by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
The reason why August is such a sucky month is it’s the nadir of the year for most normal people who work at the big media companies. Huge swaths of the newsroom leave town for this or that pleasant vacation retreat, leaving the fate of any reporting on a breaking news event to a bunch of wet behind the ears cub reporters.
As such, huge news events are drawn to August.
Everyone has to leave their vacation at a moment’s notice to cover this or that huge news event. So, that leaves the question — what will it be this year? Here are my guesses.
Cyber Ninjas “Prove” Trump “Won”
It’s my impression that not only does Trump think he will somehow be magically re-instated in August, but Cyber Ninjas will finally come out with the results of their dumb sham audit. If they come through for Trump and “prove” he “won” Arizona, either that in itself starts some sort of secession crisis by the end of the year, or it begins a process that leads to House Speaker Trump telling Senate Democrats to convict Biden and Harris or risk a civil war.
Someone Drops Dead
A lot of old people are in powerful positions. If any number of 70+ powerful people dropped dead, that, in itself could be The Thing that we think of what made August 2021 suck so bad.
The DPRK Does Something Stupid (Or Implodes)
The DPRK has been pretty quiet since the pandemic hit. August 2021 seems like just the right moment for them to pop out and scare the shit out of us all one way or another. Or implode. You name it. Anything could happen.
Iran Does Something Stupid
It’s easy to imagine a situation where Iran and Israel have at it suddenly and before you know it, WW3 has started.
China Does Something Stupid
A lot of people talk about China going after Taiwan by about 2027. What if China struck in August 2021? Then what?
Russia Does Something Stupid
It’s easy to imagine Russia starting some sort of late summer general war against Ukraine.
Wildcard: a major domestic terrorist attack.
Trump is doing everything in his power to destabilize the United States with his dumb nearly-transactional rhetoric. What if there was a large scale, coordinated MAGA New Right terrorist attack all across the country in some sort of proto-coup effort. How would we handle that?
Wildcard: Cuba
It’s within the realm of possibility that of possibility that Cuba could implode in August, given the massive protests there right now.
