Month: December 2020

Why A Second American Civil War Would Be Far Worst Than People Imagine


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

At the moment, at least, America is on edge. Because of the Texas suit at SCOTUS right now, pretty much the entire country is worried that the Court will take it up, rule in Texas’ favor and Trump will “not lose.” I say this knowing that using virtually any metric, the case is pretty much just a publicity stunt.

Me, 2024.

And, yet, it is easy to imagine that everything goes wrong for America. The case is heard, SCOTUS rules in Texas’ favor and Trump “doesn’t lose.” It definitely seems that on a political level, at least this is a very rea possibility. The whole point of the Trump’s three SCOTUS appointments was to ensure they voted for him in just this specific situation. I see a 6-3 vote in Trump’s favor if SCOTUS actually hears the case — which it still may not.

Then what?

Well, my guess is a sudden wave of rolling political violence across the country would force a huge amount of domestic political refugees. Reds in Blue states and Blues and Red state would bounce around until they felt safe. And THAT is the thing people who are so eager for a civil war don’t realize — once the two sides consolidate any civil war is going to get pretty bloody pretty quick.

Our future.

Add to this that it’s possible not not even the U.S. Military will avoid a division into Blue and Red and, well, not only is the United States fucked, but the entire world. As soon as we have our Fort Sumter moment and the fighting begins, four or five regional wars across the globe will break out.

So, really, pretty much the fate of humanity will then be at risk because of a failed TV gameshow host. Places like NYC might have a regular old revolution with some sort of Revolutionary government.

Soon enough, the two sides will get really radical and it goes without saying that the massive amounts of WMD floating around the United State will be inevitably seized by both groups and millions and millions of people will die in the ensuing civil war or revolution.

MAGA 2024.

The United States bombs — and gasses — itself into the stone age over the next 4 to 5 years until some sort of Man on a Horse pops up and unites the country again. Or something. I have no idea what would happen.

All I know is it would suck.

Trump’s Dangerous Game of Political Expectations


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

As I’ve said before, the United States is collectively boxing itself into a mental state where there HAS to be a civil war. It’s as if we’ve given up with politics at last. MAGA wants to kill liberals and liberals have resigned themselves to significant political violence.

Right now, Trump is doing everything in his power to make his true believers think he can still win. And, in a sense, he can — all he needs is one of his various asymmetrical attacks to work and he “doesn’t lose.”

But Trump being Trump, there’s zero strategic thought involved. He just doesn’t want to lose. If he was some sort of brilliant pol, he would take the L and wait until 2024 to make his comeback.

Yet Trump is a vicious ding-dong and so here we are.

The question is — what happens once it becomes clear that Trump isn’t going to win? Will MAGA simply freak out and start blowing shit up and murdering people? That’s kind of the question of the day right now. And if, say, the Texaas case at SCOTUS now goes Trump’s way, then it will be the other side that starts blowing shit up. I’ll be amazed if a honest-to-God civil war doesn’t erupt in the United States between now and Jan. 20th.

Trump is actively trying to destroy the United States because he wants to stay in power forever. So, the conditions are there now for that to happen.

If the United States descends into civil war / revolution then WW3 happens pretty quickly afterwards and millions die.

So, yeah, is America great again?

‘Cancel Culture,’ Incels & A Second American Civil War


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It boggles my mind that anyone would actually want a civil war in the United States. In fact, if a civil war as bad as I fear might happen, happened here in the United States, it would be compared to the French Revolution in regards to a mysterious tragedy.

Using almost every metric but one, the United States is a rock solid country that from the outside you would never think was beginning to implode. But, here we are. The problem with the United States right now is almost entirety political. It seems to me that if you talk to your average conservative-but-not-MAGA person, if a civil war did happen it would be in large part to how conservatives perceive cancel culture.

Conservatives are enraged by cancel culture because of their abstract fear that simply by being conservative, they risking having their life ruined. That cancel culture doesn’t even really exist outside of some #MeToo monsters who definitely deserved it, is lost on them.

But your typical conservative can, off the top of their head, give you a half a dozen “examples” of people they believe were just minding their own business being conservative and then had everything taken from them for just being political “unwoke.” That they think this is pretty much the engine of fear and rage that has gotten us to this point.

The other big problem that has eaten away at America’s foundations is white, blue collar men without a college education can’t get laid anymore. They can’t afford to get married and start a family. For them, the American Dream is long dead.

So, we got MAGA.

Now, there’s a third aspect to our impending doom — Donald J. Fucking Trump.

He’s America’s anti-Gorbachev, but with similar results in that he’s going to probably destroy the country he was elected to lead.

Through a combination of being a criminal ding-dong and a regular old traitor, Trump is apparently hell bent on forcing us into political violence. There’s no ready answer.

Just be ready for anything, I guess. If I’m forced to leave my home because of my politics, I’m heading north to NYC. That seems my best bet to make a difference if it comes to that.

America Is Boxing Itself Into A Civil War


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’ve seen enough — we’ve lurched perilously close to an actual civil war, not just a cold civil war like we have now. The United States is one unexpected event away from imploding, taking the entire world order with it.

It could be anything at this point — a SCOTUS decision, an assassination, an Oklahoma City-type bombing (or two) or some combination of all those things. Or, put another way, our chances of civil war / revolution have grown significantly worse in just the last few days.

It’s like we’re boxing ourselves into a situation where one has to happen one way or another. On a psychological basis, at least, we’ve cross the Rubicon on this issue.

Americans are going to start killing each other for political reasons. To the point that WMD might be used and / or the U.S. Military implodes as individual members go Blue or Red.

Let me note two things — I don’t want this. And two, I’m wrong all the time.

So, it could be we escape and punt the consequences of the collapse of our political system down the road one more presidential cycle — or we don’t.

There Will Be Blood Because Trump Is Not A Political Genius


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

As I have often mentioned, Romans hated kings. They REALLY hated kings. So, they never had a monarch. They had plenty of Emperors, but no Kings after the first few mythical ones.

So, for 240 odd years, Americans have had a lot of pride in living in a free country with the peaceful transfer of power via a Constitution. And, now, because of a very lazy ding-dong, we’re careening towards American self-perception being rattled in a very brazen, very disturbing fashion.

Republicans are so caught up in their personality death cult, that they are completely oblivious to strategic implications of Trump’s coup. If it’s successful there will be blood, as they say.

And I say this as a man of peace and ideas.

I hate violence of any sort. I hate guns. I hate conflict. I just want to live in a liberal democracy.

Anyway, the point is — if Trump was some sort of fucking political genius like The New York Times’ Maggie Haberman would have us believe, then he would have struck before the press called the election.

Now, if he somehow magically wins at SCOTUS — or scares the shit out of Electors so they vote for him — there will be blood. Real people with real lives, families and careers are going to get hurt.

So, in a sense, it’s because of Trump being a huge old ding-dong that we’re in this situation to begin with. If Trump really was playing 8-dimensional chess he would be smooth enough to do all of this without the risk of, well, the entire nation convulsing and descending into anarchy with a lot of guns and potentially WMD.

But what do I know. Maggie Haberman is the star reporter, not me.

Coup State Of Play — Rudy Strikes Back


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner


I hate being right. Especially about shit like this. But Rudy has struck again with his Stormy Daniels Disinformation Playbook. While Twitter liberals were gloating about his farting and melting, Rudy has keep this bullshit in the public eye.

So, here we are.

Rudy has pretty much boxed SCOTUS into just the corner he wanted to.

But, not quite. He’s boxed SCOTUS into a corner in the eyes of 48% of the population. Not so much for 52%. And now Trump is putting all his chips on SCOTUS for them to overturn the election in his favor.

This is exactly — EXACTLY — what I’ve been ranting about for months and months now. All the conditions are there for Trump, Rudy and his merry band of idiots to “catch the car.” ‘

It would be the biggest event in American history since 9/11. It would be, as I have often called it, a “political 9/11.”

We would all walk around in a daze for a few hours at the implications that an actual fucking coup took place in the United States. The reason why it seems clear that a revolution / civil war would happen at that point is the States is so divided that while half the electorate was spooging its pants at the news, the other half would start protesting, rioting and saying, “THIS WILL NOT STAND.”

Shit would get lit pretty quick.

The Storming of Trump Tower, Winter 2020.

And once Trump had his thin veneer of legality to hide behind, he would use the Insurrection Act to stay in power as long as he liked. Or, put another way, he would strangle the Constitution right in front of us all with even realizing what he had done.

As I have written repeatedly, what would probably happen is initially is there would be rolling political violence such that Blue people in Red States and Red people in Blue States would flee, making the difference in the two sides more clear. This would lead to radicalization.

It’s even possible that both the Far Right and the Far Left would size power here and there on a state and local level and form Revolutionary governments. I could see this happening in, say, New York City. And definitely in some parts of my state of Virginia.

It’s even possible that the U.S. Military itself could implode as things progressed. Then you have the potential for Balkanization in among the States and pretty much World War 3 happening around the world as suddenly the United States isn’t there to stop Iran from bombing Israel or the DPRK from bombing South Korea.

And don’t get me started about the DPRK deciding to strike the US homeland itself just out of spite.

Anyway, we have to take this seriously. We’ve entered the valley of the shadow of death.

What happens next is anyone’s guess.

Hard Novel Crash


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Everything was going great with the novel until I had one of those occasional hard crashes where on a structural level everything stop making sense and the whole thing collapsed in on itself.

Add to that a hacking problem I’ve been having in which my cyber assailant has been interested in my development of the novel that I’ve produced over the last two years or so and I’ve been left rattled.

And, yet, I managed over the course of a few hours figure out the problem and am now ready to start work again. Though, I have to admit that I’m probably going to do a really, really hard reboot and write without re-using much, if anything, I’ve already written.

I need to clear my head some before I do that, though. I’m really taking this novel seriously — even more so than before — but I just can’t keep writing and re-writing forever. At some point, I have to realize the first draft just isn’t going to be perfect.

I have to allow myself to write crap, to fail when it comes to totally writing my vision for the novel.

You can’t edit a blank page, as they say.

But now that I’m beginning to warm back up to develop and write, I think I can still wrap up much of the first draft by about the same time I planned to before.

This Could Be It — This Could Be The Coup We’ve Feared


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Everything says Trump is going to go down to defeat at SCOTUS with his “big one” case that he says he’s going to “intervene” in. We still don’t know what that means.

But reading the ding-bat tealeaves suggests Trump thinks SCOTUS will rule in his favor, no matter what and, as such, throw the election to him. So, we have to take his belief seriously until proven otherwise.

Remember, all Trump needs is one successful asymmetrical attack, like this case, and Moscow Mitch will say that “legal votes” as determined by SCOTUS are for Trump, no matter what else we might want. That will be Republicans’ defense, “any violence that happens because of ruling has to be put down using the Insurrection Act because the legal votes are for Trump.”

That’s been their plan all along.

This could still be a dud and I’ll be happy. But we have to prepare ourselves for Turmp to successfully steal the election at SCOTUS and what that would mean for the future of the country.

I fear there would be a civil war / revolution that would cause WW3. (Jesus, alas, isn’t going to come back, though.)

It’s possible this asymmetrical attack will work, Trump stays in office and we have a civil war / revolution, or at least our very own “troubles” that linger because Trump uses the Insurrection Act, does a MAGA Reconstruction of Blue States and simply hunkers down to be an autocrat for the rest of his life.

But, this is Trump we’re talking about.

So, he could actually pull this coup off then self-own in such a massive way that he loses it all. But is of note that he has the entire Republican Party and about half the electorate at his disposal.

So….don’t think he can’t pull this off.

Political Grift Opportunity: Neuluds


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I went to a MAGA rally in DC recently — which was not only a case of zemblanity, but may have given me COVID19 — and my big take away was what a fucking grift the whole thing is.

The entire rally was based on a racist, misogynistic lie. The lie that at some magical, mystical moment in the past America was “greater” than it is now. We all know what that’s code for — whatever moment in the past when white men without a college education could get laid. So, it’s a time before #MeToo and #BLM. Or something.

Anyway, I have long thought that I missed a golden opportunity to make a lot of hard cash by faking to be MAGA and working my way up the MAGA delusion to the very top. I could have been a regular MAGA Chauncy Gardner before it was over with. I could have been standing next to Trump in the Oval Office if I had just given things some thought in, say, 2015.

So, if you want to know what I think the next big political grift is going to be, it’s Neo-Luddism. If you wanted to rebrand it something like NeuLudism, you could, I guess.

But we’re one Elon Musk announcement away from about 3 million hard working truckers losing their jobs virtually overnight. All those people might be receptive to a political message that wanted to destroy technology. Don’t quite know how you would convey that idea without…technology, but who would have thought that deranged ding-dong Donald Trump would get as far as he did?

But the Neulud grift isn’t going to be as easy as the MAGA grift. You’re going to have to work harder for no other reason than Neulud requires leadership to gently move MAGA people (who love Facebook, Twitter and now Parler) towards the idea of hating all technology that kills jobs.

So, in a sense, if, say, Tom Cotton adopted this political gambit, you would see a total realignment of American politics for no other reason than wealthy MAGA has gotten their plutocrat tax cut and they like Elon Musk too much to go along with such an idea.

If such an idea got any traction, you might everything thrown up in the air politically in the United States for a few years as things sorted themselves out. You might see a huge portion of the Republican Party fuse with a huge portion of the Democrat Party, while some Far Left and Far Right elements of both parties fused into an anti-technology party.

The only reason why I even suggest this is possible is Elon Musk and how overdue we are for a major lurch forward in technology. We’re about 10 years away from the last big burst of technology that changed the lives of every day people.

When it happens again, it might be so dramatic (in a way) as to be something of a “Soft Singularity.”

Anyway. No one listens to me.

Incels, MAGA & Undead American Democracy


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The key issue to understand is American Democracy as we know it is dead. About half the population wants an autocracy pretty much because they can’t get laid. Technology has made it so blue collar men without a college education can no longer afford to get married and raise a family.

Everything else is just rationalization.

As such, at its core, the racism, misogyny and bigotry of MAGA is pretty much just men angry with blue balls. Or put another way, the idea of the “incel” is far more significant than one might think when it comes to how fucked up American politics is.

If you think you’re being forced to be celibate, then you’re probably going to be open to the ideas of the Proud Boys, or other forms of extremism. I guess what I’m suggesting is under the “resource” theory of history, a big chunk of men hate women and minorities because they lack the means to acquire the “resource” of sex.

The point of all of this is Trump has about half the population begging him to be an autocrat, to kill American democracy once and for all and, in a sense, he can’t get it up. To date, at least, he’s all talk. He gave Republicans hundreds of young hack MAGA judges and a huge plutocrat tax cut….but he can’t be bothered to take the final step of killing American democracy. This, even though a huge swath of the population wants him to do it. Like I said, in fact, people like Lou Dobbs and Gen. Mike Flynn are literally BEGGING him to do it.

And he can’t do it.

This is not to say America isn’t still in a very dangerous situation. Trump could still do something really, really crazy in a last ditch effort to stay in office, no matter what. He could very well snap in some way and destroy the country out of spite — and a fear of going to jail in New York State.

I have no idea what is in store for America at this point.

A lot depends on the economy and people like Tom Cotton. If Cotton manages to become president in 2025 or 2029, then that’s it, we’re an autocracy. The United States will be little more than Belarus.

And, yet, that’s kind of our best case scenario, given macro trends. The worst case scenario is there will be an organized effort to give Trump his Reichstag Fire NOW, so he can stay in power. It is easy to imagine a situation where there are a series of Oklahoma City bombings across the country in major Blue State cities between now and January 20th.

Or there’s a war with the DPRK or Iran.

You name it. What otherwise might happen gradually between now and 2029 might happen violently between now and January 20, 2021. You can dog whistle the need for violence for only so long before someone, somewhere is going to take you up on it.

And we haven’t even gotten to the part where Trump doxes Electors.

So if we manage to punt this particular autocratic problem down the road one election cycle because, in the end, Trump really is just an empty suit, no an autocrat, well, I don’t know if I’m supposed to laugh or cry.