Testimony or Trump Speech? That Is The Question

By Christian Howard

I like many other Americans are facing quite the predicament in my schedule on Thursday. For weeks I had been anticipating James Comey’s testimony, but it seems our dear president will be delivering a speech at the Faith and Freedom event. Isn’t that rather coincidental?

Comey will begin testifying at 10:30 A.M. and Trump’s speech should commence at 12:30 P.M. Now I’m going to put a rather bold prediction out that Comey will still be testifying against Trump in court long after Trump’s little speech. It can’t be too long that Trump rattles on before running out of words. Hey, maybe I’ll even be able to tune into both.

In all seriousness however, I’m anxious to hear what the former FBI director has to say. Scattered comments and stories have come out across the news from Comey, but now he will speak on a direct platform in a court of law. Did Trump really attempt to obstruct justice? Probably. But the real question is if Trump will face the consequences for his actions. This election and administration has drained my optimism and I doubt Trump will be charged despite any amount of evidence.

Besides what actually happens if Trump is charged, more evidence is uncovered, and an impeachment hearing proceeds? If Trump does face impeachment the national will gain a much more competent president and one that can effectively push their destructive agenda. Our president is currently making a mockery of democracy, defacing our ties with other countries, and has ultimately made us an international embarrassment, but without really achieving anything he set out too.

The wall isn’t constructed, the travel ban is locked up in legality, and ISIS is still running wild after his ingenious 30 day plan. Really the area he has been most effective in is simply just blocking and negating progress. As seen from his refusal to sign the Paris Accord, work with other leaders, and a possible NAFTA withdrawal. I guess I have to give Trump credit where it’s due and also declare him a Twitter master.

Speaking of Twitter, if you aren’t able to make Donnie’s speech because of the Comey hearing, he may have set up a nice, interactive activity for the viewers. Insiders from the White House have informed the press that Donald is planning to be live tweeting during the Comey testimony. I’m assuming this is just in case Comey attempts to spread any fake news and old Donald has to set him straight.

Trump’s lawyers are urging him not to take to Twitter, though he seems pretty adamant on doing just that. I for one hope Trump rightfully defends himself on social media and is able to expose the truth behind the investigation. Honestly though, I just can’t wait for the goldmine that is Trump’s Twitter tomorrow if he does follow through with this and seeing if Trump can actually get himself into trouble while actively trying to avoid it.

America has finally fully embraced its celebrity and reality television culture to the whole to the point where Donald Trump is my president. Well now I guess I sit back and watch and see what spicy drama stirs up after tomorrow. I urge all to watch Comey’s testimony and have a look for themselves at what our president is hiding.

Fanciful Constitutional Fixes To A Hacked Election

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

We have no idea right now, for sure, if the Russians successfully hacked the American election through the Internet. We just don’t know. And we probably never will. But, for the sake of argument, what would be the proper reaction to this revelation.

Well, first of all, you can talk about how there should be reforms until you’re blue in the face, but the Vichy Republicans, because both control the government and benefited from the hacking, it’s not like they have any reason to effectively fix the problem.

But let’s suppose something happened and they finally cracked, they finally were absolutely forced to do something, what could they — and we — do? Because we’re dealing with some really serious stuff — Constitutional stuff — fixing the problem would be doubly difficult.

Really, the fixes I can think of are Constitutional in nature.

The one big fix I could see maybe being done is passing a Constitutional amendment making the process of electing a president a Federal issue. This will never happen, of course, but it’s something to think about. But only by removing the electing of the president from 50 individual states can we make it less likely that someone could attack the weaknesses of the weakest one.

But, like I said, this will never happen. There just isn’t the political will for such a huge change to the way we elect presidents. If I had the power, though, I would also get rid of the Electoral College as well. It’s a horrible method of electing a president in modern times and it needs to go. But that, too, will never happen.

One thing people really need to chill out about is the notion of “nullifying” the 2016 election. To call such a proposal a delusional daydream is giving it too much credit. We just have to wait until 2018 to have an effective “do over.” That’s the way the system works and it’s just too bad that the Vichy Republicans are so callow and prostrate before King Trump that the system isn’t working right now.

The whole thing is enough to make one a little sad.

Trumplandia’s Motto: ‘Malevolence Tempered by Incompetence’

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

I have been searching for the origin of the concept that Trumplandia is “malevolence tempered by incompetence” and I think it came from Lawfare Blog. Regardless, it’s perfect. It sums up the world we live in today. If Donald Trump was, say, in any way qualified to be president, the damage he could inflict on all of us would be truly dystpian.

Yet, he’s so bad at his job that he can’t do any of the things he’s threatened to do. So, while he can still inflict some serious harm to democratic norms and the Republic in general, he is a really, really bad leader and may, in fact, be daft.

That incompetence is all that stands between us and all-out fascism is something to worry about a great deal. It’s something very troubling and it will be a minor miracle. I mean, imagine the history of Nazi German if Hitler simply was so incompetent that he couldn’t muster the government to actually inflict harm on anyone, much less Jews.

But that is the world we live in. It really is.

That was the part that we totally missed during the election when rhetoric was running high and people like me were really scared that the worst would happen. We simply had no idea how bad at governing Trump would be. He’s really bad, really, really bad. You have to look no farther than his incessant tweeting to see how bad he is. He tweets about things in ways that not only give us painful insight into his thinking in real-time, it also does a huge amount of damage to his drive to turn the American Republic in a “managed democracy” run via executive orders.

Regardless, only time will tell if any of this will change. Only time will tell if Trump will get his act together and begin to use the levers of power to enact the darker aspects of the Trumplandian vision.

Let’s Play Pretend: What If The Russians Really Did Hack The Election?

By Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

I am not one of those who thinks the Russians managed to actually hack into our election booths and throw the election, and, yet, it is kind of weird that Hillary Clinton lost Pennsylvania and Florida. Spooky weird.

So, let’s play pretend.

What could we do, after the fact, if we proved 100% that Russian hackers had managed to hack into our election systems and throw the election for Donald Trump. Then what?

Well, the short answer is: WE ARE COMPLETELY FUCKED.

There simply is no effective method to nullify a presidential election. It’s not like we can recall the Electoral College and tell them to vote for someone else. That ship, as they say, has sailed. It is not a bug, but a feature of our system that it’s so difficult to get rid of a president once he or she is in office. It’s that stability that has helped us weather any number of catastrophes over the centuries.

I mean, even if we got rid of Trump, we still have Pence who is not as bad as Trump in some ways because he’s at least sane, but worse in others because he has an ideology that he adheres to when it comes to his absolute world view. And there is zero possibility that the Vichy Republicans would impeach BOTH Trump and Pence, and even if they did, we have Paul Ryan to deal with, who is a gutless stooge to Trump if ever there was one.

So, really, there’s nothing we can do. The revelation that the Russians had successful hacked out election would probably cause a epic, if momentary, Constitutional Crisis, but the thing that people like me want — a center-Left president who does what Hillary Clinton would have done had she become president simply is completely, totally impossible. It simply is not going to happen.

We’re stuck with Republicans for a sold two year and they can do all sorts of damage to the traditional welfare state between now and 2019, which would be the earliest we could start to fix this problem and that only works on the assumption that a Blue Wave might flip the Congress Democratic.

And, really, the only scenario that comes anywhere near being a reality is in 2019 the Democratic Congress manages to impeach both Trump and Pence, blocks Pence from naming a successor and then we endup with President Nancy Palosi. That’s pretty much an impossible scenario for various reasons, in large part because the hysterical 30% of the population who hates Hillary Clinton would hate Nancy Palosi just as much. America has some serious fucking problems in its political system and they ain’t going no where anytime soon. Let that sink in, folks.

So, dry your tears. Pull yourself up. We’re fucked. Really, the only thing we can do is, as I keep suggesting, engage people who disagree with us. Try to overcome tribal politics as best we can and try to heal the bizarre wounds that risk tearing the nation asunder.

Millennials, Their Influence on Trumplandia, and America’s Future

By Christian Howard

Millennials are better known to some as the generation of entitlement and narcissism. Like it or not however, we are the future and the world needs us more than ever in the era of Trumplandia. Young people will be the ones most impacted by Trump’s shortsighted policy, but we also need to be the ones that turn the country in a different direction.

The 2016 election saw a voter turnout rate of 59.7% which is relatively low when compared to recent years. Many have turned to blaming the non-voters that refrained from voting due to political stubbornness. A lot of this blame in particular has been shifted upon the millennials. This though is not a fair assessment as the 18 to 29 year old age group was the only group to see gains in voter turnout, rising 1.1% since the 2012 election.

This small increase in turnout however did not end up fueling a Clinton victory. When all was said and done it came down to how we young people decided to vote. Republican voting in the millenials remained the same as the 2012 election at 37%, while the Democratic fell from 60% to 55%. Third party voting rose tremendously from 3% to 8%. You can see that Clinton with her campaign of maintaining the status quo was not able to attract young voters. Many of these disenfranchised voices turned to a third party entity as a protest against both candidates and in turn helped lead to Trump’s victory.

Though it seems the political protest of the millennials assisted Trump’s victory it also displayed how radically political ideology is changing in young people. Young people are ultimately angry at their uncertainty in society, injustice, and facing the brunt of a stagnating economy.

As a result of this they are moving very far left on the political spectrum. This could be seen through the overwhelming support for Sanders and the revolution he seemed to awaken in America, specifically its young citizens. Sanders losing the nomination resulted in many still not wanting to vote for Hillary and explains her loss of support and gain for the alternatives. Unity, increased participation, and more liberal candidates are a must for the Democrats if they wish to achieve the blue sweep as the millennials will play a huge role in their potential victory.

Millennials are seeking a fair economic climate and equal chances. Despite being the most educated of all generations they have not found the same opportunity of the past. The contract that was held between attaining a higher education and ending up with a job and comfortable at least middle class life has been broken.
Tuition rates have also reached all time highs in this period of unreliability of education and the value it holds in securing one’s future. Many members of older generations have already attained their job and home and now ignore the concerns of future Americans.

A sense of “I got mine, why can’t you get yours” has further driven the millennials’ want of change and systematic upheaval. Trump’s own support from young people can be explained by his campaign of “draining the swamp” and promising to alter the political scene in America. Resentment is brewing as costs rise for millennials, wages fall, opportunity vanishes, and self investment becomes meaningless.
This generation is also entirely against injustice. This should be seen as a redeeming quality of the generation, but also produced social justice warriors and overdone politically correct culture.

Labeling every action against your agenda as racist and xenophobic has taken away from the bigger picture. There is actual injustice in this world and nation, but instead many decide to enlist as keyboard warriors and wage online campaigns against minor post, comments, and details.

It is of grave importance that the millennials are able to organize themselves against larger injustice and not cry out against everything if they wish to produce any actual change.

Trumplandia is very obviously against the average millennial’s values and future. Though his victory can partially be attributed to the millennials, much backlash has occurred. A poll by the Harvard Kennedy School’s of Institute Politics revealed that after Trump’s first 100 days only 32% of millennials approved of his presidency. This come as no surprise as Donald’s approval rate has plummeted to 35% amongst all Americans while 43% of voters wish to begin the impeachment process. Millennials much like the rest of America do not stand with Trump and wish for his removal.

The dissatisfaction with Trump has become apparent with the number of protests against his presidency. The most notable of these protests involving young people being the Berkeley protests. These protests have devolved into riots and sparked senseless violence. Berkley has turned into a literal battleground and is not much help to either side’s case.

With young people realizing the necessity to unite and come together they must see that these riots are a setback. Simply attacking Trump supporters makes no difference and is a misuse of their political voice. These protests and rallies need to become much more organized and efficient if they hope to bring about any change and help reach out to the other side.

Hopefully Trumplandia will become nothing more than a small blemish on American history. The young will find their voice and be able to steer the country back on track, the old will understand the significance of ensuring a bright future for upcoming Americans, and the political system will see a massive overhaul. Us as young people need to continue to vote, resist, and do everything we can to reverse the effects of Trumplandia and better this nation.

The Struggle Is Real: How To Address Trump In Art

By Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

I am working on a novel, or at least trying to, and I’ve decided to make the dystopian world that Donald Trump seems to want to create as my playground. But it’s tough. Things are moving so fast in reality, that it’s difficult for me to grapple with how to address Trump in fiction.

I don’t know. I just don’t know. Maybe that’s why Hollywood has been so slow to talk about Trump directly. It wants to sit things out a little bit before it tries to help us collectively process things. But we’ll see, I guess It will be interesting to see how things play out.

Hollywood, Take Note: Isaac Asimov’s ‘Mule’ Is An Allegory For Donald Trump

By Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

I keep talking about and feel like I’m shouting out into the void, but here I go again. The reason why I keep talking about how Isaac Asimov’s character in The Foundation Saga, The Mule, is Donald Trump is because Trump isn’t funny anymore.

For nearly two years, we’ve spent a lot of time joking about Trump and it’s time we stopped falloning Trump and started to take him as the tragic, Shakespearean character that he is. Trump is doing real damage to America both at home and abroad and it makes a lot of sense for Hollywood to stop lashing out randomly at Trump and start to weld its cultural power in a much more constructive manner.

Hence, a movie that dealt with just the portion of The Foundation Saga that deals with The Mule would be pretty cool and culturally powerful because for much of the novel, The Mule is something of a comic character. It’s only later, when his true identity is reveled that he becomes dark and sinister.

I feel like we’ve reached the point in the Trump saga when if you made a reasonably faithful adaption of The Foundation Saga that you might have a pretty big hit on your hands, on a par with A Game Of Thrones. Of course, given how much Star Wars copped from Foundation, you would have to be pretty creative to to make the universe seem fresh.

But if you simply made a movie about the specific part of The Foundation Saga that deals with The Mule, I think you could pull it off.

The Madness Of King Trump, Redux: How Will History Judge This Era?

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

Maybe we’re all missing the point. Maybe the only way to save the Republic was, at least for a short time, to burn it to the ground. What I mean by this is maybe if Hilary Clinton had won things would have been even worse than they are now — that even seems possible.

My only hope is maybe all of this will burn itself out. Maybe only by proving the point — that Trump was and is completely unqualified to be president — that is the only way we can dig ourselves out of this whole. If Trump was out of power at this point, he’d be spouting off and riling people up without the consquences of being in power.

With him in power eventually, inevitably, there has to be, just has to be some political consquences to pay. He can continue to live in his own lala land forever. At some point — it may take a lot longer than I’d like — we collectively as a nation will reject Trumplandia and everything will go back to normal and we can forget about this horrible, surreal turn of events.

That, of course, is the most hopeful spin one can put on this disaster. I guess you could have made the same case about Hitler in 1933. But this is the United States, not Germany, so I’d like to think our civil society is stronger than theirs was during the rise of Hitler.

So, I guess what I’m saying is this could either be just a hiccup in our nations journey, or it be that this is when the final dystopian reality descends on the United States for good. I guess, really, it all depends on us as individuals which one it is.

But I’d like to think our civil society is stronger than the madness of one leader. But maybe I’m deluding myself. Maybe it isn’t. Maybe power has been concentrated in the hands of the executive to such an extent that there’s no going back. And given how the Vichy Republicans are completely complicit in all of this, it seems as though this is a wilderness we’re not going to get out of easily.

It goes without saying, I think, that there are many, many books to be written about Trumplandia in the years and decades ahead. I would like to think this is just a blip. That Trumplandia will, in fact, burn itself out. I have to have that hope, otherwise I get depressed and don’t engage.

A Jeremy Corbyn Victory In Great Britain Would Be A Political Thunderclap

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

I am just a clueless American when it comes to British politics. I know just enough to get myself in trouble, but let me prepare you: if Labour’s Jeremy Corbyn wins this week, be prepared for the instant political experts to pop out of the woodwork on Twitter, saying this is a huge win for The Resistance and may indicate that a “Blue Wave” may yet reach American shores.

I know enough about British politics that it is often seen as foreshadowing political trends in the States. So, in a way, it’s kind of like the Virginia governorship race. Since it’s the first big race after the presidential race, it’s come to be seen as a de facto referendum on whomever is in power.

In the late 1970s, Margret Thatcher in Britain was, in fact, an indication that the center-Right across the globe was ascendant and that the United States was ready for the Reagan Revolution of 1980. Given how much it seems the political establishment in Great Britain hates Corbyn, even a near-victory at this point would be enough to leave
experience political watchers in daze for a few days.

A lot of people in Washington and beyond would look at each other mouths agape at what had just happened. In real terms, it wouldn’t mean squat for Trump’s political fortunes. And it’s not like your typical Republican Trump supporter is going to be phased at any event beyond their parking lot.

So, really, at least in the United States, a Corbyn victory won’t mean much. It will definitely rattle around in our political system some, but Trump will still be president and we’re still going to be fucked. Yet it is an example of how the people who supported Trump thinking something would happen to him and Mike Pence would become president and usher in a new era of love and peace might have gotten more than they bargained for. At least, I really hope that’s the case. Those people really piss me off. They were really to be enormous hypocrites for no other reason that they wanted power, they wanted just the possibility that Mike Pence might be in line to be president.

Meanwhile, Rome burns.

Regardless, I hope Corbyn wins. As a moderate American liberal, the shock of a Corbyn win would be an actual cold hard political fact that I could cling on to while the good ship USS America continued to sink and its mad captain continued to rant at the helm.

But maybe Corbyn won’t win. I don’t know. I’m no expert, but Trump sure is doing everything in his power to piss the people of Great Britain off so they vote for Corbyn in defiance.

The Deafening Silence From Hollywood Regarding Trumplandia Is Perplexing

By Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

I have repeatedly questioned why instead of pretending to cut Donald Trump’s head off, why Hollywood doesn’t collectively turn its guns on Trumplandia. I am well aware that it takes time to conceive of, develop, write and produce a scripted drama of any sort. It just takes time. I get that.

But you’d think the little media bubble that I live in would be at least occasionally punctured by buzz that this or that anti-Trump movie or TV was being produced. And, yet, to date, I have heard of nothing. It’s all very odd.
I just don’t get it. Is it that Hollywood is too shook or is it that the executives that would be the ones to greenlight such things are complicit in Trumplandia and they simply won’t risk losing money on an obvious anti-Trump metaphor while events are actually happening. It’s just too soon for them to think about alienating that core 30% of the population that supports Trump no matter what?

And, remember, the last time that Hollywood actually went to war was, well, a war — World War II. And it could be that Hollywood executives with some institutional memory know that during Watergate people kind of tuned out of politics in pop culture. The only relatively contemporaneous piece of art to come out of Watergate was All The President’s Men.

But having said all that, here are my suggestions for movies to be remade in this age of Trumplandia. Given that Hollywood apparently has completely run out of ideas, Hollywood might be more receptive to remakes than original content.

Or something.

1984
This movie is so obvious in the age of Trumplandia that it seems like it would be greenlit the moment someone suggested it seriously. The book itself is apparently doing gangbusters again and it seems that there would be both a market and an audience for another remake.

The Caine Mutiny
The final scene of this movie might cut a little too close to home. The whole movie, with its mad captain might be something people would really get into. And it’s great source material it would be so obvious a metaphor for the Era of Trump that it probably would do quiet well.

Being There
This movie would require a deft touch. The reason is it would be too easy to re-interpret the source material as an angry diatribe against Donald Trump’s presidency. The movie is, in its own way, already a metaphor for Trumplandia, if albeit in a much more innocent manner than we are currently suffering. But if you updated it technologically, it would be really funny and tragic and scary. Kind of like our real world is right now.

Network
This is such a perfect movie — especially in the context of Trumplandia — that the only reason to remake and update it is we live in desperate times and simply re-issuing it wouldn’t be as culturally significant. We really need this movie remade as soon as possible. But I would suggest doing something with it other than a shot-for-shot remake. That would just be dumb and unproductive.

Seven Days In May
It is temping to simply use the name and not do much with the source material. Events this May really were shocking enough that you could give them a narrative arc and go from there. But, really, you could simply do somewhere where by there’s a coup attempt against a mad president or some such.

Mr. Roberts
This movie is about honor and the responsibilities of power and if you remade it, it could be a sly commentary on Donald Trump’s presidency. At least it makes a lot of sense to me.

Anyway, having said all that, let’s talk about some original concepts one might look into.

A Movie About The Mule</strong>
This one seems so obvious that it’s sad that generally no one listens to me and thus nothing will happen. It would be different if I had the rights to The Foundation Saga and, like, was a screenwriter of any note. I would just write a screenplay myself and pitch it. But HBO is supposed to have the rights right now, so you’d actually have to have some money to make that a reality.

A sequel to Idiotocry
This is pretty obvious. Just update that movie to today’s insane reality and run with it.

A movie about the Fall of France in 1940
The Fall of France was a lot like Election Night 2016, and I think people would really see the comparison being made if someone produced a movie about it.

Regardless, Hollywood needs to get its act together. It needs to address this really important subject as quickly as possible. If the gears are put in motion now, maybe a really cool movie will pop out about Election Day 2018. That’s all we can hope for at this point.