by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
An alarming thing I’ve seen on Twitter very recently is some scientific evidence that COVID19 has been in Washington state, at least, for about six weeks. If it’s been in Washington for six weeks, it’s been bouncing around the United States for six weeks.
So, I would suggest, when the first wave of test results across the country begin to be reported, we may have, on a psychological level, something of a Pearl Harbor moment. But it won’t be the beginning of WW3, it’ll be the beginning of 3WW — the World War WuFlu.
Now, if that is, in fact, the case, the entire dynamic of American politics will change rather rapidly. Americans in ital reaction would be to “rally round the flag.” But, of course, Trump on an existential level is a divider, not a uniter and, as such, his usual demagogic bullshit won’t work. You can’t gaslight a pandemic. I guess you can try, but it’s difficult. The usual Stormy Daniels’ Playbook of having Rudy come out to admit everything to “normalize” criminal behavior just won’t cut it.
So what would all of this mean on a practical level? Well, if Trump’s worst nightmare happened — the stock market cratered and he was blamed for it, then either he implodes or explodes. Either he crumples rather dramatically and we’re effectively leaderless during the greatest domestic crisis since the Civil War, or he goes complete nuts and does — or tries to do — some rather insane things.
Trump implodes I could see the administration have something of a spasm of panic where by the usual corruption and incompetence is replaced with a sudden need to use things that Trump hates: science, facts and unconditional bi-partisanship. As such, MAGA apologists like Rick Santorm and Hugh Hewitt might rather abruptly change their tune out of desperation. Like, for the duration of the crisis while it’s an absolute political necessity, they might not try to score short term pontifical points or defend the indefensibly — they may start to act like normal human beings. They might, for once, unequivocally state what is demonstrably, factually true: the emperor has no clothes. They will, at last, pull their head out of Trump’s ass and weirdly want to do whatever it necessary to save as many lives as possible. If it happens as abruptly as I suspect, we all may look at CNN or MSNBC and drop our coffee cup in shock.
But for that to happen, things would have to get rather Biblical in their nature. Like The End Times Are Here Bad. Suddenly Trump and his toadies will be honest for once. They will beg for the very people they have scream at for four years — qualified women and minorities, scientists, you name it — to help them save the country, and, by extension, themselves. The moment they feel safe, these MAGA shitheads will turn around and go back to screaming at these people for being scary.
There is the other option: Trump, on a mental level, explodes. He goes complete nuts. He orders anyone who will listen to do what are obviously illegal things. He suspends the Constitution. He shuts down the Internet. He locks down the border. He orders the Air Force to shoot down passenger planes. You name it. This would pose something of a problem for our political system, especially if he starts to order the MAGA base to kill people he doesn’t like or if he goes so nuts that he begins to use the “Presidential Alert System” to send us all his tweets and cockpics.
This raises the question — what, exactly, COULD we do about it? Both impeachment and the 25 Amendment are now effectively non-existent as options. For either one of these options to become viable, things would have to grow so existential that there would suddenly be the overwhelming political will to do them. Since impeachment is a political act, you could go the 1868 route and simply impeach Trump for, being, well, Trump and rush it over to the Senate. We might even get witnesses for once.
But, remember, this is not something to hope for. Our political is so taunt, so dysfunctional, that for it to work again would mean A LOT OF PEOPLE WERE SICK AND DYING. And, if you throw The Gray Plague into the mix and the idea that a lot of the leaders who would help get rid of Trump would be, themselves incapacitated by WuFlu, well, I think you understand how bad things would be while we figured out how, exactly, to get rid of Trump. Throw in a limited nuclear exchange between the United States and the DPRK and things would get even more fucked up.
I don’t want this to happen. Yes, Trump has screamed at me and people like me for about four years. And, yes, he sees any willingness to compromise or work together as weakness to be exploited to the fullest for short term political gain. But I am an American, and if it seemed as though America, Columbia, was on her knees because of 3WW, then, I think everyone should just cool it and help the Trump Administration get us out of the situation as soon as possible.
Of course Trump would use any vacancies in the government caused by 3WW to consolidate power after it was over and he would also turn around and put everyone he didn’t like in an ICE camp, like he would do anyway in his second term, but lulz. YOLO.
