Month: May 2020

Idle Rambling About The ‘Wind of Change’ Podcast, #JodiKantor, #JessicaAlba & The #Novel I’m #Writing



by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Some thoughts.

My Novel’s Female Romantic Lead As Twitter Liberal



by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Every story needs an outsider to serve as the proxy for the audience. They ask questions that you need to answer for them. For my story, I’m using someone inspired — sorta — by someone like Jodi Kantor. I’m not a good enough writer to properly represent this type person, but in general the novel’s female romantic lead is meant to be, essentially, a Verified Twitter Liberal.

There are some problems with doing this. One is, I fear Twitter Liberals will like this character more than the actual Hero if I’m not careful. I know the mentality of Twitter Liberals well enough to fake it in a character, but I’m nervous that if i do too good a job, they’re going to be more interested in my female romantic lead than, well, my Hero.

But the point of using a Twitter Liberal as my female romantic lead is to prove a point — in the end, we’re all human. That, and the fact that having a character inspired by Jodi Kantor fall for a character inspired by bonkers me is very, very funny to me. It’s both a challenge and entertaining to me as I develop to see if I can pull this otherwise surreal relationship off.

But, again, it’s going to be a huge challenge. Everyone thinks I suck. Everyone wants me to fail. Everyone is looking for some reason to make this all moot. But I believe in myself, nonetheless. I think Ms. Kantor has looked at this Website and found me, shall we say, lacking. I can’t help what a kook I am (using her metrics). I am who I am. I try my best to be the best person I can possibly be.

Anyway, things continue to move quicker with development.

I’m quite pleased.

Biden’s First 100 Days



by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The likelihood that Biden will have a “100 Days” is equal to the likelihood that the Senate was ever going to vote to convict Trump: 0. Trump is going to be the United State’s Gorbachev, only in reverse: he will destroy freedom and instill decades-long tyranny.

Having said that, all I can say is if Electors manage to get over their physical fear of being murdered by MAGA and they vote for Biden, that the first few weeks of his administration will simply be trying to figure out how to physically get Trump out of the White House. Oh, and there’s going to be violence –lots, and lots of violence.

There will be massive, rolling political violence on the part MAGA. So much so, that that violence, not COVID19, will be the biggest story of the year. I could see a number of beer hall putsch across the country — especially in places like Michigan and Virginia. Trump will stoke this violence from the moment he loses the popular vote until well after Electors vote against him (if they do.)

So, pretty much the first 100 days of Biden’s highly unlikely administration will simply be combating massive MAGA political violence. He might have to dodge a few QAnon coup attempts along the way, as well.

And it doesn’t matter, long term.

Any number of would-be Republican dictators will be waiting in the wings to do the things Trump was too incompetent to do.

Down The Rabbit Hole



by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

First, let me get some things about of the way. Because of macro, existential issues with the United State on a political and sociological level, Trump could murder Joe Biden live on Fox News and nothing would happen. Nothing. Trump would simply bribe Electors to vote for him and get his Constitutional Convention soon afterwards.

So, honestly, there’s nothing that could hurt Trump politically at this point. Maybe if Trump was directly blamed for the DPRK vaporizing Alabama, that might do the trick. Then the Senate might put country over party. But even then, it’s debatable.

Thus, anything that might otherwise harm Trump politically is simply a lulz. And, yet, my curiosity is piqued by a celebrity law firm that recently got its files hacked. The hackers claim they have damaging information on Trump, the law firm says they’ve never worked with Trump.

As such, it seems as though we’ll find out soon enough — the hackers claim they’re going to release the files on Thursday. I will note in passing that someone in Singapore of all places is interested in some of my writing on this Website about Trump being suspected of getting a model pregnant then forcing her to have an abortion.

It makes no sense that the hacking and the (now proven false) accusation could, in anyway, be connected. There are plenty of other reasons why someone might be interested in that information. It’s just curious.

‘Spooky’



by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

When I was living in Seoul, I occasionally would get a weird feeling that someone I was interacting with was….a bit…spooky. Whenever you suspect you’re dealing with spooks, you come off sounding like an crazy person because typically the average person doesn’t run into them.

But the thing about Seoul when I was there was there was a huge military base in the middle of the city. So, every once in a while when I was DJing at Nori in Sinchon, I saw older guys in the audience who just did not fit in. I have an extremely active imagination and so I would stand there, behind the bar, and wonder…are those guys spooks?

The only reason why I even bring this up is I’m listening to the “Wind of Change” podcast and it seems to fit very much in how I view the world in general — “normal” people are way too quick to assume that that just because someone is a kook that they couldn’t possibly have anything of merit to contribute. I am finding a lot of inspiration from the podcast as to how to come up with some out-of-the-box ideas for the novel I’m writing.

It’s this tendency that really bugs the shit out of me about successful Twitter liberals who look down their nose at me because I’m a bit “touched.” I often up come up with rather fantastical ideas. But at the same time, I occasionally do actually figure things out correctly — COVID19 being a prime example. I know why they do this — they have a vested interest in doing things “the right way” and if you don’t fit that metric, then, well, fuck you.

Anyway, I generally have a positive view of spooks these days because, well, we have a mad, tyrannical American Caligula hell-bent on destroying the nation I love and it seems as those if there really was a Deep State, they would be the good guys. Trump is actively trying to replace these good guys with traitors and sycophants, so who knows where things will end up.

Building A Mystery



by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

After what feels like a very long time — but really is about 18 months — I’ve finally come to the make-or-break portion of development: the mystery. I know what happened at the center of this story, but now I have to figure out how someone would try to unravel it.

So I find myself cramming a number of investigative reporting. I’m reading Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey’s “She Said.” I’m reading Ronan Farrow’s “Catch and Kill.” And I’m listening to the Crooked Media podcast “Wind of Change.” The latter is interesting because it involves music and the CIA. Which, given the conceit of the novel, is very useful. The more I listen to it, the more I feel I’m going to have to give it a shoutout in the Author’s Note.

But the major issue is I’ve come up with a very complex situation that I have to unravel slowly through investigation. I have to think of different ways to do all of this believably. But it’s also all very much outside my comfort zone. Even when I was a reporter, I wasn’t a very good one. So, I have to really learn a lot of things about investigative reporting that I know nothing about.

And, yet, that’s kind of the crux of the story. The part I don’t know anything about.

I have a huge amount of reading to do about character, investigation and leadership — just to name a few things. That is going to slow me down some, but hopefully not too much. I’m still on track to start writing again no later than June 1st.

There Will Be Unprecedented Political Violence In The Fall



by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

When the history books are written, it won’t be COVID19 that 2020-2021 is remembered for, it will be the waves of political violence that will terrorize America.

The death toll may grow so shocking that we will all turn our heads in shame.

It will likely be 40 years from now, of course, because, lulz, it will all go down the memory hole in Trump’s second term. AOC will have to overthrow House Trump in 2060 in a popular uprising before the true extent of the MAGA violence that destroyed the United States will ultimately be understood.

Trump will be on Twitter egging MAGA on during all of it. His goal will be to get a second term and he will get it. Or, if somehow, miraculously, Electors don’t vote for Trump, then Trump will order MAGA to murder even more people as we struggle to figure out how to get him physically out of the White House.

And even if we do get him out of the White House, a new MAGA Deep State will do everything in its power to bring down the new Biden Administration. And, in the end, it will be President Tom Cotton or President Mike Flynn or President Mike Pompeo who ultimately ends the Republic.

It’s over. Get out while you can.

Trump’s Second Term



by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Here’s what’s happening in Trump’s second term.

A Media Purge
A wide-range of people Trump doesn’t like will no longer be seen on TV. It will range from Don Lemon to Stephen Colbert. They will rather abruptly vanish from the airwaves, never to be seen again.

A Political Purge
The “Q” predictions will finally come true and Barr will indict a wide-range of people House Trump doesn’t like. If that doesn’t happen, then ICE will simply “vanish” these people and, lulz, who’s going to say anything about it by that point?

A Constitutional Convention
Soon after Trump is sworn in again, he’s going to demand a Constitutional Convention to “pass a balanced budget amendment.” Given that Republican-dominated State legislatures would pick these people, it will quickly go rogue and a whole rang of MAGA concepts will be thrown into the mix. Trump will rant at every opportunity to the members of the Convention as to what he feels he absolutely needs and he will get all of it. And, remember, it’s not so much Trump but his successor all of this is for. So, it will be President Mike Flynn who gets the 10 year term and whatever else MAGA needs to turn us into nothing more than an English speaking version of Putin’s Russia.

This is our future. I simply don’t see any scenario where these things don’t happen. I guess it’s at least possible we might have about two years of a Biden Administration, but that would be nothing more than a death rattle.

Republicans will get the house back in 2022 and do a legal coup that somehow ends up with Tom Cotton being president for 10 years.

All I can say is, get out of the country.

The Real Danger Of Trump’s Insanity



by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Trump is slowly going completely insane. I always thought he would either implode or explode mentally. But now I think something far worst is likely to happen — he’s simply going to take us places we never imagined might happen.

For instance, what if Trump tells Barr to indict Obama and / or Biden in October? That’s pretty insane — and would likely hurt Trump politically — but once you see those two being booked, there’s no going back. I guess Trump would try to make the point that you can’t indict HIM if he’s ever an ex-president, but, really, once the genii is out of the bottle, there’s no telling where things will go.

But that’s just one of a number of ways that Trump’s enablers might lulz his obvious insanity and bring everything down because he has no accountability. So, Trump may do insane things and there simply will be no going back once they’re done — even if somehow Biden manages to become president (which I doubt is even possible at this point.)

So, that’s the real outcome of Trump being insane. He will continue in office for years and years, setting up a new norm that The Kooch, or Tom Cotton, or Steve King or Mike Pomepo or Mike Flynn or whatever else racist autocrat manages to be his successor.

Autocrats Always Win



by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Ultimately, what is going to happen in the fall is if Trump loses in a landslide, he is going to begin to intemidate individual Electors on Twitter. He will dox them. He will sick MAGA on them.

The point is, Trump is never leaving office for any reason.

He could lose the popular vote in a huge landslide and “legally” win by simply scaring the shit out of Electors so they vote for him. I see no scenario where this does not happen.

Or, put another way, if somehow Biden DOES get the Electoral votes necessary to become president, his first 100 days will pretty much just be dealing with unprecedented, rolling political violence. Post-Election violence will be so severe that it will be THAT, not COVID19 that 2020-2021 is remembered for.

So, I just don’t see any way Trump doesn’t win. I just don’t see any way that the fascists don’t win and we’re little more than a managed democracy like Putin’s Russia.

Prove me wrong, people.