Category: From The Editor

The United States Is In A Severe Crisis

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Holy Shit. I have to say, in a sense, that I predicted all of this some time ago. And, yet, I didn’t. The part that I missed was that it would be Elon Musk , not Trump, who would go full tyrant on us.

Or, I suppose, it’s a combination of Trump and Musk — TrumpMusk, if you will. Mump? Trusk? We need some sort of pithy nickname for this particular diabolical duo.

Another thing I missed is how much political slack Trusk has. These two malignant ding-dongs pretty much have complete leeway to do whatever the fuck they want for the time being.

What’s more, there is going to come a point where it becomes clear that Trusk is going to defy the courts to the point as to moot their power. That will be the moment when things really get out of whack because the traditional blunting and mitigating force of the courts will no longer apply and people are going to start to get angry.

That’s the thing I don’t know about — how much can the populace take before something really bad happens. We are in a crisis with no obvious endgame. Relative to the WW2 analogy, I would say what’s going on right now is the Fall of France – 1940.

It’s going to take a while for the Good Guys to get the fucking act together. And while they do, a lot of crazy bad shit could happen. And, sad to say, I fear for the Good Guys to be victorious, they’re going to have to become Radical Moderates.

They’re going to have to show some grit in the real world. This is not going to be settled in the court of Twitter opinion — this is bigboy shit in the real world where people have to risk their lives and sacred honor.

I Guess We’re Just Going To Lulz Our System Of Laws Now

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Welp. It seems as though the for the time being the bad guys are in control and they’re all…12? Anyway, there continues to be a huge amount of slack for Trump to exploit in our political system

We’re just going to have to wait and see.

But what really is beginning to aggravate me is how all these otherwise smart, sane AI community people are all-in for Elon Musk’s putsch. I am at a loss for words. I don’t know what to say.

I guess we’re just going to be fucked for the time being, maybe for the rest of my life. I thought maybe, just maybe, the American spirit was still strong enough to throw off the chains of techno-autocracy….but maybe not?

Trump Is A Russian Agent

I have no proof that Trump is a Russian op, but he definitely is doing all the things a Russian agent would do to destroy the West. You never can tell with Trump if he just loves Putin’s autocratic power or if there’s more to it.

Anyway, buckle up, folks. This is getting real and it’s only going to get worse. Every day, Trump — and Musk — are going to find new and exciting ways to fuck with things in ways we didn’t even know were possible.

I still think Musk is going to do something so bad that Trump pays a severe political price for it. But time will tell, huh.

Late Night TV Is Next

By Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I keep expecting to here that Stephen Colbert has either quit or been fired. That particular shoe is probably going to drop pretty soon. The man has nads of steel and I just can’t see him taking an order to “soften it some” too well. So, in a sense, Colbert’s fate is kind of the canary in the coalmine.

Stephen Colbert

But it will be interesting to see how things play out. We are in the middle of a massive political, economic and cultural crisis — anything could happen out of the blue. We have to accept that the old order is collapsing and a new order is being born. What that new order will look like is anyone’s guess.

So, keep an eye out for some big, big news in late night TV pretty soon.

I Fear The United States May Invade Canada — YIKES

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Because we live in the dumbest timeline, it seems as though the United States could very well invade Canada. I have talked about this possibility over the years, but I never actually thought it might happen.

And, yet, here we are.

The thing we have to appreciate is that we’re in a new era. The entire post-WW2 liberal order is collapsing at its center — the United States — and something new is about to take its place.

What that is, I don’t know yet. I could be tyranny, it could be some sort of Third American Republic. But, at the moment, it really could go either way I’m afraid.

If the United States did something as dumb as invade Canada…oh boy. That would totally throw everything out of whack. It’s bullshit like this that makes me think Trump is a Russian agent.

Invading a friend like Canada is just the type of thing Putin would want the United States to do. Anyway, buckle up.

Watch Out For That Last Step

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

We are careening towards a moment when there might be mass protests in the United States and, as such, Trump might invoke the Insurrection Act so he can consolidate power. Or at least try to.

I say “try to” because this reasoning relies on the idea that Americans are so lazy that even people start to die in the streets that there won’t be SOME reaction and radicalization. And, yet, maybe that’s true. Maybe there won’t be.

Maybe this logic is right and Trump can go full dictator, blood can run in the streets and…lulz? At this point, I just don’t know. We haven’t reached the point where I can make a decision on that situation one way or another.

But we’re getting there. The way things are going, February could be lit. It could be that things start to get bad a lot sooner than you might think — like in days, not weeks or months. Then, we’ll find out if Trump’s logic is based in reality or not.

Citizen Musk

By Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It’s going to be pretty ironic if, ultimately, it’s Elon Musk that brings down Tyrant Trump. It’s easy to game out a scenario where Musk’s dumb disruption of basic Federal services causes the country to heave with chaos to the point that finally someone shows some grit and stands up to the Trump’s tyranny.

We’re now entering a pretty wild moment in our nation’s history. Trump and Musk STILL have a lot of political slack to play with. People are just too distracted by other things. The country is just too big and it won’t be until we reach some moment where all of the tyrannical shenanigans that Trump and Musk are doing really comes into focus will anything happen.

So, for the time being, Citizen Musk has full reign to do whatever the fuck he wants. And it’s going to keep getting worse and worse until it all reaches a boiling point. Or…maybe not? Maybe not enough people will care?

I dunno. All I know is I have a few novels to work on. Maybe I can just be a man in a high castle and be (largely) unbothered by all the chaos of the outside world for the time being.

We’re On Our Own

By Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It seems as though we’re very much on our own at the moment. No one is going to save us. The key thing that is obvious now is our democracy was much more fragile than any of us could have imagined. So, it seems as though we’re a dictatorship now.

And that’s just going to be the way it is from now on. There is a little part of me that vaguely believes that once it sinks in the gravity of the situation that at least 47% of the American population is going to freak out and demand something be done.

How that, exactly, would play out, I don’t know. All I do know is the next few months could be pretty scary. They say you go bankrupt gradually, then all at once and we’ve reached the “all at once” point for American democracy ending.

The question is, of course, when is the “all at once” for the reaction to its demise. Right now, because of how poor Democratic leadership is and how big the country is, we are still kind of in the stunned portion of the night’s entertainment.

But if the economy tanks really bad in the coming days, that might generate enough energy within the populace for….something? I don’t know what that might be, though. The media is so beholden to Trump and his dictatorship that there could be mass protests and no one would know about it.

Whatever the reaction to Trump’s tyranny that happened would have to be huge, like really huge, before it would force the hand of the media so they actually reported it. I have my doubts. But, we’ll see, I guess.

Thinking Of Mstislav Rostropovich

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I fucking hate guns. I fucking hate violence. With a passion. But the picture on the right of Mstislav Rostropovich holding a gun during the attack on the Russian White House has lingered in my mind.

Observation: We May Need A General Strike

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’m not advocating anything, but I am making an observation — it could be that the only way to catch Trump’s attention is a General Strike. We — Blues — could show our economic power and really crash the (global) economy by simply collectively not going to work until our demands are met.

Our demands:
A new Speaker is elected who is a respected leader.
Trump and Vance resign.

Then we go back to being the greatest nation in the world. Of course, if this was successful, Red States would leave the Union and a Second American Civil War would happen.

So…lulz?

I do worry that we may see unprecedented radicalization among the center-Left in the coming days. Some pretty wild things might happen. Buckle up.