Month: June 2021

America Is Careening Towards A Violent Political Crisis


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I can’t predict the future. There is no revealed truth. But the United States is on edge. I just don’t see us making it beyond January 2025 without some serious political violence. I say this because Republicans are so hysterical about the browning of America and various other perceived political and structure slights that they are finally at the point where they will do anything necessary to push us to the breaking point.

The question is now, of course — how exactly are things going to fall out. While plenty of MAGA people think their brethren will take up arms and have a Glorious MAGA Revolution, I find this idea dubious. MAGA people want to fuck their guns, not actually use them in anything beyond an abstract way. They’re really frustrated and want to “own the libs” at every turn, but actually having any kind of popular revolt against “cancel culture” seems extremely unlikely.

But there are two instances coming up where I could see us having an actual civil war. In the near term, of course, there is the Cyber Ninjas recount of the presidential vote in Arizona. The whole thing is a fucking fraud designed to give MAGA a talking point at best and an excuse to attempt to found Trumplandia at worst. It’s very easy to imagine a dynamic similar to January 6th, only on a national scale.

Republicans see a chance to win political points by saying Trump is “really” president then, even though Arizona is not enough to make Trump POTUS, this idea whips around the country. Before you know it, states are leaving the Union to found Trumplandia. We have a civil war and lulz, I have no idea what happens or who wins.

The other option is essentially the same thing happens, only in the 2024-2025 timeframe.

The issue remains that the United States’ political system is very unstable right now. It wouldn’t take much for the whole thing to come crashing down in some way, probably by states beginning to bounce in a rather abrupt fashion because they feel Trump is “really president.”

But I could be wrong. I often am.

Cyber Ninjas Recount Endgames


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Here are some of the possible endgames to the sham Cyber Ninjas “recount” in Arizona.

  1. The Dud
    In this scenario, either Cyber Ninjas aren’t able to “prove” Trump won the state or they do manage to pull a Trump victory out of their butts…and nothing happens.
  2. The Talking Point
    With this endgame, everyone on Fox News, OAN and NewsMax rants and rant and rant about how Cyber Ninjas “proved” Trump “won” the state, but, again, nothing happens. It’s just a talking point.
  3. The Catalyst
    With this one, Cyber Ninjas gets hired to “prove” Trump “won” several other states — at least enough for him to claim that he really won. This greatly destabilizes the country more than it already is
  4. The Tipping Point
    In this endgame, Trump sees his “victory” in Arizona as a reason to demand being named Speaker of the House should MAGA flip the chamber. He rants and rants about this idea. He gets named Speaker in January 2023 and then leads an impeachment of both Biden and Harris so he can become POTUS again early.
  5. The Trumplandia Then Civil War Gambit
    With this one, the moment Cyber Ninjas “prove” Trump “won” Arizona, all hell breaks loose and when it becomes clear that Trump isn’t going to be reinstated, MAGA state legislatures begin to hold secessionist conventions. Trumplandia is born and we have a civil war to sort things out.

MAGA’s Determination to Turn Ashli Babbitt Into A Martyr Is So Fucked Up


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Yet another sign that we may be careening towards an actual shooting civil war is how the MAGA Right jumps at any chance to turn one of their own into a martyr for the cause. Their latest effort is with Ashli Babbitt who was shot and killed when she attempted to crash through a door that stood between members of Congress and her angry mob.

I saw this event the day it happened and the guy who shot her did the right thing — it was either her or the potential murder of the political figures he was assigned to protect.

And, yet, that’s not how MAGA sees it. They see Ashli Babbitt as a brave member of the MAGA movement who was unjustly murdered. When they’re not conflating things they are focusing on very specific demands: they want the name of the officer who shot her so (I presume) they can sue the hell out of him and potentially hunt him down and hurt him in the name of MAGA. (Or something.)

But the broader significance of this the two sides now live in such different echo chambers — that don’t even overlap — that we’re lurching towards a situation where all this overheated rhetoric is finally going to cause even more political violence. I’m not so sure I would say some sort of MAGA-themed Second American Revolution (ugh) but it is possible that should Cyber Ninjas “prove” Trump “won” Arizona that the conditions are there for some sort of “decertification” crisis that turns into a nullification crisis that turns into a secessionist crisis.

MAGA has come to glorify political violence to such an extent that the Republican Establishment may be shocked when the same dynamic that happened Jan. 6th happens on a national level and states begin to leave the Union. That sounds hyperbolic, but it’s a lot more possible than you might think.

The United States is far less politically stable than you might think. But it’s very possible that we’ll just peacefully slip into an autocratic managed democracy in the 2024-2025 timeframe and that will be that. And then people like me have to start worrying about getting pushed out of windows by ICE because we won’t fucking shut up about MAGA being American Nazism.

Will There Be A Second American Revolution In 2021?


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

First, if you’re a MAGA cocksucker who has stumbled across this site because you think there’s going to be a “second American revolution” to reinstate Trump — fuck you, you piece of shit.

Having gotten that off my chest, let’s think about this seriously. Almost no one reads this blog, but those who do seem to be MAGA people interested in my fear porn about the United States becoming either an autocracy or having a civil war / revolution. Of course, they’re coming at this fear porn from the exact opposite direction — my fear is their hope.

Now, remember, a “revolution” is not a “civil war” although the exact definition of these two events is apparently hotly debated by political historians. I guess what MAGA people think is there will be some sort of popular uprising if ding-bat idiot Trump isn’t “reinstated” sooner rather than later. They’re frustrated and long for some way to bring back Trump — even if it means political violence.

While I can think of a number of civil war scenarios off the top of my head — most of them involving the Cyber Ninjas recount of Arizona — an actual MAGA “revolution” is a lot more difficult for me to imagine. It seem as though all these searches for “America revolution 2021” come more from abstract frustration on the part of MAGA cocksuckers more than anything else. They know it would be “cool” if they would pull the ultimate own the libs move and stage a MAGA-themed Second American Revolution…but they don’t really know how it might happen.

So they do a keyword search for that type of thing and endup at this site.

If it makes would-be MAGA “revolutionaries” feel any better, I do think we’re one major political death away from significant popular political violence in the United States. There are a lot of old — and popular — pols in the United States whose unexpected death would cause a lot people to freak the fuck out.

But, for the time being, if you’re part of the violent personality cult that is MAGA you’re just going to have to pin your hopes on things getting out of control should Cyber Ninjas “prove” Trump “won” Arizona.

MAGA Craves An American Autocracy


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

What makes MAGA so dangerous is they voted for Trump in the first place because he was “the guy from The Apprentice.” That’s why people like me were so alarmed by Trump — on paper, he was an autocratic and if elected would turn us into a Russia clone. Of course, everyone got fooled when it turned out Trump was a very lazy idiot who talked a good autocratic game but was too much of an idiot to actually use some pretty basic autocratic political plays to get what he wanted.

But, in a sense, Trump has shown other — more focused — politicians that a large segment of the American electorate wants an autocracy. My nightmare is there dream. And one thing we have to remember is unlike the Nazis, MAGA Republicans aren’t expansionist. In fact, they will be content to pull American troops back to Fortress America and align with other autocratic states in an effort to have “peace in our time.”

As such, it’s easy to imagine a scenario where once MAGA inevitably controls the government again that they establish a Trumplandia autocracy that lasts for generations to come. America will be just like modern Russia — occasionally, there are large protests but nothing comes of it. And those protests that do happen are often broken up by the FSB — in autocratic America it will be ICE.

While I hate violence and definitely don’t want a civil war, on an abstract, rhetorical level, while on paper it is now a near-certainty that America is going to slip peacefully into a MAGA autocracy, there will be a moment — probably in the 2024-2025 timeframe — where we will be given the option of having a civil war to prevent that from happening.

That option is not something I can’t game out in any specific manner because it would happen because of specific set of circumstances. Any civil war in the United States about three years from now would happen because MAGA bungled what would otherwise be a political history gimmie.

And, of course, there are no assurances that even if there was a civil war that “the good guys” would win it. A lot of people could die — even get nuked! — and we endup put back together as an autocracy. So, I dunno.

But the thing we have to keep at the forefront of our mind is political form follows function and it is inevitable that once MAGA Republicans take power again that they’re going to turn us into an “illiberal democracy.” Things probably won’t change that much at first, but soon enough a MAGA Republican POTUS with a MAGA Republican Congress will purge the media, weaponize the existing ICE infrastructure and people like me start to get pushed out of windows.

The most alarming thing about this — besides me getting pushed out a window — is there will be millions of good natured, God-fearing normal educated people who will be quite content with this New Normal. Any excesses that this new Trumplandian government does will be rationalized away (until it gets personal and then they’ll get upset in private.)

As I keep saying, I wish I was smart enough to tell you what to do about all of this. If I was that smart, I could write for VOX and dance around on Tik-Tok talking about marginal tax rates.

Nothing Is Going To Save America From MAGA — We Have To Save Ourselves


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I see on Twitter a lot of froth about how this or that thing is some sort of magic bullet that will finally allow us to address the corrupt excesses of the Trump Era.

Sadly, this is pretty oblivious to what’s really going on. We had one shot at potentially bringing down Trump — the Mueller investigation — and we blew it. As such, Trump is now above the law on a political basis. MAGA’s political views have become exclusively based on recursive thinking and negative polarization. They believe what they believe because they believe it and fuck you, lib.

One can compare Trump to the plight of common sense gun control. Once it was established that not even the tragic murder of young children was enough to get past the “thoughts and prayers” phase of the debate on the subject, it was over. We now see gun violence as just a Modern Problem that comes with living in a free country — even though this is complete bullshit and pretty much exclusively an American problem.

The same thing with Trump after the January 6th Capitol Insurrection — if you still support Trump after that, there’s literally nothing the man can do to get you to stop supporting him. I have come to believe that video could surface of Trump having cannibalistic sex parties with Armie Hammer and it would be a lulz for MAGA. Or, more specifically, that might knock Trump out of the political equation, but MAGA as a vile, craven political movement would simply pick a new, younger and less addled leader to finish the autocratic job Trump began.

MAGA is hell bent on turning the United States into an autocratic white Christian ethno state. That’s the entire point of MAGA at this time. That’s why trying to argue with, or negotiate with or in any way deal with MAGA in a good faith political manner is a huge waste of time. They want to destroy our liberal democracy and the sooner we all get woke to this, the better.

No amount of stating the obvious about MAGA is going to change that. They have no shame and are so craven that they’re willing to look like fools uttering gibberish as long as they get to slip in the MAGA triggering concepts of “cancel culture,” “critical race theory,” “BLM,” and “Antifa.” They are going to push America to the edge. MAGA is well positioned to caused the United States to quietly and peacefully slip into autocracy when becomes conventional wisdom that the only way a Democrat can win the presidency is if that party also controls Congress.

But nothing is written in stone yet. The possibility exists that they will bungle this sure thing and, well, the United States has a civil war. We bomb ourselves into oblivion and we settle the issues of the day not in the halls of government but on the field of battle. I don’t want that, but it’s definitely becoming one of the two major options in front of us.

I do not know what you should do on a personal level going forward. I hate guns and I hate violence so….I don’t know. Get a passport? Move to a part of the country that fits your political views? But, in the end, I might suggest you just figure out what you believe in and what you’re willing to risk in the real world when the shit hits the fan.

I’m Quite Pleased With The State Of My Novel


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

After a number of years, I’ve finally — finally — reached my high expectations for the novel I’m working on. Every once in a while I do a major reset of the whole thing and this go around I really feel I’ve gotten where I have longed to be for so long.

But this is just the beginning.

I have a huge amount of work ahead of me. I have a lot of reading to do to flesh out characters and it just takes physical time to write a novel. But, thankfully, the structure of the novel is stable enough that pretty much all I have to do is “just write” as people suggested I do when I started this process.

As is usually the case with me, I did everything wrong of course. I should have just been silent and kept writing a novel to myself. But since I’m 100% extroverted I couldn’t help myself.

Yet, I can’t go back now. I just need to buckle down and get this first draft done.

Just About To Stabilize The Novel’s Outline…AGAIN


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I finally have figured out my hero’s motive and, as such, figured out the throughline of this first book in the two book story. The story is very personal and unique. The new interpretation of the story I’ve been struggling with for the last few years draws some on the structure of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.

I’m itching to start writing again, but I’m being stubborn and want to wait until I finish yet another full version of the outline before I do that. I don’t want to start writing only realize the only way to finish the outline is to throw out the beginning again for structural reasons.

Ugh.

But, at least tentatively, I’m about to lock down the outline again. Pretty much everything outside of the first act is done right now. Though there is a specific subplot I need to sprinkle through the second act so it makes sense that it comes roaring back in the third act.

Anyway. It’s quite a relief to finally figure out my hero’s motivation. I find myself digging even deeper into my personal life as this happens, however. I really need to make my hero Not Me. But this is just a first draft, so I think I can give myself a pass.

Yashar Ali & The Power Of Empathy


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Because I have absolutely no life other than working on a novel — I study this Website’s meager traffic very carefully. And, much to my surprise, a lot of people were interested in my very brief hot take on Twitter “influencer” Yashar Ali — even the Church of Scientology!

So, I will briefly revisit this subject. Just from looking at Ali’s twitter feed over the years, the thing I noticed about him is he’s extremely empathetic And I think that’s where his power lies. When you’re a powerful person surrounded by craven assholes who are always looking for any sign of personal weakness, to have someone like Ali in your life to be really empathetic is probably quite appealing. Add to this his natural friend-making ability and it makes total sense that some of the people interviewed about their relationship to Ali didn’t even know how or when they became friends with him.

I will, in passing, add an article I wrote about hanging out with another friend-collecting person, Jennifer 8. Lee, a long time ago in Seoul, below.

It is interesting that in the lead up to the LA Magazine piece coming out, Ali pretty much went suicidal on Twitter. Such strange behavior makes a lot more sense if you know a pretty brutal magazine article is about to come out on you.

Anyway, only time will tell if Ali is “canceled” and ends up on Substack ranting about cancel culture. Given that we live in a lulz, nothing matters era where accountability is erratically implemented, to say the least, he probably will bounce back. He has a lot of friends to help him out, afterall .

ROKing Sinchon with Jenny 8

Jennifer 8. Lee likes food.

A lot.

Recently, I hung out with the New York Times reporter and her friend Tomoko Hosaka of the Wall Street Journal here in Seoul.

The plan was for her to go to a jimjilbang with Annie Shapiro and ms. tiff, but that didn’t work out. Tomoko wanted to go to eat “Korean barbeque” and since Annie and Tiff are veggies, they were left out. This story was supposed to be about Annie and Tiff taking Jenny to a jimjilbang and getting all nekkid – now that would have been funny – but there are no happy endings in Korea so you get this write-up instead. I took a picture of the two ladies at the restaurant, but they wouldn’t let me use it. I generally think taking pictures of yourself with famous people is kind of lame, so you, gentle reader, will just have to settle for a picture of the fortune cookie I was given. If Annie and Tiff had done the story, maybe the situation would be different.

On the way to the subway, Jenny kept stopping to eat stuff from street vendors. I had to DJ that Friday night and we had to go all the way across town, so I was starting to stress out a little bit.

Again and again, she would ask me what this or that food was offered at street vendors as we headed towards the subway station. I had no clue. “I eat because I have to, not because I want to,” I told her finally. What else could I say? I

The fact that I met her is a testament not only to this wacky Internet age that we live in, but how being an expatriate in a place like Korea has its quirky advantages.

I met Jenny ’cause I, well, picked on her middle name online. When I first came to Korea I had way too much drunken spare time on my hands, so I often found myself in bouts of soju-fueled writing binges.

“I can not stress enough how odd it is that Jennifer Lee uses an ‘8’ for her middle name. It’s just totally unheard of. It’s like one of the

columns of Western civilization has suddenly become just a little unstable,” I once wrote. “I don’t care that her name really is ‘Jennifer 8. Lee.’ In

years gone by, an editor would have taken one look at it, eyed the flask of Jack Daniels in his desk drawer then said, ‘Look, kid, I don’t care how

lucky the damn number is, you’re going by ‘Jennifer Lee‘ from now on.'”

Her middle name is a lucky number in Chinese culture. How exactly she was able to keep it in her byline eludes me. The fact that she graduated from Harvard University may have something to do with it.

When this actual famous reporter out of the blue contacted me, it both made me very happy and very nervous. She contacted me because she had read some of the shit I had written about her online and she needed some help finding Chinese restaurants in Korea. She’s on sabbatical from the Times to write a book on, like, the best Chinese restaurants in the world or some such. The first time she contacted me, I suddenly felt kinda bad about all the pointless mental masturbation I expended on her.

It’s funny how you can talk shit about a famous person online, but when you actually meet them you treat them like you would anyone else. While she’s no Maureen Dowd, in some media circles, Jennifer 8. Lee is, in fact, “famous” or “notorious.” For people who read Gawker.com, Jenny is shorthand for a reporter who writes seemingly pointless trend stories about things like “man dates.” She had the odd habit of using the phrase, “people of my generation” in a very authoritative tone, like she literally was speaking for everyone her age. “Jenny, you’re younger than I am,” I said teasingly at least once over galbi.

She actually has a rather bubbly, cute personality. My lone meeting with her did leave some1thing of a mystery in my mind — how is it that someone who, in the words of one article “causes $148,000 in damage to her Washington condo” actually be quite nerdy? What the heck does she do? She is obviously an extremely smart woman and from the little mischievous glint in her eye I can see how she probably loves to host a great party. But like all the great reporters I’ve known, she didn’t seem like much of a extrovert. She was quiet and curious about everything.

I picked her up at the Ritz Carlton. When I met her, she handed me a fortune cookie, while I handed her a copy of ROKon. “Fortune cookies are actually originally from Japan, not China,” Jenny said. It was a huge fortune cookie. It looked like a piece of found art. “I’ll either eat it when I’m drunk or crush it when I’m drunk,” I quipped.

I took the women to Sinchon to my favorite Korean restaurant. I go there so much that I’m like a part of the family. Tomoko seemed a bit uneasy hanging out with little old me, while Jenny was a good sport. I wanted to get Tomoko drunk to loosen her up a bit, but she had an early morning date with the DMZ.

At one point, I felt kinda bad for Tomoko. She’s a fairly important journalist in her own right, and all I did was talk to Jenny.

“I know you went to Harvard, Jenny,” I said invoking the “H-bomb” without meaning to, “But where did you go, Tomoko?”

“Northwestern,” she said with just a touch forlornly.

We talked a long time. I talked up ROKon, while the ladies were more interested in the food than anything I had to say. They’re an intense bunch, those two. I told them about knowing another Wall Street Journal reporter, Lina, but neither of them knew her. They were perplexed that they didn’t know her ’cause she has some connection to the Washington Post. Jenny acted like if there was an Asian who worked in any capacity at the Post, she would know her.

I had of vision of taking Jenny to Nori People and being able to see her shake what her momma gave her to my musical selections, but it was not to be. Jenny couldn’t stay. I did take Tomoko and Jenny there just to show it to her. “Oh, this is fun,” she said. You have to give those New York Times reporters credit, they are an observant bunch.

They left a lot sooner than I’d liked. As I said, I had all these grand plans to show them what a fun time we ROKon staffers were. Jenny promised to show me around New York City if I ever happened to end up there. The more I look at that fortune cookie, though, the more it looks like something that rhymes with “Mulva.”

By SHELTON BUMGARNER

ROKon Magazine Editor

Conditions Exist For A Second American Civil War


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

On an abstract level, the United States is primed and ready for a civil war. But for the moment, however, “civil war” is nothing more than a rhetorical flourish for Far Right idiots who now glorify political violence. They see a civil war as the logical endgame of their hatred for liberals and anyone else who won’t “just leave them alone.”

The reason for this is, just like how the Insurrection Act wasn’t magical pixie dust that Trump could invoke to take “total control,” the people among the Right who now long for a civil war haven’t really thought through things. All they know is they hate liberals, love Trump and are violently frustrated at things like “the Great Replacement.” That, and, of course, they have small dicks and can’t get laid.

Anyway, the most obvious moment that a civil war might erupt in the United States is in the 2024-2025 timeframe. It’s very easy to imagine MAGA Republicans nullifying a Biden reelection, bungling the otherwise inevitable transition to autocracy and causing a civil war. I’ve come to believe that this won’t happen because the MSM has a vested interest in at least pretending that things are “normal” on an institutional level. So, it’s easy to imagine Republicans brazenly stealing the 2024 election and the MSM telling everyone that this is just the New World we live in and we just have to accept it.

So, in a sense, we have a few years before we have to worry seriously about a Second American Civil War.

And, yet, there is the Cyber Ninjas sham audit taking place in Arizona. The other scenario would be something like Cyber Ninjas “prove” that Trump “won” Arizona and Trump grows hysterical. He begins to rant that this “proves” he “won” the entire election. Then we have a situation similar to January 6th, only on a national level.

Political opportunists pop out across the country and MAGA controlled state legislatures begin to convene conventions to debate “nullification” of the Biden Administration’s win — even though this is complete bullshit and has zero basis in law. Soon enough, of course, these nullification conventions become secessionist conventions and we have a civil war.

And, yet, there is a lot about this scenario that I can’t game out. There is a hard core group of MAGA elected officials who have political bloodlust for an autocracy. But for them to go against all logic to actually attempt to leave the Union, knowing how unlikely their victory would be, is something else altogether. All I know is once Cyber Ninjas “prove” Trump “won” Arizona, we may have to all hold our breath a few days to see which way things fall.

But one thing we have to take seriously, no matter what, is MAGA Republicans want an autocracy. They no longer believe in liberal democracy. They are fascists. If we manage to make it to 2024-2025, they will use every fascist trick in the book to strangle our already barely functioning liberal democracy to establish a MAGA autocracy.

Again, I’m not smart enough to tell you what to do about any of this. If I was, I would be writing for VOX.