Tag: Jared Kushner

TNT: Trump / Trump 2020?



by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

My current estimation is at some point in the next few weeks, we will reach a Trump freakout tipping point and Trump will rather abruptly dump Pence as his 2020 running mate.

Now, the Republican MAGA backbench is so wide and deep that he has about 30 people he could pick from who would get the job done. But, for the moment, it seems two people are more perfect than the others — Ivanka Trump and Gen. Mike Flynn.

Flynn is perfect because, well, he’s a fucking traitor and probably Trump’s Russian “handler” so what better way to “own the libs” than to put a turncoat one heartbeat away from the presidency. So, Flynn seems perfect. And, yet, Ivanka would also fix a lot of problems for House Trump.

She’s a “threefer” in that she’s Jewish, a woman and a Trump….and moderate! So, she’d be perfect for the white college educated women in the exerbs that everyone seeks so desperately in a presidential campaign. What I could see happening is something like this:

Trump’s political fortunes get dramatically worse. His insanity and his criminality fuse into one and he begins to lash out in some pretty insane ways (he’s already doing that, natch). As part of this insane lashing out, he does a major shake up of his campaign, including booting Pence. (Brad Parscale is a different matter. He’s too good at his job for Trump to do anything about him. He’s so powerful — and necessary to Trump’s victory — I could see Trump naming HIM his veep.)

Then Trump names Ivanka his veep. Everyone goes insane for a few days. Then things begin to calm down and we realize that, like most Trump political moves, it’s both genius and very stupid. But, really, the whole point is to simply setup Ivanka (and Jared) to become president at some point in Trump’s ill-gotten second term. Jared will probably really run the country, while Ivanka is a figure head. Or maybe there might be some combination of Ivanka-Jared-Flynn should Trump finally totally and completely lose his fucking mind in his second term.

Trump is going to win, no matter what. I see no indication that he will ever EVER, ever have any political accountability because of some pretty significant macro problems in the American political system.

Lulz.

‘Jared Is A Punk’ — Lyrics To An Anti-Trump Neo-Punk Song

This is a silly homage to Judy Is A Punk. It’s just me venting. I wrote it really quick and it made me feel better. I wish someone would help me to make it better then perform it.

Jared Is A Punk
lyrics by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls
please give credit if you produce or perform

Jared is a punk
Ivanka is a runt
doesn’t say much
don’t hear him say
ye or nay
what gives with that
anyway

don’t know a bribe
they don’t like
no fuzz on that
no fuzz on that
no fuzz on that
no fuzz on that

they want us
to believe
they know
the right way
but there
are Russians
there are
Russians everywhere
what gives
with that I say

don’t know a bribe
they don’t like
no fuzz on that
no fuzz on that
no fuzz on that
no fuzz on that

Jared seems
so silent
though he has
great sway
his father-in-law
is a dick
what more
can I say
to my dismay

Complicit: Jesus, Jared & Ivanka Can Suck It

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

The fact that the Trump Administration announced that it’s pulling out of the Paris Accord is a death blow to the notion that Ivanka and Jared will be some sort of moderating or mitigating influence on this dumpster fire of a would-be autocracy.

In hindsight, it was all very naive of us to think that just because the couple was apparently, well, sane and urban that they could single-handedly prevent their racist, bigoted, misogynist, nativist relative from swerving the greatest nation in the world into a geopolitical ditch.

I have to admit that I had hope. I had hope that, for no other reason, a woman as smart and attractive as Ivanka wouldn’t allow her dear old dad monumentally fuck things up. And yet today’s announcement lays waste to any hope that that might be the case.

We officially have our answer. Either Ivanka and Jared are completely complicit in the worst aspects of Trumplandia, or they have zero real power. Neither one of these possibilities put the couple in a good light. If they’re complicit, then we have to see them as a part of the problem. If they’re powerless, then we can sit around hoping they will prevent, well, prevent events like pulling out of the Paris Accord from happening.

This tweet doesn’t really make me feel any better.

If that tweet is accurate, then I guess we have our answer: they’re complicit. When the history books of this time are written, hopefully this mystery of how it is that people like Ivanka and Jared could allow themselves to be sucked into the black void of Trumplandia. How did this happen?

What is even more of a struggle to understand is how in Trumplandia a Jewish holiday can be so significant to policy making…and yet Donald Trump is best buds with an avowed anti-Semite like Steve Bannon. It is a struggle for me to grapple with this paradox. It seems as though in the world of Trumplandia you really can have it both ways.

Your daughter can be Jewish and you can associate closely with anti-Semites. That is one of the many ways Trumplandia is ideologically perplexing and slippery. It is easy for Trumplandia apologists to say both things that I just suggested can’t be true. And, yet, it is self evident that they are, in fact, true.

If all of this means anything, it’s that there will be no secret saviors in the Trumplandia Era. Our only hope is to engage, to organize, to fight and to have hope that despite everything, despite the obstacles, that the moral arc of history does, in fact, bend towards justice.

If we assume that anything else is the case, then we’re deluding ourselves. We have to fight the good fight. We have to, on an individual level do what we can to make sure that in 2018 we flip Congress. There are no assurances this will happen, but we have to have hope. We have to.

It’s A Wild, Wild, Wild, Wild World: Jared Kushner & The Russians

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

It’s beginning to look, well, a little suspicious for the Donald Trump Administration when it comes to its ties with the Russians. Though it has to be noted, it’s not like Trump did not go out of his way to tell everyone what we were getting into.

But the latest revelation, that Trump’s son-in-law Jared “Bedroom Eyes” Kushner wanted to setup a secret channel — using the Sovet’s Russians own equipment! — it kind of zany even for Trump’s band of folks who can’t shoot straight. It’s all very weird and yet in Trumplandia it still hasn’t yet begun to get any traction. The citizens of Trumplandia still love the Dear Leader with all their hearts and they seem determined to bring down the nation along with themselves.

I guess what shocks me the most about all of this is how in the open all of this is. Trump has never hidden his love of all things Russian and for me, a child of the Cold War, it is rather disturbing that Republicans still given Trump full-throated support despite their history of being strong on national defense. It’s almost as if the Cult of Ronald Reagan has finally be excised from the GOP spirit. It’s all very strange and there is no easy answer to it all. I just don’t get it. I just don’t understand.

You can’t have a cover-up if you don’t cover it up. Photo from New York Magazine.

The crux of the issue is, why the Russian fascination on the part of the Trump campaign and administration? What is the fire to all this smoke. Many different people have come up with many different possibilities. While a lot of people suspect it is the “pee tape” that is the source of all this odd behavior, I lean more on the side of it being fiduciary in nature.

Trump is a shady businessman and over 30 years he probably has gotten involved in a lot of shading dealings in Russia and now all that is coming home to roost. He did not expect to win and now that the FBI is getting involved, all kinds of criminality and malfeasance is being dug up.

Will that be enough to bring own Trump? I doubt it. I suspect we’re stuck with Trump for at least a solid two years, if not more. A lot depends on flipping the House and Senate in 2018. Given how stupid the American electorate has proven itself by electing Trump to begin with, it’s very possible that we’re just doomed. It’s very possible we’re all very doomed and we could be stuck with Trump for four, even eight years.

Then we really will have to make America great again.