Category: The Resistance

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.

Vichy America, Redux

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Here we go again, but worse. We live in an even more extreme version of Vichy American than we did during the first Trump Administration. The forces of fascism are currently doing a shock and awe campaign against American institutions with a great deal of success. Trump continues to use all the slack in the system allotted him to get away with some pretty brazen fucking things.

All I got is something is going to happen to Social Security. If Trump manages — with the help of Elon Musk — to fuck that up, people will sit up and take notice. But, for the time being, Trump still has plenty, PLENTY of wiggle room.

He’s going to destroy as many guard rails and institutions as he can for as long as he can until, I don’t know….people get woke en masse. The only thing I can think of is a General Strike — probably in Blue States. If THAT happened, there is a small chance that we could maybe, just maybe drive Trump out of Washington D.C. in some way.

I’m NOT advocating anything. Just making an observation.

All I personally can and will do is…gloat. If Trump gets as bad as I think he will, I can gloat, gloat, gloat. Of course, if the country collapses into chaos because of Trump, I may be on the lam from ICE death squads. I will note again that we only avoided a civil war because Trump won, now we have to worry about revolution….then civil war.

Ugh.

Tyrant Trump Is A Dictator

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Trump said he would be a dictator and…he’s being a dictator. And, yet, he has a lot — A LOT — of political slack at the moment. So, add that to incompetent Blue leadership and…lulz.

It could be a while.

The question if, of course, how long?

The next big event is next month’s Social Security checks. If Trump fucks with that because of Elon Musk, then, well, things get crazy. So, that would be March.

But I do think we’re in a sufficient crisis that we need to take things day by day. Trump could do something out of the really outrageous that hits the zeitgeist in just the right way and…oh boy.

For the time being, though, Trump has a lot, A LOT, of leeway. There’s just nothing to stop him. He’s a dictator now and, really, this could be it. MAGA Republicans are so giddy over screwing over Trans people, banning abortion and massive tax cuts that….they just won’t care.

How Elon Musk Might Get Trump In Severe Political Trouble

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

All signs point to Elon Musk gunning for Social Security benefits in some way in the near future. There is a reason why they’re call the “third rail” of American politics — touch them and you die politically.

I say this in the context of Musk “firing” a career government official in the Treasury Department who apparently is among those in charge of disbursing money. This is a Prometheus tale that writes itself — Musk stops (or something) Social Security payments and…lulz…Trump panics and “fires” him from his non-existent job in the government.

One thing you have to remember about Trump is he always, always, eventually finds a way to push things to the limit. So, it definitely seems as though we’re careening — at some point in the future — a massive fucking crisis the likes of which we’ve never seen since the end of the Civil War.

I say this because Trump has an enormous amount of political slack built into his governance at the moment so by the time it becomes tight or even breaks things will have gotten pretty dire.

We Need Radical Moderates

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The last time Radical Moderates were in the mainstream of American political life was during and just after the Civil War. These were people who overnight embraced emancipation, a previously very radical idea, and made it the center of politics.

We need Radical Moderates today. We need people who dramatically shift the center of the political universe so instead of us all rolling over for Trump we actually have the guts to do shit like a General Strike. (I’m not advocating anything, my you.)

But I just doubt that is going to happen. The center-Left is too meh and limp to do something as dramatic as actually, I don’t know, risk something in the real world instead of sending out a really well written tweet.

So, I guess this is it. We’re just going to become legalistic autocracy like they have in Russia. Oh well.

This Could Be *IT*

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It could be that Trump just ignores the courts when it comes to his current edict on funding freezes and, lulz….that’s IT. Trump gets to be a dictator and we enter a new age where Trump proves that he simply doesn’t give a shit what the courts say.

So, I don’t know what to tell you, folks. I just don’t see the things that need to happen to solve this particular problem happening. There will not be any General Strike. Radical Moderates won’t bubble up to the surface to save our asses.

This could be it. Trump really will act like a dictator from here on out and we will become a legalistic autocracy like Russia a lot sooner than I originally imaged.