Month: May 2017

Jared Kushner & The Russian Backchannel: A Personal Theory

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

I have a personal theory about the backchanel that Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner tried to set up with the Russians. Since he wanted to use their super-secret communications equipment, it may have been that Donald Trump at that point was really paranoid about the U.S. government tapping his communications just in general and so he told Kushner to do it.

That seems to make the most sense to me.

This, of course, does not explain what, exactly, they wanted to talk about in the first place. It also does not explain the continue fascination with the Russians that Donald Trump continues to display. It just makes no sense. I don’t get it. I don’t understand what is going on.

There is all this smoke, it makes you wonder what the fire is. I am troubled that even if it does come out that Trump and his associates were actually doing something treasonous, that because of America’s tribal politics, the alt-Right and their ilk won’t blink an eye at it.

That is the truly troubling thing about all of this.

The War For Trumplandia: Can This Administration Be Saved?

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

The Washington Post is reporting that the Trump White House is going to set up a war room like the Clinton White House did 20 years ago during all of its troubles.

In a sprawling article, the publication goes through the wide-range of things that the Trump Administration is considering doing. Besides the War Room, Trumplandia is also considering bringing back some old names like Corey Lewandowski.

But the problem for Trumplandia is a fish rots from the head and not much is going to change the totally batshit insane nature of Trump himself. They can change everything they like, but Trump is still going to be Trump. Really, the question is: how dire are things for Trump?

There is always a lag time between when Something Bad happens to an administration and when the consquences are full realized. The fact that Jared Kushner allegedly did something as bonkers as try to set up a backchannel with the Russians using their own equipment is so bad and potentially politically devastating to the Trump Administration that one has to wonder if they fully comprehend what they’re up against. It seems to me that they’re playing with fire.

They are going to need to do more than just setup a War Room. They need to talk to Trump himself about changing his behavior, but even then that’s a lossed cause. The man is 70 years old, he’s not going to change. Trump is a national embarrassment of the highest order and you simply can’t put ice cream on shit and not have shit at the bottom of the cone.

Probably what is going to happen is things are going to grind along for weeks, and months — if not years — and really won’t change until Congress is flipped. The Republicans simply are too Vichy. They simply can’t find the wherewithal to stand up against Trump. They don’t want to alienate the base and so they’re willing to take their brand — and the nation’s international standing — down as far as it will go.

One interesting thing I noted in the Post article is they are considering using Facebook Live instead of formal press conferences. That would be interesting to say the least. Say what you will about Trump, he’s actually an amazing politician in some respects. He taps into some dark part of the American psyche and maybe if he leans into online video it will resonate with people even more than tweeting. He’s sure to get a lot more of an earful, though.

I idly wonder if maybe he might look into using Instagram video instead of Facebook Live. That might be one way for him to connect with people even more so than he usually does. I don’t. Like I keep saying, the head of the Trump Administration is the problem. That problem isn’t going anywhere.

Donald Trump isn’t Ronald Reagan, remember that.

I just don’t see any way this isn’t just a long-term disaster for everyone involved. As I said so many times during the campaign — you break it you buy it. The Republicans broke it by nominating Trump and then having him win, now everyone else has to pick up the pieces.

Tsar-A-Largo: Trumplandia, The Russians & Ukraine

By Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

One thing that Donald Trump made clear from the beginning of his campaign is he loves the Russians. Now, there have been various explanations for this, from his general love of strongmen to a “pee tape.” But I suspect the actual reason is much more prosaic.

It’s money.

My guess is Trump has so many dirty deals involving the Russians that he has many fiduciary reasons to be nice to the Russians. You hear reports about this or that oil deal that will go through should sanctions be lifted by the American government, but that, at least not yet, has not happened.

But let’s talk about that for a moment.

Trump is supposed to meet Russian President Putin in July as part of a broader summit and the question that lingers is, will the Trump Administration lift the sanctions imposed on Russia by the Obama Administration as some sort of nefarious quid-pro-quo. Though I have my doubts, I still am not ready to say this won’t happen. It’s still possible. It might happen. Maybe.

Given that Trump had no problem firing FBI Director James Comey and then admitting he had Russia on the brain when he did so, it is not too much of a stretch to believe Trump might lift sanctions on Russia after a personal meeting with Putin.

The reaction on the party of Trumplandia probably would be muted. There would be the usual rationalizations on the part of the center-Right and the usual insane outrage on the part of the center-Left. But in the end, things would settle down.

I am much more concerned about what might happen with Ukraine. The Ukraine front has been really quiet the last few years and it is difficult to believe that President Putin would give up a historic opportunity to invade Ukraine in a general way given that it’s likely Trump wouldn’t say anything about it.

That’s something that we really haven’t seen yet — an outside crisis not of Trump’s making. Most of the damage to Trump’s administration since Jan. 20th has been self-inflicted. If the Russians would to invade Ukraine abruptly as part of a huge land-grab that might be a crisis that Trump simply would not be prepared for. His Russian sympathies would be put to the test in an epic manner and I think ultimately he would show he has zero backbone when it comes to the Russians.

But, as I noted, I doubt that would really matter much to the stalwarts of Trumplandia. They won’t care. All they care about is abortion and tax cuts. The bullshit of FOX News has hardened to a smell diamond and there is little we can do it about for the time being.

It is kind of sad that we are going to have to wait until for months, if not years, before the Special Counsel’s investigation into Trump comes to any kind of conclusion. Trump can do a huge amount of damage between now and then and it’s sad that we have to wait that long.

Our only real hope is the 2018 mid-terms. But even then, my expectations are muted. We’re no longer a Republic, so it’s possible we’r screwed for good.

Oh My Pod: Pod Save America Vs. FiveThirtyEight

By Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

Because of Donald J. Trump’s completely bat shit behavior, I find myself listening to podcasts significantly more than in the past. I used to a podcast of sorts way back when, but the platform I used — Blab, does not exist anymore.

Given the opportunity, I would do a podcast again, but I am going to kind wait and see about that for the time being.

Regardless, there are a few go-to podcasts that I really enjoy. There is Pod Save America that I really enjoy, even though it fills me with liberal rage whenever I listen to it because it makes me think the end is neigh. Meanwhile, there is the FiveThirtyEight political podcast that I also like. As it is obvious to see, I am pretty much completely obsessed with Trump news.

I have noticed some interesting similarities and differences between these podcasts. Pod Save America is funnier and more loose, while the FiveThirtyEight is a bit more formal and it deals with more wonkish thing. While Pod Save America seems to be a conversations between friend who served in the White House — which is it is — the FiveThirtyEight podcast seems more focused.

In general, I really like Pod Save America more than FiveThirtyEight, but both are really strong. Both of them tend to make me really angry because Trump makes me angry, but I think the Pod Save America fits my own personal world view a little bit better.

Regardless, here is here a handy chart to give you some sense of the differences between the two podcasts.

 Pod Save America  Four Thirty Eight
 Ring Master: Jon Favreau  Ring Master: Nate Silver
Funny Guy With Unique Voice: Jon Lovett  Droll Guy With Unique Voice: Harry Enten
 Comic Bit: Trying to get through the promos with a straight face  Somewhat witty banter, more of a serious edge.
 Focus: Giving context relative to Obama  Focus: Polls, polls, polls

Trump Is Tearing America Apart

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

I recently went to my 25th high school reunion and it was an interesting experience, to say the least. Now, let me start by saying that I everyone met was gracious and kind and I don’t have anything against them. But there definitely was big pink invisible GOP elephant in the room, as it were.

You see, I went to a private military academy and of the approximately 30% of the electorate who will travel to the gates of hell with Donald Trump, all of them I went to high school with. I am ardently ant-Trump and they know this, so this lead to an interesting dynamic.

Unfortunately, there was a huge amount of unnecessary tension in the air. Since Nov. 9th, I have for months raged on Facebook at how completely surreal Trump’s election is and I have lost probably a dozen Facebook friends because of this. I am not ashamed of this, I am old enough to own something like this. If I make controversial remarks in the public, I’m not going to run from them.

But this personal anecdote is an example of how divisive Trump is and how there probably is no going back. It’s not like I’m going to get any of the people I alienated from all my ranting back into my life even if something dramatic happens to Trump politically. And that’s just sad.

We have entered a scary new period in American history where the basic building blocks of our society are being ripped apart by Donald J. Trump. There are no easy answers. My fear, of course, is we’ll look back on this period of time as the obvious moment when something we’ve taken for granted for over a hundred years — the unity of the American Republic — started to be in danger.

Do I think there will be another Civil War?

I doubt it for various reasons. But I do think the United States is no longer a Republic in the traditional sense. We’re now some sort of weird quasi-Empire went an elected emperor. I think this will be proven correct when Trump is re-elected.

Maybe I don’t want to get my hopes up, but I just don’t see Trump going anywhere and the damage he does to the collective America psyche may be irreparable. It is difficult for me to understand who it is that anyone would vote for someone like Trump. Period. At all. There is so much wrong with Trump that it makes me angry just thinking about how people in my life could possible vote for the man.

But I know this is what he wants. He wants to divide us. Yet I don’t know any easy answers as to fix the situation. I don’t know how to bridge the gap. It just doesn’t make any sense. I can’t understand how otherwise normal people would act like the classic “Good German” and vote for someone as horrid as Donald Trump.

And yet they did.

What the center-Left has to do is figure out a way to address the economic fears of Trump voters in a way that strips it of the racism and bigotry that Trump tapped into.

I’d just hope that at my 30 year high school reunion we will all be able to look back at Trump and laugh — and not cry.

Trump As Celebrity

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

Some time ago, it was popular amongst those in Trumplandia to disparage left wing celebrities as obviously not having any influence in America’s political thinking, given how popular Donald Trump continued to be. Something about this really pissed me off. It continues to make me angry.

I don’t know about you, but Donald Trump has been a celebrity — a household name, even — for about 30 years. So, when a center-right person I know said it was “ironic” that his ilk thought people did not want to hear the political views of celebrities, I grew a little bit furious.

It is so glaringly obvious that Trump is and was a celebrity that it just boggles my mind that anyone would think otherwise. It is just crazy. It’s not “ironic,” it’s hypocritical, plain and simple. This, of course, raises the question of how can the volk of Trumplandia square the circle of this situation.

I have struggled with this for some time. There is no easy answer. Either they’re just too stupid to realize that they’re being hypocrites or they don’t care. It all boils down to the fact that while Trump is a celebrity, he’s their celebrity.

So, in a sense it’s all tribal politics. They are all so wrapped up in wanting to Make America Great Again, that basic things like facts and logic escape them. Remember, not only was Trump on TV for several years for The Apprentice, but he also was the subject of a Celebrity Roast on Comedy Central. I sent this to my center-right acquaintance, and that did not seem to make any difference.

But I guess for me the question is — is there any way we can bridge the divide. Is there anyway we can, maybe, from a center-left perspective, “pull a Trump” and get a popular liberal celebrity to run and win office. While Al Franken is one notable example of that happening, it’s actually kind of rare.

The one person I wish would run for major elected office, is Jon Stewart. He’d be perfect. In this new world where politicians are celebrities and celebrities are politicians someone like Stewart fits the bill as the “perfect candidate.” Ideally, he’d run for governor of New Jersey or something like that, but I am so desperate that I would give him a slide and let him run for president.

Though, of course, it would be interesting to see how his comedy industry friends responded to that.

All of this does not address the central issue — why do the residents of Trumplandia, which is are all of us really given political reality, feel so willing to vote for a celebrity in the first place? We have reached a strange new time when people are so angry with the established political order that people are willing to give one of the most powerful jobs in the world to a complete moron who’s only real talent is going bankrupt and being a loudmouth on TV.

The amount of willingness to ignore cold hard facts about Trump on the part of his supports is something that we’re all going to spend a lot of time debating and mulling in the years to come. I suspect that 20 years from now we’ll still be talking about all of this and we won’t understand what has happened or why.

It’s A Wild, Wild, Wild, Wild World: Jared Kushner & The Russians

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

It’s beginning to look, well, a little suspicious for the Donald Trump Administration when it comes to its ties with the Russians. Though it has to be noted, it’s not like Trump did not go out of his way to tell everyone what we were getting into.

But the latest revelation, that Trump’s son-in-law Jared “Bedroom Eyes” Kushner wanted to setup a secret channel — using the Sovet’s Russians own equipment! — it kind of zany even for Trump’s band of folks who can’t shoot straight. It’s all very weird and yet in Trumplandia it still hasn’t yet begun to get any traction. The citizens of Trumplandia still love the Dear Leader with all their hearts and they seem determined to bring down the nation along with themselves.

I guess what shocks me the most about all of this is how in the open all of this is. Trump has never hidden his love of all things Russian and for me, a child of the Cold War, it is rather disturbing that Republicans still given Trump full-throated support despite their history of being strong on national defense. It’s almost as if the Cult of Ronald Reagan has finally be excised from the GOP spirit. It’s all very strange and there is no easy answer to it all. I just don’t get it. I just don’t understand.

You can’t have a cover-up if you don’t cover it up. Photo from New York Magazine.

The crux of the issue is, why the Russian fascination on the part of the Trump campaign and administration? What is the fire to all this smoke. Many different people have come up with many different possibilities. While a lot of people suspect it is the “pee tape” that is the source of all this odd behavior, I lean more on the side of it being fiduciary in nature.

Trump is a shady businessman and over 30 years he probably has gotten involved in a lot of shading dealings in Russia and now all that is coming home to roost. He did not expect to win and now that the FBI is getting involved, all kinds of criminality and malfeasance is being dug up.

Will that be enough to bring own Trump? I doubt it. I suspect we’re stuck with Trump for at least a solid two years, if not more. A lot depends on flipping the House and Senate in 2018. Given how stupid the American electorate has proven itself by electing Trump to begin with, it’s very possible that we’re just doomed. It’s very possible we’re all very doomed and we could be stuck with Trump for four, even eight years.

Then we really will have to make America great again.

Welcome To The Trumplandia Report

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

I don’t really know what I hope to do with this site. All I know is I have been, in the past, a journalist and there seems to be so much news streaming out of Trumplandia that it seemed like a fun thing to do, to try to a site devoted to giving people my take on things.

I can’t promise that this site will be updated as nearly as much as it should, but I will try. Really, I would turn this simply the Website of a email tip-sheet if I had my way, but it’d doubtful I will be able to manage to get anyoe to give me their email address for that.

One thing I can say is, I will probably update this site mostly in the mornings and late at night because that is when I feel like writing the most. And also when I have the most time. Should this site become a success and bandwidth become an issue, I’m really going to be desperate for some contributions. Don’t know exactly how that will work out.

Regardless, this site, at this point, is more about me enjoying writing than it is anything else. I have zero expectations and I don’t even know if I will continue it beyond the first few days. But, like I said, there is a huge amount of news coming out of Trumplandia and I am a writer, so this is a excuse to flex my reporting skills, if just in a minor way.

Shelton Bumgarner
Editor and Publisher
The Trumplandia Report
@bumgarls