Month: November 2020

An Election Day 2020 Nightmare Scenario


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Right now, it seems as though Trump and Trump alone has not only his own fate, but the fate of the United States, in his hands. Since he’s a deranged moron, obviously he doesn’t give a shit about the United States. As such, here’s a scenario.

At the earliest possible moment, Trump announces he’s won. At the same time, the MAGA-Qanon base begins to firebomb strategic polling locations across the country.

JFK Jr pops out of the top of Trump’s head and we all live in peace and harmony for a 1,000 years under the benevolent rule of Q. I may have made that last part up.

Anyway, the point is — there are ways whereby Trump “doesn’t lose” because there’s not a free and fair election. The question, of course, is, will it just be seen as extreme version of the 2000 situation, or something much, much darker. I honestly don’t know.

I just don’t know what the endgame is.

Let Me Be Clear


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

In case there are any fascist police looking at this site, thinking I’m some sort of Antifa mastermind — please get a grip. I’m a man of peace and a man of ideas. I absolutely hate violence.

I do have principles, however.

If that means getting snatched off the street by an ICE agent, so be it. I don’t really expect to be snatched off the street by a regular police officer — what have I done? — but I guess in our new autocratic America anything is possible.

TrumpBarr’s Three Prong Coup


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

  1. Sue
    This prong involves suing everything that moves the instant they can. The Trump Campaign is already doing this, but they will go into overdrive the moment the polls close on Election Night. They know SCOTUS is their failsafe, no matter what, so there you go — they will win.
  2. Violence
    This prong will be something of a suckerpunch. Between now and Election Night MAGA-Qanon will amp up the violence and disruptions to the point that a lot of people who might otherwise vote, won’t. Trump wins there, too.
  3. Barr
    This would be Barr somehow giving Trump’s sketchy coup activities just enough of a legal justification that conservatives-who-aren’t-MAGA will have some sort of talking point to make themselves feel better.

    All of this is going to happen very, very quickly now. If they’re successful, Trump could “win” and it’ll just be an extreme version of 2000. If they aren’t as successful as they think they otherwise could be, then, well, we have a civil war or revolution.

    Good luck.

The Dark Reason Why The Russians May Not Save Trump


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I have been so busy thinking about how valuable Trump is to the Russians that I totally missed something — maybe they have come to believe that Trump is such a craven idiot that he will be more destructive if he actually loses. In that case, they don’t have to fuck with votes — even though they might still do it.

They just sit back and watch Trump be, well, Trump.

He stages a coup and either way the Russians get what they want. Either he is successful and America is nothing more than autocratic Trumplandia or he fails and we have to go through The Big Ugly.

The one thing we have to be clear about, though, Barr is likely going to give Trump a thin veneer of legality for any coup he may attempt.

I can’t believe any of this is real. I hope I’m wrong. I really do. I don’t want this. I only keep coming up with worse case scenarios to make myself feel better.

‘Red Alert’


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It’s deep to see very real indications that all your dark scenarios may be coming true. I think the thing that a lot of people missed about the massive clusterfuck we may be about to enter is the role of Trump himself to force the issue. It seems like there’s been a lot of “Oh, that would never happen” going on.

Welp.

So, as I can discern, here’s TrumpBarr’s gameplan. Even if it’s extremely obvious that Biden is going to win outright, the moment Trump has any good news he declares victory.

Then, in one fell swoop, American politics is suspended and we enter Coup Dynamics. We enter The Big Ugly. What I mean by that is, Trump uses a combination of MAGA-Qanon violence and Barr legal skullduggery to “not lose” the election.

So, weirdly enough, we would have a similar situation as to what happened in Belarus where the autocrat “won” by 98% of the vote by everyone knew that was a lie and took to the streets. The unnerving issue is we’re careening towards a massive 9/11 level suckerpunch.

The thinking on the part of TrumpBarr is they use any violence — even if it’s from their own supporters — to use the Insurrection Act to seize “total control.” They shut down voting and use SCOTUS to give themselves a thin veneer of legality so the conservative-but-not-MAGA part of the electorate will simply shrug and go back to enjoying their tax breaks and young, hack MAGA judges.

At this point, their thinking is through sheer force of will they can “not lose” the election just like Bush did in 2000.

For me, the issue is American self-perception. Americans have never in our 240-odd history gone through an actual coup. So it will be interesting to see how such an unprecedented event hits the American psyche.

Americans are so God-awful complacent — and so absolutely polarized — that even if it’s self-evident to 60% of the electorate that coup is taking place, 40% of the electorate will say, “but Trump is legally president.”

So that might be the outcome — nothing more than an extreme version of 2000. Instead of the center-Left thinking in vague terms the election was stolen, they will think THE ELECTION WAS STOLEN VIA COUP. Meanwhile, the center-Right will simply shrug and tell us we have Trump Derangement Syndrome.

In that case, it would be a draw and, by definition, a victory for TrumpBarr. I guess they key takeaway is do not think in terms of traditional politics. TrumpBarr is going to fight dirty. We have to be prepared.

A Big Ugly Scenario


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

  1. Biden wins handily on Election Night, but not all votes are counted.
  2. Trump sues Wednesday morning to throw out all mail-in votes and wins because, lulz, SCOTUS is full of MAGA hack nows.
  3. Within moments of the SCOTUS decision, enraged New Yorkers attack Trump Tower and FOX News’ HQ
  4. This allows Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act to take “total control.”
  5. Unprecedented political violence begins to erupt, to the point that Blue people in Red states and Red people in Blue states don’t feel safe anymore — domestic political refugees begin to bounce around the country.
  6. There’s a secession crisis as California openly debates leaving the Union. This is where things grow hard to predict — does the state attempt to leave or does it stay and fight?
  7. The entire country begins to implode as even individuals within the U.S. Military begin to take sides.
  8. Two rival governments are established. One in NYC and one in Montgomery, Alabama. (The DC area has completely imploded into civil war.)
  9. Virginia and Florida completely implode as intra-state regional differences are hardened and exaggerated as both Blue and Red grow ever more radicalized.
  10. I have no idea what the endgame for this would be.

Donald Trump: Flight Risk


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’m still not prepared to believe the Russians would allow Trump to lose. It makes no sense. Why allow such a valuable asset to be forced out of power? Why not hack into our election systems then “accidentally on purpose” get found out. A civil war breaks out when Republicans lulz this and win at SCOTUS. The Russians get the destruction of their main geopolitical foe.

But, let’s daydream. Let’s play pretend.

Politico recently did an article on Trump being a possible “flight risk.” I haven’t read the article — just saw the headline — so maybe they covered this already, but let’s mull where Trump might go.

There are two obvious places — Moscow and Pyongyang.

The reason Trump might leave the country is simple: he doesn’t want to go to prison. Now, of course, given how Trump and Senate Republicans have turned 1/3 of the Federal bench into a MAGA cheering squad, it’s easy to imagine a situation where SCOTUS not only validates Trump pardoning himself, but somehow pulls some bullshit explanation for why he can’t be indicted for state crimes, either.

That definitely seems a lot more likely than Trump leaving the country in a rather astonishing — and historic — fashion before January 20th.

But if Trump did do something so bonkers, flying to Moscow on AF1 then quitting right before January 20th definitely seems the most obvious. He would have the biggest country in the world to play with and he could spill all the state secrets he liked directly to the Russians.

I wouldn’t completely dismiss the DPRK, however. I say this because Trump definitely seems to have a personal affinity for “Little Rocket Man” and it would make a lot of sense for him to at least begin his post-presidential career hanging out with Kim Jung Un for a few months before flying to Moscow.

The only reason why I doubt Trump would do such a thing — even if he is a deranged moron — is even he knows because of SCOTUS he could beat any state rap and staying in the country would allow him to fuck with future elections and become the political Singularity of the Republican Party.

And, yet, Trump is a deranged moron.

So, I dunno.