by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
I am well aware what a kook I sound like. But I’m harmless. Absolutely harmless. I just get worked up sometimes. I have a few novels to work on. Please, please, leave me alone.
Tag: Fuck Mike Pompeo
Dear FBI: I Hate Violence
by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
“You’re a delusional jerk with a good heart.”
— (late) Annie Shapiro about me.
I really hate violence. Hell, I struggle with dealing with just simple conflict, much less violence. But I know that at times I kind of get worked up — especially about fat fuck Mike Pompeo — and I also know that apparently everyone is on edge and on a hair trigger about people even seeming to be advocating any sort of harm.
JESUS CHRIST
Just the idea that anyone would think I was some sort of deranged, armed lunatic really, really bothers me. I have very strong opinions, yes, and can get drunk and worked out about this or that issue but I’m a man of peace, a man of ideas.
I can come across as something of a drunk kook, but that’s it. I’m very laid back and, most importantly, I’m not quiet and I don’t keep to myself. I’m 100% extroverted and, as such, whatever happens to be on my mind, you’re probably going to learn about it one way or another.
So, FBI, you can safely ignore me, no matter how much I may rant about how I think Mike Pompeo is a fat fuck and would-be autocrat. I swear. I’m totally, totally harmless!
The Ascendant MTG
by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
I don’t know what to make of Marjorie Taylor Greene because on one hand, she’s just another deranged MAGA moron and on the other she seems to want to be a real player in Washington. The only reason why this is both alarming and unnerving is she not only has incoming Speaker Kevin McCarthy over a barrel, making all these demands of him, but she’s also apparently in the running to be Trump’s 2024 veep.
Oh boy.
So, there there is a good chance that we may trade ding-dong Trump for ding-dong MTG at some point after 2025. Should she — gulp — become president either she would be a far more effective version of Trump or she would name someone like fat fuck Mike Pompeo to be her veep and he would would behind the throne. I call this the “Velvet Fist” scenario.
I just don’t know. While I do think it is very, very possible that MTG could become POTUS by being Trump’s veep, her actual ability to turn America into some sort of MAGA hellscape is debatable. But anything is possible, I guess.
I will note, however, that if Trump is the 2024 Republican nominee, the likelihood that America will have a Second American Civil War increases significantly. Let that marinate in your mind whenever thinking of MTG as POTUS one day.
‘Not Great, Bob:’ — Mike Pompeo, Tyrant In Waiting
by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
It’s not great how close someone like Mike Pompeo is to being president of the United States. Of all the would-be autocrats within the Republican Party at the moment — and there are at least a dozen –Pompeo is special (at least to me) because he’s so brazen about what a fucking tyrant he would be, given the opportunity. Case in point:
This is pretty basic autocratic stuff and if Pompeo became president he knows the levers of power well enough to make his tyrannical, illiberal vision of America a very painful reality. When he’s not union-busting, he’ll be leaning on major media companies by threatening their broadcast licenses or “disappearing” people like me using a weaponized ICE.
And our liberal order in America is so weak at the moment, it will probably happen in broad daylight and nothing will happen. There might be some outrage here or there but, in general, so many wealthy liberals will be on the way out of the country that no real resistance will happen in the real world where it would be needed.
But let me be clear — Mike Pompeo is just a unique strain of a whole autocratic pot dispensary of Republican would-be autocrats. By definition — the next Republican president will be a fascist autocrat and America’s slide into illiberal democracy is now an immutable force of political future history. We may punt it down the road some or change the context some, but this is it — we’re now in the final days of American democracy one way or another.
It just happens that something about former fat fuck Pompeo bothers me because he seems to really hate the press for some reason. Asshole.
But Pompeo would have to win election first, of course, and the way things are going, it definitely looks like the only way that will ever happen is if Trump picked him as his veep in 2024. Which is possible, but not probable.
Pompeo is sort of in a race against time — unless it’s old and fat Trump who becomes our autocrat in 2025, then it will be young and angry DeSantis who will politically cockblock his chances of being our first autocrat. So, I suppose we’ll just have to wait and see if Trump’s veep is someone like Pompeo or if it’s someone like MTG. Only time will tell.
Would-Be Autocrat, Mike Pompeo
by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
I feel a personal distaste for Mike Pompeo because I know, just know, that should he ever become POTUS that I am exactly the type of person he would sick ICE on. He hates the press and is the worst of the various would-be autocrats America faces in that regard.
One thing about him I’ve always found both hilarious and sad is how he clung on to Trump to the very, very end, to the point that he embarrassed himself — and America — by having to turn around his airplane in the middle of the skys of the Atlantic when it became clear that even if he did not want to face reality that the rest of the world was. They just wouldn’t meet with him anymore because, lulz, Trump fucking loss.
Flash forward a few years and who should be sniping at Trump on Twitter but his old Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo. A lot of people dismiss Pompeo as not having a chance to be POTUS, but I’m not so sure. I could see Trump picking him as his veep for 2024 and then becoming president that way.
Regardless, I have no personal vendetta against him. Whatever. To me, he’s just one of a dozen other would-be autocrats I have to worry about. But just strikes me as a big old dickhead who hates democracy and would put me — and people like me — in a camp if he had the power to do so.
I Do *Not* Know Why Someone From The Justice Department Looked At Your LinkedIn
I wrote a post about myself but it never said anything about the motives of the Justice Department looking at people’s LinkedIns in general. I put a rhetorical question in the title.
After years of it being used by people worried like I was, I have changed it, hoping it will no longer be indexed and found by people panicking about this thing happening to them, too.
Sorry.
Trump Is Above The Law
by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
Saying this over and over again is growing tiresome — Trump is above the law. We just don’t have the political will to do anything about the fucker. We know what he was up to in the lead up to January 6th Insurrection and it’s a lulz.
The man was actively attempting to destroy American democracy and was only thwarted through a combination of how pell-mell the execution of the self-coup was and Pence simply not going along with the plan at the last moment.
And now Trump, like an face-hugging xenomorph from Alien, is hell bent on turning the Republican Party into a shiv to murder American democracy once and for all no later than, say, January 2025. Remember, Trump is so popular that he probably will win the 2024 election fair and square — no cheating needed.
Yet, of course, none of this has happened yet.
The thing that “hysterical” people like me get dinged for is we make arguments that make sense, then don’t come to fruition for this or that unexpected event or historical miscalculation. I mean, how could I have known in the fall of 2019 that a pandemic would throw everything up in the air? How could I have known that, in the end, Trump was too lazy and stupid to do even the most basic of autocratic moves going into the 2020 election?
So, he lost.
And, honestly, this time around, it’s very possible that something similar could happen. I mean, if Trump doesn’t run, then the likelihood that we’ll simply slip peacefully into autocracy grows. And there are plenty of people who will shrug if we become an autocracy and won’t event acknowledge the transition until it affects them on a personal level.
Then, of course, it will be way, way, way too late for people like me who simply will never fucking shut up about, say, what a piece of shit President Mike Pompeo is. Fucking cocksucker.
Anyway, while all the signs point to something akin to a Fourth Turning / Great Reset in roughly the 2024 – 2025 timeframe, it hasn’t happened yet. But all the metrics are pointing to such a thing happening. All the lights are flashing red. Get ready.
MAGA & The Rise Of ‘Lite Touch’ Autocracy In The United States
by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
The thing about my interaction with my conservative relatives is, they grade Trump and MAGA on such a massive curve that during the Trump Era it was only when something autocratic in a concrete happened that they noticed or cared. And, even then, some of them got so upset by having to admit that Trump did Something Wrong that they negated my ability to pin them down on the matter. The other conservative relatives in my life, meanwhile, simply lulzed the “cruelty is the point” nature of MAGA and saw it as a means to an end.
This gets me thinking about what happens should we peacefully drifted into an autocracy. This will probably happen when it simply becomes conventional political wisdom that the only way a Democrat can become POTUS is if Democrats also control Congress. This will never happen for the Democratic Party, of course, because of Republican gerrymandering and voter suppression.
Now, the thing I’ve noticed about talking to my conservative relatives is there is a finite window where you can make them squirm about some excess on the part of MAGA. It’s the time between when some horrible thing has been exposed about MAGA and when the Right wing echo chamber has pulled talking points out of their ass. Once the talking points exist, the whole thing is a lulz. The goal posts are moved and we move on to the next crisis.
The question for me is, what happens when we are an autocracy and some of the darker things I worry about — like the media being purged and the existing ICE infracture being weaponized by President Pompeo or President Cotton (etc, etc?)
There are two major answers to this question. One is, for a long time, these dark fears won’t be realized. Once MAGA has established their autocracy, there will be a “lite touch” autocracy where for the average person, nothing will have changed other than everyone will stop voting because they know Republicans have an absolute lock on the political system. So, when I get really angry about how we’re an autocracy with my conservative relatives, they will fall back to their existing position of, “But did you die?” In other words — this is the New Normal and, I like it, fuck you, lib.
The other option is, after a few years of “lite touch” autocracy, President Pompeo (or whomever) will grow power hungry and do the very things I’m worried about. Probably how this will happen is MAGA will finally get the Constitutional Convention it craves so bad. That will be the final gasp of American liberty and then we will finally be a white Christian ethno state.
Then we reach the Good German Era. When I start worrying about the very real possibility of being snatched off the street by ICE for refusing to shut up about what a fucking cocksucker President Pompeo is, they’ll pull me aside and say, “Look, for the sake of the family you need to be quiet.”
I’ve already said very explicitly that I’d rather be turned in than be quiet.
I have no idea what’s going to happen in the future. But I do know we had all better enjoy this twilight of political calm we’re currently living through.
America’s Politics: A Status Check
by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
Some rando on Twitter told me to “calm down” today after I said my usual thing about how America faces the choice of autocracy or civil war in the near, near term.
Let’s do a back of the envelope status check on American politics. I’m not getting paid to do this and the people of VOX think I’m a crank, so lulz, you get what you pay for.
What makes doing this so difficult is, while in general terms I know we’re fucked, those fears a pretty much abstract. Going forward, it’s difficult to figure out what is important and what isn’t. But let’s have a go.
The first thing that comes to the forefront of my mind is the Republican Party is now fascist. It has been completely consumed by the rancid populism of MAGA. The Republican Party is dead and now is the Trump Party in everything but name. It has no ideology other than what whatever Trump wants at any particular moment.
As such, the question is, will it be Trump or one of his would-be successors who push us to the breaking point where we face the existential choice of autocracy or civil war. For the time being, Trump is in complete control of the Republican Party and any success or failure the party has in its objectives will be the direct result of Trump’s personal ability to achieve those goals. So, it’s easy to imagine a situation where Trump being lazy and stupid is handed power AGAIN through some sort of nullification crisis in January 2025 and he’s just too stupid to shepherd the country peacefully through what would otherwise be an inevitable transition to autocracy.
So, we have a civil war and bomb each other into oblivion because MAGA can’t bear to even think of the word “liberal.” Who wins in that situation, I have no idea.
If it’s not Trump, but someone like Tom Cotton, Mike Pompeo or Josh Hawley, then I doubt we’ll have a civil war because they’re politically adept enough to avoid one. The media will be purged, ICE’s camp infrastructure weaponized and I get pushed out a window because I refuse to fucking shut up about how much I fucking hate MAGA.
There are other things floating around our undead political system that are unnerving. The glorification of political violence by MAGA along with the rise of paramilitary groups is not exactly the sign of a healthy political system. The interesting thing about this is Trump — to date — hasn’t had the guts to go transactional. So, in that regard, Trump is definitely no Hitler. What Trump loves to do is dog whistle violent acts that he would like, but he simply has never been direct about it.
But if, say, Cyber Ninjas gets his hopes up by “proving” he “won” Arizona, that might change. He might go transactional and tell MAGA’s paramilitary arm to start doing specific things to facilitate his “reinstatement.” Or not. It’s possible he’ll continue to be a big old wussy (on a political basis.)
Yet, the issue is, what does this mean going forward? Do I need to “calm down” or am I right that we face an existential choice of autocracy or civil war at some point between now and January 2025.
Nothing is set in stone, however. It’s possible that we’ll drift into some sort of “lite touch” autocracy where it’s just Conventional Wisdom that the only way a Democrat can become POTUS is if Democrats also control Congress. Liberals will vent in the media while MAGA welds hard power and that will be that for a few cycles until someone like President Mike Pompeo finally has had enough and goes full autocrat because there’s no one to stop him anymore.
Would Be Autocrat Hot-Take: Mike Pompeo
by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
Mike Pompeo is such a piece of shit. He’s a big old turd who thinks he can bring about the return of Jesus H. Christ by, I don’t know, using Trump as the Anti-Christ of or something? And, given what a fucking cocksucker he is, if the FBI looks at this post I want them to know that that I REALLY THINK MIKE POMPEO IS PEICE OF SHIT.
He’s so fucking annoying because the moment he becomes president, he’s coming after people like me. I’m just the kind of loudmouth that he’s going to round up and get ICE to shoot in the back of the head. Ugh. At least I have four years to get out of the country, I guess.
There’s something so grating on my nerves about Pompeo. He talks about “swagger” then turns around and sucks up to any foreign leader who helps him politically in his scorched earth desire to become president and bring back Jesus H. Fucking Christ.
I know there’s nothing I can do in real terms, though. Pompeo is one a few would-be autocrats who could probably strangle our liberal democracy in one fell swoop without bungling the transition so we end up having a civil war.
But let me be clear — this is just me pointing out a coming car accident. There’s nothing I can do about any of this. I just need to vent about how the country I love is going to go from a liberal democracy to Pompeolandia within about five years.
Fuck Mike Pompeo. Ugh!
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