Tag: Glorious American Revolution of 2021

We’re In A Severe Constitutional Crisis


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

As someone smarter than me said on Twitter, “Post-factual is pre-fascist.” So, the next few days will be crucial in deciding the fate of the United States. The reason why I say that is Republicans are beginning to pull some pretty spectacular scenarios out of their asses in an absolute last-gasp effort to keep Trump in office.

The latest scenario is the creation of the bullshit commission that Ted “Born In Canada” Cruz has suggested would delay the certification 10 days so Republicans can have a lot more time for mischief. Even thought the Electoral Count Act exists to prevent a replay of the 1876 situation, that Cruz is even suggesting such a thing indicates we’re now in a significant Constitutional Crisis.

The biggest reason is it seems pretty obvious that while Ted Cruz and other seditious members of Congress are playing politics, Trump is pretty much thinking only in terms of self-preservation. The disconnect between these two mindsets has otherwise normal people playing into the hands of a madman. Trump just wants to stay in power, no matter what (for various reasons) and, as such, he has thought no further than simply “I don’t want to leave office.”

A lot of people on the Republican side involved in this clusterfuck who should know better are playing along because they don’t want Mad King Trump to demand they be primaried in 2022 or 2024. So, they, too, aren’t really thinking beyond the short-term goal of sucking up to Trump and not making him mad. They really haven’t given any thought to what happens if they pull this stunt off? They don’t think they will and so they see no downside in going as far as possible with Trump’s bullshit.

So it’s up to people like me to think about what happens if they “catch the car.” Well, as I keep saying, it would be a “political 9/11.” But even then, the whole thing would be problematic for House Trump for a number of reasons. This is Trump we’re talking about and he is a massive self-own artist. He’s already self-owned in a massive way by not doing his autocrat “homework” of stealing the election outright in a way that would otherwise give him necessary façade of legality that would allow him to consolidate power in his second term.

He’s not an autocrat, he’s just a deranged idiot who was nothing more than an avatar for the rot and rage in the American political system. That’s it. He has zero leadership skills, so he wasn’t even able to do the bare minimum necessary to “not lose” the 2020 election when the time came.

So, here we are.

Now we have a number of different potentially pretty bad scenarios ahead of us. Trump could essentially stage a coup via the “Pence Card” gambit that would, in effect, be supported by about 38% of the electorate. All things being equal, that’s probably enough for him to stay in power. But I keep thinking about how American civil society would process such an event. Sort of a, “how do you explain it to the kids” kind of thing.

People on Twitter talk a good talk about what they might do if a Pence Card Gambit coup took place, but I have my doubts. It could be that there’s significant grumbling, but since Trump would have at least a thin veneer of legality that he would get away with it.

That would break the back of American democracy once and for all and House Trump would formally be founded. But for the moment, there’s no end game. That’s why we’re in a crisis. Any number of different things might happen in the end.

The Abstract Rage Of Rep. Louie Gohmert


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Let’s look at what’s going on with Rep. Louie Gohmert’s lawsuit against Mike Pence of all people. It seems to me there are a few reasons — in his mind — for the lawsuit.

  1. Catch Pence’s Attention
    Gohmert’s suit is about, in part, simply catching Pence’s attention and reminding him of what he might be able to do if he was so inclined. While Pence could be a dick and throw the nation into chaos, up until fairly recently, he was a pretty traditional — if far Right — politician. So, for him to do something crazy on January 6th would at least appear to be out of character.
  2. Remind Pence of his Duty
    By bringing attention to what Pence’s responsibilities are, Gohmert is attempting to put pressure on Pence to fuck things up. Again, Pence came up through the ranks as a pretty “normal” politician, so it would really be wild for him to do what Gohmert and others want.
  3. Make Everyone Talk About What Pence Could Do
    Another aspect to the suit is to get everyone talking about what Pence may — or may not — do when the opportunities arises. This is where the suit has been the most successful, by far — I mean, I’m talking about it right now.

    Now, let’s talk about how bonkers all of this is to begin with. Gohmert is definitely ahead of the curve in the whole fascist take over of America. And, if he would just fucking be patient, he would definitely get what he wanted. America is a center-Right nation and obviously had Trump in 2016 been the “guy from The Apprentice” then we would be an autocratic, managed democracy right now. Our democracy would, at last, be dead and we would just have House Trump in power for the foreseeable future.

    But there’s a problem — Trump.

    Trump is just a very lucky ding-dong — and now a very lucky DERANGED ding-dong — and so it’s possible that Trump could do something so fucking insane between now and January 20th that we don’t just punt Gohmert’s fascist dreams down the road one election cycle, but for a generation.

    I don’t know. Everything is still very much up in the air. Not until around January 6th will we have a better understanding of what, if anything, is going to happen with all of this.

No, You Fucking Right Wing Nutjobs, You Aren’t Going To Start A Revolution


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Looking at my Webstats, I definitely get the sense that there’s a lot of talk out there in Right Wing circles about some sort of Revolution if They Don’t Get Their Way and Trump stays in power despite him losing the election.

While it’s easy to imagine some sort of major political violence in, say, about four years, if the tree of liberty is watered with the blood of fucking Right Wing cocksuckers right NOW, it will be in vain. The far Right has an abstract rage against “libtards” but I honestly don’t understand what, exactly, they think they would get out of any sort of “revolution” at the moment.

Americans, in general, are pretty copacetic and there’s a quantum leap from having an abstract rage against people who disagree with you politically and actually running around murdering them. There would be real-world consequences to doing so and I don’t think the far Right is prepared to have to deal with that — yet.

Give them four years for the Proud Boys to turn into the SA / SS and the Republican Party to turn into the National Socialist American Worker’s Party and we can talk. When you’re REALLY willing to risk dying or spending the rest of your life in prison because of the vague notion that you might be “canceled” by the evil globalist cuck overlords then, well, I’ll take you seriously.

Now, though, meh. You fucking cowards.

The absolute craziest part of all of this is it may be Trump, himself, who destroys any possibility of a Right Wing “revolution” anytime soon. Trump is not fucking well mentally and it definitely seems as though he is on the cusp of forcing the issue of some sort of coup very, very soon.

Or, put another way, it’s possible that Trump could do something so insane in the waning days of his administration that he kind of slices the boil when it comes to such matters and the whole decent into revolution and civil war that an alarming number of Republicans seem to be looking forward to will be punted down the road a generation.

But, as I keep saying, for that to happen, Trump would extract a pound of political flesh from us. It would be horrific. It would be a quantum leap beyond what happened on 9/11. It would be a New Era for a number of reasons.

The issue is — we’re now entering a very unstable moment in our nations history. If we can just make it past January 20th without Trump nuking us all into the stone age, then we worry about if fucking Right Wing nutjob cocksucker shitheads will get their “revolution” or not.

Four Days That May Shake The World


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

As I keep saying, I’m always wrong. Always. I make all these wild predictions and then…nothing. But the following is, if nothing else, entertaining in its own dark, disturbing manner. It’s possible that Jan 3rd to January 6th may be some of the most eventful in American history.

Here’s why:

The one year anniversary of the assassination of Iranian military leader Qasem Soleimani is on January 3rd. It’s easy to imagine Iran striking either in the Middle East or the American homeland in retaliation. Depending on what exactly occurred, that, in itself, could be Trump’s “Reichstag Fire” that makes him a wartime president.

Trump is already extremely unhinged right now, and it’s easy to see him wagging the dog right before Congress is set to certify the Electoral College vote on January 6th.

If you throw in Proud Boys in DC flipping out and causing a lot of mayhem in DC on or about January 6th as well, that’s the excuse Trump might need to invoke the Insurrection Act in DC. Additionally, as all of this chaos is going on, Pence might REALLY take things to the next level and nullify the certification vote by not doing him job.

That would really destabilize the country and…then…I don’t know. There are some basic elements of a successful coup that Trump hasn’t done. He hasn’t done his autocratic homework, if you will. So, in a sense, he’s thrashing about in desperation, making everyone else’s life hell because he’s not an autocrat at all, but a deranged ding-dong.

Ugh.

As such, while in the abstract it gives the Far Right a boner to think about how they can overturn the results of the election this way, the moment they actually do anything…it definitely seems everything will fall apart. For no other reason than Trump isn’t even an autocrat, but just a very lucky ding-dong. We’re an autocracy without an autocrat. We need to marinate in our pre-fascist juices for about one more election cycle before we finally descend into a Russian-style managed democracy.

But there’s one thing to keep in mind — Trump is no longer thinking in political terms, but rather strictly in terms of self-preservation. So it’s possible Trump is so deranged that he might force the issue of some sort of coup well before we’re ready and not even the rotting rage found within our political system will be enough to save him.

He may so enrage the 60% of the electorate who don’t support MAGA that all the people who have totally invested in Trump’s rise to power over the last five years might, at last, find him a lability and cut him loose. But what’s more likely to happen is we’re just going to punt all these problems down the road one election cycle and someone like Tom Cotton or Josh Hawley or Mike Pompeo will be the one to finally strangle traditional American democracy.

Trump is not an autocrat.

It’s a very curious situation we’re in for the next few days. And, really, if we make it past January 6th, that’s just the end of the beginning of this shitshow. It’s possible that once Trump doesn’t have ANY hope of overturning the election, he just explodes mentally and things grow extremely dire. So dire, in fact, that we might have some sort of snap impeachment and conviction of Trump, but not without him extracting one last pound of political flesh from the nation on his way out the door.

My fear, of course, is things grow really, really dark. That Trump goes the literal Hitler-in-the-bunker route. I hate to even think about the implications of that, but if we were honest with ourselves, it’s something we would begin to game out.

The Narrative For A Trump Coup Attempt


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

A Twitter thread by Bill Kristol finally gives me a handle on what Trump might do between now and, say, January 7th. It goes something like this.

The anniversary of the Soleimani assassination is Jan 3rd. It’s easy to imagine a situation where there’s some significant attack against Israeli and American interests in the Middle-East and Trump uses that to escalate things on the eve of the January 6th vote by Congress to certify the vote. That makes Trump a “war president.”

Next, the Proud Boys in D.C. for the Congressional certification freak the fuck out and start blowing shit up to the extent necessary to give Trump the excuse to use the Insurrection Act in D.C. In that context, he does something extra-political or extra-legal by pretty much just waving his hands about the details and doing something so he “wins” the election when Congress discusses the issue.

This would be a massive clusterfuck and I honestly don’t see how Trump would be successful. But such a sequence of events could, in itself, be the “political 9/11” I’ve been worried about and lead to a secession crisis and subsequent civil war.

Wargaming A Trump Coup


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

We have to start taking Trump’s coup plotting seriously. It seems as though Trump has settled on January 6th as his last effort to blow up the Consutition before he just loses his mind and begins inciting sedition via transactional tweets.

So, let’s game out what Trump’s plot might be. The key thing we have to appricate is Trump has done none of the hard prep work needed to cleanly pull off a coup. At this point, what’s going on is a side-effect of Trump slowly sliding into insanity at the prospect of no longer being president.

On January 6th, it definitely seems as though Trump’s options are limited. At best, he can get the two Houses to debate for 2 hours and potentially rile the whole country up even more than it already is. If the debate grew really heated — which it will — then it’s very possible that Rightwing shithead cocksuckers could flip out and start blowing shit up.

The real issue for me is Mike Pence. I could see Pence simply not doing his job no matter what. He simply will nullify the certification no matter what the outcome of the vote in Congress. It’s my impression that at that point, the certification by states’ governors would be what was relevant and, as such, Trump would lose.

But the real issue is Trump has more than enough time to prime MAGA-Qanon-Patriot Party shithead cocksuckers to strike should things not go their way. There could be significant political violence on or about January 6th, the likes of which we’ve not seen in the modern era.

I’m also nervous that should Pence nullify certification, that Rudy will sue at SCOTUS in a final, last ditch effort to box SCOTUS into a partisan box. Of course, this would not be happening in a vacuum. If things had gotten that far, then America could very well be experiencing rolling political violence that would be marketed as a civil war.

But there’s one thing we have to remember — to date, MAGA cocksucker shitheads have been all talk. Or, they just haven’t reached Brown Shirt or Black Shirt levels of popularity or organization. They may come, but there not there yet.

So, it definitely seems as though Trump is going to lose in Congress after delaying things some. But because of the expectations game Trump has been playing along with his growing instability, it’s possible that Trump will keep going.

He might grow transactional on Twitter in any number of different ways. Everything from telling MAGA to “remind liberals of the power of the Second Amendment” to demanding that Red States call conventions so they can secede. At this point, I have to make the point that I continue to give Trump autocratic and abstract abilities that he simply doesn’t have.

He’s not an autocrat, he’s a ding-dong. He’s a lazy, incompetent ding-dong who has enjoy unprecedented support not matter what he does because he’s an avatar for the rot and rage in the American political system. That he’s waited until the last month of his administration to freak out and suddenly try to be an autocrat is very telling.

Even if America is an autocracy without the autocrat, we still have a pretty strong civil society, so if Trump got what he wanted — a successful coup that at least initially kept him in power — the reaction to such a “political 9/11” would be so quick, so violent that he simply would not be able to STAY in power.

Things would grow very chaotic very quickly and what might happen is something closer to a Glorious Revolution than a Second American Civil War. In other words, a lot of conservatives-who-aren’t-MAGA would, at last, give up on Trump and he simply wouldn’t have the Mandate of Heaven anymore and he would be deposed.

It would not be fun. It would be scary as hell, in fact. The only reason why I just can’t see Trump pulling of a coup the way he wants to is, well, it’s the last month of his administration and he’s losing his mind. So, yes, he can cause a lot of damage and scare the shit out of the entire nation, but in the end, he just hasn’t done the hard work necessary to steal a second term.

Not to say he won’t try. He probably will. And things will probably get violent. But, again, this is December 2020, not October 2020. What’s happening right now says more about Trump’s sense of self-preservation than it does anything about his political acumen as a would-be autocrat.

So, in the end, it definitely seems as though Trump is going to get his coup, then get deposed. And that’s the best case scenario for him. Worst case scenario is he totally loses his mind, holds up in the White House and has his Downfall in the White House Situation Room.

The Glorious American Revolution Of 2021



by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’m reading the big, new U.S. Grant biography and it’s really good. It’s extremely timely on a number of levels. It definitely feels like Something Big is about to happen in the United States just like in the late 1850s for no other reason than two absolutes are careening towards each other — Barr is never going to let Trump lose and it definitely looks as though (at the moment) that’s exactly what’s going to happen to Trump on a political level.

So, that’s the setup for Something Big in what is, in real terms, a matter of days.If there is some sort of Soviet Union August 1991 event in the United States, it’s likely to happen because of some sort of extra-political 9/11 event. Or, put another way, some sort of miscalculation on the part of Barr. It might not even be a miscalculation — given what he has available, the idea that through sheer media manipulation and fucking with the law and norms that he really can hand Mad King Trump his ill-gotten second term.

The reason why things might blow up in TrumpBarr’s face is the average person sees what’s going on for what it is — a coup — then all bets are off. And, as I keep saying, the key type of person to think about it the “conservative-but-not-MAGA” person. If you can somehow, someway, get them to stop thinking about “cancel culture” long enough to notice the fucking coup going on around them, then maybe, just maybe, we might be able to stop it.

If that type of person joins with the traditional center-Left opposition to Trump, the whole country comes to a grinding halt. At that point, either there’s a civil war, a revolution or both. The conservative-but-not-MAGA person is pretty much the bedrock of the American political system. If they feel TrumpBarr has forced the issue and they’ve lost “The Mandate of Heaven” then the United States — in its present form — could very well go the way of the Soviet Union in late 1991.

One way of doing it.

I’m not joking.

Let’s layout why this is. The big thing that’s different about the United States in 2020 and the Soviet Union in 1991 is economic — the United States’ fundamentals are fine. What we have is a fucking insane political problem where fucking fascists like TrumpBarr use the resentment of rural areas to tell secular metropolitan areas what to do.

The most surreal aspect of all of this — at least to me — is fucking cocksucker MAGA people hating on the media. Oh, come on you shitheads. You fucking morons. You keep talking about “cancel culture” when such a culture didn’t exactly stop Trump from becoming president, now did it?

I still think if you’re a MAGA fucktard you’re a fucking idiot if you want a civil war. You. Are. A. Fucking. Moron. You’re getting everything through what’s left of politics. Why would you want to turn things existential and risk turing those soyboys you think so little of into Rambo?

Who will play the part of these guys?

What one might compare the coming instability in the United States to is England’s Glorious Revolution. Their ruler lost the Mandate of Heaven, so he was replaced. So, in a sense, any “revolution” in the United States would be a personal revolt against TrumpBarr.

I really hate that my fucking novel may become moot if any of my dire predictions become a reality. I really like this novel. It’s a really great idea. I am also unhappy that given my personal skillset and my natural inclination to race towards danger, not away from it, that fate my put me in some pretty surreal situations sooner rather than later.

Though, with my luck, I’ll probably get murdered by some crazed MAGA person on the first day of an revolution or civil war. Ugh.