Month: September 2020

On Being A ‘Radical Moderate’


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I am not a Leftist. In fact, I find it rather annoying that the only people right now taking the United States’ decent into a fascist managed democracy are Leftists. So, as I look for people to join with to figure out what to do in real life about MAGA-Qanon actually beginning to implement their fascist agenda in the United States, I’m not finding a lot of people to talk to.

I’ve come to believe I’m a “radical moderate.” What this means is I simply want things to go back to what they were in 2016. I don’t want to shit on America or rant about identity politics or “slay the patriarchy,” I just want a liberal democracy with a functioning political system.

It should not be that big a deal. But, tragically, it obviously is.

The reason why I think radical moderation is important is there are millions of Americans who don’t give a shit about scoring points on Twitter. All they care about is raising their kids, paying their mortgage and keeping their jobs. As such, should the worst happen, they are the people who are going to make the final decision about America’s fate.

If they just don’t care that tanks are rolling down their streets now or the only appeal they hear from people hoping to save what’s left of the Republic is how shitty America is, there’s a chance they will be so turned off that they will lulz it. Now, I know a lot of mainstream Democrats essentially are already giving a rather policy-driven approach to these types of people, but that’s a political solution.

When politics finally dies in the United States — probably because of dueling presidents — things are going to grow existential pretty quick. Appeals to this huge swath of Americas will be moot because it won’t be policy we’re fighting over, it will be for the soul of the country.

But it may be too late. The logic and moment for tyranny is well established. It may be that there isn’t even that much of a struggle when House Trump finally turns us into a Russian-style autocratic managed democracy.

I just don’t know what to say about that prospect. Sometimes, you have to make your own hope, I guess.

The Fate of FOX News HQ In NYC Is The Canary In The Coal Mine


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I really, really don’t want a civil war of any sort in the United States, but I can’t help myself when it comes to wargaming how it might occur. A key issue is what people aren’t ready for is when Red States believe Trump is president and Blue States think Biden is president and, on a state level, those governments begin to act accordingly.

Now, I know the U.S. Military has said that they won’t do anything to determine who the president is if there is some question — and there will be — but they didn’t say anything about putting down a rebellion of the people who absolutely don’t think Trump (or Biden) is president.

Here’s one possible sequence of events.

Trump “wins” reasonably late in the post-election process, probably with a favorable decision from the Supreme Court. The whole thing is so ham-handed and poorly executed on the part of House Trump that on a pure optics level, it will seem to Blue States that Trump stole the election (which he did.) The populations of Blue States — mostly in cities — will grow so enraged by this theft that they will begin to take it upon themselves to make their anger clear.

It makes a lot of sense that one place where this might happen is NYC. That’s the center of media in the United States and both FOX News and the WSJ are located there. It’s very easy to imagine a situation where the population of the city grows so angry that they loot both headquarters (or worse) and the journalists there are forced to decamp to a Red State.

That would be the pretext for a House Trump crackdown on the Blue States. House Trump would assume they could do a knockout blow — and maybe they could — but it’s also possible that a la the beginnings of the original civil war the first round of victories on the part of Trumplandia will only happen because the Blue States are struggling to get their act together. As the crisis deepens, Blue State leaders with a clear vision as to what to do will bubble up to the surface and things grow far more complicated for everyone involved.

These leaders could come from any area of society. Once politics dies, then everything is throw up in the air and it’s not a matter of who you are, it’s matter of what you can do.

One last note — House Trump is going to shut down the media altogether soon after any major political violence begins. That could go as far as shutting down the Internet itself until they can purge people they don’t like.

While, yes, this will definitely give House Trump a “first mover advantage,” if they make it more difficult for people to look at online porn, the average person might sit up and take notice that their lives are demonstrably different.

I think I’m deluding myself, though.

Seems like there’s just too much momentum on the side of tyranny. The bad guys have won. Not until I see Twitter liberals begin to make plans for some pretty fucked up things in real life will I think there may be any hope. We’re fucked. It’s over.

Leave the country if you can.

Review: Exposition, Thy Name Is ‘Tenet’


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I am a very harsh critic of movies. I am known to walk out of movies the moment I feel they’re not working. So, in a sense, Tenet got the ultimate honor from me — I stuck around to see how it ended.

The issue for me about Tenet was it was an excellent premise with a piss-poor implementation. I say this specifically because virtually all the dialog is exposition. And there’s very little character development. I struggled to care about these characters. In fact, the only reason why I cared about anything that took place was the premise was so intriguing that I wanted to see how it ultimately was wrapped up.

I did love the movie’s cinematography. It was Oscar-worthy it was so good. That was another thing the movie had going for it during the otherwise interminable exposition — I loved how the movie looked.

It was interesting that the inciting incident happened in the first scene. Why this is important is if Christopher Nolan had gone with a more traditional structure for the movie, then maybe there could have been more character development. Then when the action started, I would have had some sense of the characters and cared one way or another what happened to them.

I understand Nolan’s vision — he wanted to make a really thought provoking movie. And he did. The movie IS really thought provoking. The only problem is, at least for me, is the movie would have been far more grounded if it was a bit more traditional. I think, maybe, the problem was a screenplay. Not only is much of the screenplay consumed by exposition, but what exposition there is is extremely confusing to the point of being unintelligible.

As a person writing a novel, I found myself thinking up a way not only to explain what was going on better, but to do so in a way that gave me time to have actual dialog. This problem of dialog-as-exposition was so bad that the movie went from really interesting, innovative action set pieces to going to a stand still so people could explain the movie to us. It was just really dull. And not in a 2001-dull-but-brilliant way, either. It was just dull. There were so many other ways that exposition could have been presented that would have made the movie far more engaging and accessible.

It’s as if Nolan studied Inception and decided what made that movie popular was audiences enjoying trying to figuring what was going on. There are plenty of ways the movie could have been more straightforward and still have been just as intriguing AND would have entertained audiences. Just because you jumbled up a movie’s conceit, doesn’t mean it’s “smart.” It’s just really irritating because you’re making the audience think far more than is necessary.

I think I’m being a little too snobbish because I’m writing a novel and I want it to be really, really, really accessible, so when someone like Nolan goes out of his way to do the opposite it grates on my nerves.

I have to give a shout out to Elizabeth Debick’s “pins” as the Brits would say. It was amusing that the producers went WAAAAY out of their way to feature those sky high legs of hers. She’s a real stunner.

In general, Tenet was a good movie and I recommend it. I just feel as though it was something of a miss opportunity. It could have been a whole lot better if they had simply followed traditional storytelling conventions.

Mulling Two Prequels


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I am nervous that I’m going to put all my creative eggs in one basket with these two novels I’m working on, so of course I decide that I want to write two prequels. I am still very interested in writing a screenplay, but the universe I’ve come up with for this novel is so expansive that two prequels would work very well.

The reason why I want to write two prequels is I have really thought out two major events that took place before the beginning of the story I’m currently working on. I love these characters so much that I’m willing to write two prequels to explain exactly how they got where they are when things open in the two novels I’m working on right now.

As it grows more and more certain that Trump is going to “not lose” the 2020 election, the universe I’ve come up with grows more and more appealing. I think a lot of very angry people are going to be interested in the conceit of this universe.

Anyway, I’m still on track to wrap up a first draft of the first book of this two book story by around Election Day. I’m nervous that I’m going to be so upset by Trump “not losing” the election that I’ll be zonked out for three months like I was in 2016.

I just hope I have a window of opportunity with artistic expression before the boom falls and even a novel such as mine won’t be able to get published — or even considered — because it goes against Der Fuhrer.

Predictions Of The Near Future


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Here are some predictions made from things we know are true now and then projecting their logical conclusion into the future.

  1. Kanye West As Jim Jones
    As some point in the near future, Kanye West is going to finally go completely bonkers in a destructive way. He already has all the elements of a cult leader and it makes sense that in the near future, he will finally jump into the void. So, the first step is he might establish some sort of compound for his followers. Then, next thing you know, a lot of people endup dead. A side prediction is things grow REALLY weird and Kanye slams into Qanon and, well, lulz.
  2. Millie Bobby Brown — 14 going on 24
    I’m a fan of Miss Brown, but she’s only 14 or so now. She really, really wants to be an adult. On one level, it’s inspiring to young girls and on the other, it’s really fucking dark. I don’t know when it will actually happen or how, but Miss Brown is just a girl and she’s hanging out with a bunch of horny adults — to the point of getting a “producer” credit — and human nature being what it is, I fear a tragedy of some sort may occur. It may come out 20 years from now in a tell-all memoir, but it WILL come out. As Drew Barrymore can attest — Hollywood is a cruel mistress to young children and some pretty fucked up things are bound to happen involving Miss Brown. But, lulz, it’s not like I can do anything about it.
  3. Trump “Wins” The 2020 Election
    This is an easy one. Trump is absolutely going to win, or maybe “not lose” is better, the 2020 Election. Don’t know the details, but all I know is come Jan 20th, 2021, he’s getting sworn in and that’s that. If that doesn’t happen, then there will be severe political violence in the United States, to the point that it’s marketed in the press as “the Second American Civil War.”
  4. The United States Will Leave NATO, Allies With Russia
    Connected to the above prediction, the United States is going to leave NATO and form an alliance with Russia. As part of this, Trumplandia will make an aggressive move to pull out all of our troops from all over the globe. China will rise to superpower status and the United States will implode into little more than a mixture of a first world Venezuela mixed with Apartheid South Africa and Russia.
  5. Constitutional Convention
    At some point in the near future, House Trump will codify Trumplandia and demand a Constitutional Convention. By this point, the press will have been purged and so, lulz, fuck you. A doublespeak “Second Bill of Rights” will be pushed through and Trump will be free to stay in office for the rest of his life. At some point, we’ll simply get used to a Trump being POTUS or Veep as a way of life. This will continue for about 40 years until the dead hand of demographics makes it untenable.
  6. Qanon As American Khmer Rouge
    At some point in the near future, Qanon and MAGA will fuse so absolutely that even otherwise “normal” people will have Qanon talking points at the ready. This may lead to a House Trump actively encouraging Qanon people to murder liberals in cold blood. House Trump may not actively participate, but once the press is nothing but OANN, they can simply look on as crazed, bloodthirsty Qanon people attempt to empty the cities and fill American Killing Fields with the bodies of liberals. This is kind of extreme to suggest it might happen, but the conditions for it to happen definitely will be there soon enough.

Autocrats Never Lose


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It’s now self-evident that win, lose or draw, Trump is never leaving power. Never. He will burn the country to the ground — even go so far as to incite a civil war — rather than leave office.

In a sense, one of the worst case scenarios is Trump “wins” on Election Night and he continues to have a thin veneer of being a normal politician. While a lot of center-Left people will be upset — even to the point of violence — it will all be moot. Things will continue to seem “normal,” but the march to an autocratic managed democracy will only accelerate. He will continue to do the same bullshit he’s been doing for the last four years. It’s likely that his extremes will be more, well, extreme.

The press will be purged.
The United States will leave NATO.
There will be a Constitutional Convention.

All these things will follow the same, predictable cycle we’ve grown acustomed to. Twitter liberals — while they still exist — will joke about what Trump wants. Identity politics people will coo what a genius Nancy Pelosi is. And, in the end, Trump will get what he wants. Maybe not exactly in the way he wanted it, but the point will be made.

Once the Constitutional Convention happens, it grows more difficult for me to predict what will happen. Trump is old and deranged, so may be he’d name Don Jr or Ivanka as his successor? Or maybe there will simply be a succession of Trumps in either the POTUS or Veep slot for the next 40 odd years under the new, authoritarian Constitution.

Of course, there is the off chance that Trump has to force the issue of his re-election and the country implodes. It will be a tragedy with no obvious end game. But it may happen. I really don’t want any type of political violence, but Trump is such a moron that he might bungle what is otherwise a sure shot for him.

I just don’t see MAGA-Qanon accepting anything but total victory, so if a lot of things are obvious about MAGA-Qanon will become increasingly more difficult for Twitter liberals to ignore. MAGAQ is likely to start murdering people who oppose them in cold blood, even if Trump “wins” and continues playing coy about his real intentions.

The point is, we’re completely, totally fucked.

Trump’s popularity is unchanged despite the massive clusterfuck that is time in office. There is something existential and structural wrong with the United States and there’s simply nothing that can fix it.

Things are dark and going to get far, far darker in the coming years.

Blue States Are In A Better Position Than You Think Should A Second Civil War Occur


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I really, really don’t want a civil war. I will note that while this blog gets about 100 views a day, I’m getting a minor uptick from Red States of people obviously stroking to the idea of a civil war.

This is surreal to me.

The reason is, if you look at the state of play in the country on opening day of any prospective civil war, Blue States are in a lot better strategic situation than you might think. A lot depends on what the goals of any such civil war might be. Remember, Trump is likely to have the military and first mover advantage, so he could very well serve Blue States a knock out blow before they could figure out what they wanted.

But let’s suppose the war aims of Blue States were not to leave the Union, but to unite the country under their banner a la the First American Civil War. While there might be a lot of talk about Blue States leaving the Union, I find that as a war aim is dubious.

The first thing I see when I see a realpolitik map of the United States is how weak the Red States are. That’s why it’s so dumb that Red State people are so eager to start killing people in the name of the Dear Leader. They are playing a really weak hand well because American politics is broken and the moment we’re not talking about politics but war, then the dynamic is totally different.

It’s easy to see how much of the country is Red and simply assume Red States could easily overwhelm the smaller (in geographic terms) the Blue States. The problem with this thinking is Red State people are conflating their political edge with an edge on the battlefield.

In real terms, it’s easy to imagine Blue forces from the West blitzkrieging across, say, Montana and linking up with other Blue forces in the Mid-West. While states like Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan are “Purple” state politically, I seriously doubt if things became life-or-death that they would go Red. There would likely be a lot of political violence in the process of throwing their lot with the Blue states, but it would happen.

Anyway, I could imagine through sheer brute force Blue forces taking the entire Great Plains and Rocky Mountain areas pretty quick.

Now, this when you might say — but what about the South?

That’s a very curious situation. On one hand, the old CSA has a regional memory of rebellion, and, yet, there are two factors that make that not as clear cut as you might think.

One, is race. During the First American Civil War, if you weren’t a freed slave fighting for the Union, you were pretty docile on a macro level. But I seriously doubt a replay of that. The moment Southern Whites using the current political dominance to begin implementing their MAGAQ agenda, something akin to a race war might break out. That, in itself, would greatly weaken the ability of what is otherwise a pretty densely populated part of the country from being easily defended.

Another issue for the old CSA states — especially Texas and portions of Florida — is once things grew existential, there are a lot of moderate people there that would be aghast at the prospect of essentially American Nazis taking over their states. This is a dynamic that would lead a number of old CSA states to implode.

Speaking of imploding states, I suspect within days of any Second American Civil War erupting, Virginia would implode rather dramatically. Virginia is two states — one Red, one Blue — and they hate each other. So, it’s easy to imagine the state becoming completely ungovernable on a political level because the rural parts of the state would rebel against the urban, progressive portions of the state. Things would grow more murky, as well, because of the historical connection Virginia has to the CSA. I could see a lot of Red militants wanting to control cultural touchstones like Richmond and Danville so they could have a link to the past.

One area where Red States (MAGAQ) would have a serious advantage at the beginning of any such civil war is leadership. Add to this MAGAQ being a personality death cult and they would, at first, likely appear to consolidate their power quite quickly. But it’s human nature that even your fey latte swilling hipsters would rise to the occasion if they were staring death in the face. Some basic aspects of human behavior have not changed, no matter how much MAGAQ think they have a monopoly on such things.

But I doubt things would be this clear cut, especially in the beginning. As I said, Trump would have control of the military and a rabid, bloodthirsty 38% of the electorate to turn to. So, it’s possible there would be a knockout blow and there would just be simmering political resentment as Trump turned America into Russia on a political level.

And, yet, Trump is such a fucking moron, that it’s equally easy to see him somehow bungling a sure thing to dramatically that the necessary political and military moves needed for Blue States to engage in a pitched battle with Red States could take place.

But the above is really the absolute worst case scenario.

More likely, everything will be wrapped up on Election Night and we’ll just gradually, in fits and starts, turn ourselves into Russia. Or, put another way, the harder it is for Trump to win, the more radical he will become and the chances of an actual civil war breaking out increase.

Autocrats never lose.

The Inevitable, Tragic End Of The American Free Press


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The clock is ticking on the American press. I give it about a year at this point. Once Trump steals the 2020 election, there won’t be, in real terms, any political accountability for him anymore. As such, he will go after the only form accountability he has left — the press.

It seems logical that using a variety of methods, from brute force to sympathetic “German industrialists,” the “fake news” that is the “enemy of the people” will be gutted. It will likely happen extremely quickly and without any warning of explanation.

We’ll just wake up on day and mysteriously, there will suddenly be all new late night talk show hosts. CNN and MSNBC will have new owners. The New York Times and Washington Post will mysteriously have new owners as well. Then, the Internet will be fucked with, to the point where Facebook and Twitter will make it “against community standards” to talk shit about House Trump at all.

And, really, if need be, Trump will simply sick MAGAQ on the HQs of these media companies and murder anyone necessary to get the point across.

OANN will be the only thing we can watch and, generally, American entertainment will be completely mum on politics. And there’s a chance that Hollywood might decamp to another country if things get too hot.

That’s the future. This is going to happen.

The only way it might not is if Trump, I don’t know, raises taxes or becomes a Muslim.

Otherwise, lulz.

Twitter Liberals Are Delusional


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Fascism is here. The United States is an autocratic managed democracy. We are Russia. Russia is us.

The only thing that may give us a momentary pause in this state is Trump himself. Every macro trend, every metric indicates not only will there not be a free and fair election in November, but if somehow Biden overcomes the odds and is actually legally sworn in, that will be the beginning of something akin to a civil war.

I say this because MAGA-Qanon no longer believes in liberal democracy. In fact, they don’t even believe in politics at all. They only believe in power and how to keep it. They somehow they can’t keep power using the thin veneer of politics, then they’ll just start murdering anyone who gets in the way.

The surreal element to all of this is given how weak the center-Left is in the United States, MAGAQ could pretty much get everything they wanted long-term and there wouldn’t, in real terms, be that much resistance to it. They go even go so far as to allow a free-and-fair election, lose and then turn around and get power again to finish the job.

But they’re greedy and inpatient.

They have become so overcome with their own overwrought rhetoric, that if they don’t get what they want as quickly as possible, they’re willing to burn the country to the ground in the hopes that they can get it anyway. The issue with this is, there are lot of conservative-but-not-MAGAQ who might, finally, distance themselves from MAGAQ if this happened. That the entire fate of 240 years of American democracy rests on this possibility doesn’t exactly make me feel great.

Every day, it definitely seems as though Trump is either going to win outright on Election Night, or soon there after. Then what already exists — America as an autocratic managed democracy — will become more and more difficult for Twitter liberals to deny.

As such, all my nightmare scenarios will come true gradually over the next four years, to such an extent that the election of 2024 — if it happens — will have an identical dynamic to any election in Putin’s Russia.

This is our future. I simply don’t see any possible way it is not.

The media will be purged one way or another. People will be snatched off the street across the country. Notable critics of House Trump will be pushed out of windows. Without a press to report any of this, how are we going to know?

Again, really, it’s Trump’s own craven stupidity that might pause our current fascist, autocratic managed democracy, but it’s not going to end it. I hate to say this, but, really, in a sense, the absolute worst case scenario — actual civil war — is, in a way, the only way we MIGHT get past any of this.

I don’t want a civil war. I’m a man of peace and ideas.

All I’m saying is, if both sides stop believing in politics, then Blue States are in a far stronger position than they might realize. MAGAQ has the advantage right now because they’re using the broken American political system to consolidate power. But if the average American has to do a gut check about what they believe in, if they’re FORCED to pay attention to current events for no other reason than tanks are rolling down their street, there’s a chance, maybe that the “good guys” might win in the end.

But, really, that’s an extremely sad state of affairs when out of desperation you look around and see a civil war as the only way to…eventually…put the country back together.

I really don’t expect that to happen. And don’t want it.

What’s going to happen is we’re going to be under the yoke of tyranny for about 40 years. Then the dead hand of demographics is going to make the MAGAQ regime’s hold on the nation a least a little bit less absolute.

It’s over. America is no more. We’re simply a vassal state of Russia and will continue to be so, probably, for the rest of my life.

Wargaming The Coming Second American Civil War


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’m pretty good at scenarios. I spend a lot of my time daydreaming about different historical scenarios. That’s my thing. That’s my jam. When it comes to the prospect of a Second American Civil War, things grow difficult even for me. There are just so many different variables that I can’t pace out. So many things that haven’t been decided yet.

And, really, the thing to keep in mind is what may simply be unprecedented political violence that is simply marketed as a “civil war,” when, in fact, it’s more like the “Troubles” in Northern Ireland. Another important thing to contemplate is a sign of how our political system has collapsed that Republicans are increasingly turning to violence, even though they could probably get everything they wanted if they continued to stay within the conventions of liberal democracy.

Anyway, just for simplicity, let’s assume the “civil war” starts because there are dueling presidents. On Jan. 20th, both sides absolutely believe they have an absolutely legitimate claim to the throne, to the point that CNN has a split screen of rival swearing in ceremonies.

The thing we have to keep in mind is Trump (and Barr) would rather destroy the United States than leave office. As such, if there was significant political violence in January (or before) it’s easy to see Trump working with the U.S. Military to abolish Blue State governments because they are in a “state of rebellion.”

Or, there’s the other option where the U.S. Military absolutely refuses to get involved in domestic political affairs and bloodthirsty MAGA-Qanon mobs bgin to murder liberals at every opportunity.

Another thing to remember is Americans are so absolute in some basic assumptions that we’re simply not prepared. It’s easy to imagine Trump nationalizing the National Guard and using them to purge the national media. This would be recorded and there might be significant violence as the residents of NYC swarm the area to defend freedom of speech. That, in turn, would give Trump the pretext to declare martial law in the city.

Or, put another way, it’s likely that no matter how the “civil war” starts, one of the first things to go will be the press in major urban areas. I don’t think we really appreciate how taunt America is right now — and how bloodthirsty MAGA-Qanon has become — so a “soft target” like the HQ of CNN or MSNBC (or The New York Times) might be simply too inciting. But, again, the heart of the US media is in Deep Blue NYC, so there could be significant death surrounding this inevitability.

Once the final bolts pop off civil society in the United States, the country will implode. One really big unknown is the African American community, especially in the South. It is logical to assume MAGA-Qanon will, essentially, try to stoke a race war of some sort and that would unleash a dynamic that no one — especially MAGA-Qanon — would be prepared for.

But the thing we really need to mull is out totally out of control all of this will be. Trump will have the entire power of the U.S. Government at his disposal, but after the initial shock wears off, it’s at least possible that a lot of conservative-but-not-MAGA people might sit up and take notice and break in a rather unexpected fashion. Or not. I may be deluding myself on that one.

Another issue is land density.

This is why MAGA-Qanon refusing to work within the norms of politics is so dumb. If the initial sucker punch isn’t a knock-out blow, it’s easy to imagine a situation where the Blue States organize and go on a counter-offense of some sort. Given that Trump is completely bonkers now and it’s all a lulz, that really opens up some pretty astonishing possibilities.

And, it really makes you wonder if the goal of the civil union would be Union or what. Would Blue States simply want the opportunity to leave the Union, or would the whole thing turn into “who gets control of the USA brand?”

There’s just so much I can’t determine right now.

And, really, this could all be rather moot. We’re already a fascist state and it could be that we’ll simply continue to lurch into an autocratic managed democracy in fits and starts as suits Trump’s vanity.