and only then, might either the 25 Amendment be invoked, or Nancy Pelosi strike again with another article of impeachment or three.
Or, put another way, there’s a chance that when Trump does finally lose to history, it will be of benefit to none of us.
Other than working overtime to re-assure the stock market, the Trump Administration is doing effectively nothing about COVID19. This is because of the metrics they are using.
Keep The Markets Happy All Trump wants is the “German Industrialists” to be happy so they will continue to give him a pass on policy. So, in his mind, “it’s just the flu.” As such, given a lot of people die from the flu each year –as Twitter liberals keep telling me — as long as he has an effective messaging strategy and plutocrats make a lot of money then lulz. A million people could die unnecessarily and, well, that’s not really that much more than the flu, right? Trump has such a lack of the ability to comprehend any form of empathy or compassion that as long as the economy is humming and he and his shithead plutocrats are making money, the poors can fuck off.
Win Re-Election This goes hand-in-hand with the above. He’s extremely paranoid about the evil liberals with their evil fact-base science “weaponizing” reality to “bring him down” that he, again, would rather withhold valuable information from the public in the hopes that, in effect, people will forget about it. It’s just the flu. All your old relatives died because of “the flu” so shut up and vote for me, you mouth breathing knuckle dragger. In other words, as long as the base believes it’s “just the flu” and remain locked in, then everyone else can fuck off and drop dead. Power for power’s sake. Greed for greed’s sake. Cruelty for cruelty’s sake.
Consolidate Power And, really, if you wanted to kind of dystopian, you could say there are people like Stephen Miller who simply see the prospect of The Gray Plague as a means to an end — consolidation of power far quicker than they could ever imagine otherwise.
There are two ways to look at these metrics. One, Trump’s going to yet again evade any political consequence because the base is so afraid of the browning of America that Trump can send the whole country over the precipice and, well, lulz. And, I guess, there’s a decent chance that might work out. A lot of people — especially older people — may get sick and die, but if you can stay on message that “it’s just the flu” then lulz, no political harm no foul. It will be a more deadly edition to a string of Trump self-owns that have happened over the years. This is why Mike Pence is in control of the American response to WuFlu now. He’s a complete suck up who wants to stay on the ticket in 2020. He has every reason to prevaricate as need be to have people simply shrug this off and go back to raising their kids, paying their mortgage and, most of all, voting Trump 2020 in the fall.
And, yet, there’s another option. What if instead of simply “burning itself out,” COVID19 gets really, really, REALLY bad in the States to such an extent that the usual Trump ratfucking at last collapses? Now, Trump would see this initially as a win because he will have an excuse to get rid of Pence and maybe name Don Jr. his veep. But there are some additional problems his poor addled brain can’t comprehend because, despite Maggie Haberman’s cooing about this all the time, Trump isn’t a political genius, he’s just historically lucky.
In other words, Trump may finally meet his political match if, well, America is brought to its knees on a level not seen since the Civil War. A number of things might happen if Trump strictly follows the metrics I laid out above. The 20% of the infected who get REALLY REALLY REALLY sick may reach such a high percentage of the American population that, well, the economy locks up because no one is well enough to go to work. The health care system locks up and collapses. Even then, however, Trump would probably blame liberals, or MS-13 or whatever the fuck that idiot can come up with. And the base, thinking Trump is Jesus H. Christ himself who is the only person who can stop the general historic tend towards a minority-majority America, will abide by it.
But there are two things Trump can’t control — the WuFlop and The Gray Plague.
The WuFlop This is the rather dramatic — and eerie — event when someone who seems healthy abruptly faceplants and, sometimes, begins to writhe uncontrollably on the ground like they have a xenomorph in them about to pop out. It wouldn’t take too many recorded instances of this happening around the United States in the next two weeks for, well, there to be some political consequences for House Trump. Each time I’ve seen the WuFlop videos on Twitter, I’ve gasped. Initially, of course, these videos wouldn’t be show on TV. But if enough WuFlops happened, there would come a point where they WOULD show up on TV. That would cause a panic and we would, at last, realize that Trump has not clothes and he’s lead us all into a very dark situation with no ready solution in the near term.
The Gray Plague If thing get as bad as I fear, then a whole lot of elderly people are going to die. A whole lot. A huge amount. A shocking amount. And a lot of powerful people are elderly. Of course, Trump would at first see this as a win because if a dozen powerful elderly center-Left people died rather abruptly, then he gets to consolidate power faster. But, “death be not proud,” so a lot of elderly center-RIGHT figures could die, too. If things got bad enough, Trump, at last, might have finally met his match because it will rather abruptly dawn on everyone that it was directly because of his obsession with owning libs that an obscene number of Americans died for no damn reason.
Before you get too excited, we have to think about Trump’s reaction to this. He’s probably going to snap. He’s probably going to, in a panic, shut down the Internet, order passenger planes be shot out of the sky, suspend the Constitution and declare martial law. The question, of course, is what the reaction would be, in practical terms to all of this. I find it doubtful that the US Military would follow any of these crazy orders, but the MAGA base WOULD likely begin to hunt down and murder “libtards”– like ME! — like members of a Cultural Revolution group. I know that sounds rather panicky and hysterical — maybe I have Trump Derailment Disorder — but the we won’t know until that time comes, now will we? We’ve never had a POTUS go bonkers and so, I guess, anything is possible.
Now is not the time to quibble. Pete Buttigieg allegedly has a “cold.” He may have. In fact, he probably does just have a cold. But I feel given a Corona Virus pandemic is whipping around the globe that the public has the right to independent medical verification of this.
This is not too much to ask. And, given this chart:
We may find ourselves asking this question of the old, older candidates who are now bouncing around the country as well, too. I just want verification of whatever is going on.
The current world order gradually formed in the year’s following Japan’s surrender in August 1945. The linchpin of the whole thing is the power, the might and involvement of the United States all over the world. For instance, the 28,000 American troops in South Korea have served as a trip wire and kept the peace between the DPRK and South Korea since 1953.
So. It definitely seems as though because, well, Donald Trump is nothing more than a deranged version of Being There’s Chauncey Gardner, the United States may soon, on a national security level, be the weakest its been since the end of the Civil War. In other words, it’s tough to fight two and half regional wars when the whole nation is too sick, dying or otherwise incapacitated to do anything. For the last four years, Trump has actively been hoping for a 9/11-level terrorist attack so he can start putting people like me in ICE camps. but lulz.
Anyway, there’s a reasonable chance that the next year will be seen as something of an “interregnum” between world orders. The old post-WW2 order may crash and burn and after a lot of wars and general destruction, a new order will arise at some point starting whenever we manage to get a vaccine. But a lot of people will die. A lot of people will suffer. A lot of people will be displaced.
It’s not too difficult to imagine it all starting with a number of regional wars breaking out at the same time while the United States is on its collective knees from COVID19. It would probably be the DPRK attacking South Korea and then Russia attacking Ukraine. Or something like that. Then Iran might have a new revolution. And the the Indian subcontinent may be turned into a post-nuclear hellscape.
And that doesn’t even begin to address the very real risk that ISIS might arise again from hell to subjugate a big swath of the Middle East. Then, once the United States is feeling back to its old self again, we would have to sort out that mess. Though, truth be told, I fear that the United States, Russia and China may have some sort of revolution over the course of the next year. The United States is effectively in the middle of a Cold Civil War right now and a bunch of old powerful people dying wouldn’t exactly help that situation.
But we’ll see. The key thing we have to do is admit that the crisis exists in the first place.
It definitely seems as though we may look back on 2020 as a worst case scenario when it comes to COVID19. Not only is Campaign 2020 now in full swing, but we’re supposed to have a Census this year. Lulz! But if we’re going to be honest with ourselves, we need to suspend all presidential campaign activities until we learn how bad things are going to get.
Or, at least, we figure out some work arounds.
It’s growing more and more self-evident that it’s just not safe for there to be primaries or campaign rallies. All those people in the same place at the same time will only spread COVID19 even more. And, really, the whole issue may be moot if the contagion grows so large in the American population that everyone is too sick — or too scared of getting sick — to participate in the campaign to begin with.
Right now, COVID19 is still an abstract. Once everyone in the States knows at least one person in their extended social circle who has gotten sick or died from COVID19, it might be a lot easier to implement some of the more drastic preventive measures that have been seen in China and elsewhere. But I’m just speculating. It could go either way, I guess.
I do think, however, that leadership is going to spring up at some point. Someone, somewhere, is going to take a risk and tell the truth to the public so they can stabilize this growing clusterfuck. But I do think we need to rethink, at the very least, some pretty basic elements of modern American society, starting with the on-going presidential campaign. If we don’t a lot more people than necessary may get sick and or die.
It will be interesting to see exactly the sequence of events going forward. I think what will happen is people will start to get sick on TV and that will be the thing that prompts some rather radical rethinking of what’s going on the States right now. We don’t have any leadership in Washington for the time being and Trump would probably keep having his dumb Nuremberg rallies until the last MAGA dipshit keeled over and did the WuFlop. Ignorant morons.
But that’s what they want, I guess. They want a tyrant. See you at the polls.
It seems rather self-evident that Vice President Mike Pence has been set up to fail. In Trump’s deranged mind, he know’s he needs to ditch Pence to placate the MAGA base, and, as such, in the end, if the Trump Administrator bungles its response to COVID19 – which it will — he can lay all the blame on Pence. That is, when Trump’s blaming liberals and or the Deep State.
Given that there apparently is already evidence of communal transmission in the United States — and we’re effectively not testing for COVID19’s spread — that the only way we’ll know what’s going on is when a lot, and I mean A LOT, of people get sick all at once all over the United States. For a few days, it may get kind of scary.
And the person who will suffer the political blame won’t be Trump, but Pence. And so President Crazypants can simply drop Pence from the ticket and cruise into a second term of bigotry, tyranny and hate. And if you think that’s my “Trump Derangement Disorder” coming out — fuck you, you piece of shit. How simply pointing out that Trump is a hate-filled ignorant tyrant is any type of “disorder” leaves me at a loss. When you think my rage against a tyrant is nothing more than an over-reaction to a policy disagreement, then, well, whoa buddy.
Anyway, it definitely seems as though we’re going to know soon enough one way or another. My gut tells me that COVID19 is spreading like wildfire in the United States and it’s going to get really bad, really soon. The whole thing may be seen as rather dramatic in hindsight. Or not. Maybe I’m overacting without even realizing it. Maybe that’s my own form of confirmation bias.
I do wish that the Trump Administration had the best interests of the nation, not the stock market, at heart. But Trump has plutocrats to placate if he’s going to win re-election and, as such, fuck you America.
One of the more alarming things to come out of CoronaVirus is the “WuFlop.” This is when someone just out of the blue faceplants, sometimes writhing on the ground aftewards. It’s crazy whack. To date, that hasn’t happened in the United States.
And I’m saying if it did happen in, say Times Square, and it was recorded it would likely be seen on TV immediately and would freak people out so badly that the entire country would come to a grinding halt. In fact, I would say that, along with a lot of elderly people dying in South Florida and the entire nation of, say, Iceland abruptly getting sick, would be a major indication that what’s happening to Italy, Iran and South Korea was about to happen to the United States in a big way.
It would be, albeit for a few days, something out of a horror movie. We would abruptly realize that a huge, deep swath of the population was sick with COVID19 and that the nation was going to be as weak as it was on 9/11 not for hours, but for days, weeks and months. The entire world order would then collapse –as would the global economy — and, well, heroes would be made, cowards would be shamed and all would be remembered. I think it goes without saying that Mike Pence — someone the MAGA base doesn’t really like all that much — is being set up for a fall so some ethno-state advocate like The Kooch can take his place.
Anyway. I have no idea what is going to happen. but we’re pretty much one WuFlop away from mass panic in the United States. I might not get a lot of play on the cable nets at first, but if started to happen too much, it would quickly bounce from The Drudge Report to more mainstream outlets. That’s the way such scandalous things have happened in the past. A lot of WuFlops happening out in public would not be easy to hide. WuFlops are just too dramatic, too surreal.
If they started to happen a lot, they would be noticed.
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