Great risk brings great opportunity.Shelton Bumgarner
by Shelt Garner @sheltgarner
When I heard Trump was going to fucking India today, I thought it was some sort of joke. You could not write a worst scenario — the president not only leaves the country just as a cases of a pandemic may be about to strike the country in a big way, he goes to a nation that may get one very soon itself.
It’s the setup for a nightmare scenario whereby POTUS is out of the country when the pandemic strikes with 9/11 level force and that’s just the beginning of the process of pandemic. Imagine if 9/11 happened while Bush had been in India. And what if Bush was on the edge of losing his mind, anyway? How would that have worked out? It makes you wonder who our “Rudy” will be? I think it depends a lot on where the first hot and warm zones are. It could be NYC Mayor De Blasio if things work out. But one thing is for sure, 9/11 proved that the need for leadership is almost it’s own force — it will find someone, somewhere to pick up the slack when it’s not there at the top.
I’m reminded of a number of pop culture scenes of sudden mass chaos. The War of The Worlds and Cell both have scenes in them that give us some sense of how fragile and thin our grasp on civilization is. And, really, that’s what the first “phase” of the process of 3W (World War WuFlu) would be like. That would be when, because, well, Trump is a deranged moron and Twitter liberals have been willfully oblivious about what’s going on outside of the States right now, we all get on the same page as to the crisis the nation now faces.
One thing that bothers me is how people are engaging in fear porn on Twitter without at least trying to articulate what their fears are. It’s not going to be a movie. It’s real life. So, even if the absolute worst happens — and it may — life will keep going. Life will find a way. Those with hope, tenacity and vision wills survive and prosper if fate shines its eyes on them. People who panic and run around like a chicken with their heads cut off, not so much.
So don’t panic. Believe. Keep the faith. Fight the good fight.
The disconnect between “world Twitter” and “American Twitter” has grown so huge, so surreal as to be rather existential. It’s almost as if Twitter was around in 1939-1941 and people like me realize — the Japanese are about to strike the States at any moment. It definitely feels like we’re in the twilight period before something historic and unprecedented happens. But let’s go through what’s going on with WuFlu right now.
America Truth be told, they should have canceled the Nevada Caucus. All those people in the same room is less than optimal given that a yet-to-be-declared pandemic is whipping around the globe at an alarming rate. That we haven’t had it pop up in a big way in the States probably says more about poor cooperation between State and Federal authorities — and only four states have testing abilities — than it does about the number of cases actually taking place in the country. I keep expecting 40 elderly celebrities to drop dead within a 48 hour period from WuFlu and that hasn’t happened yet. So, maybe I was wrong about that metric. But I do think it’s possible that things are going to get way, way worse than they have to because of a bungled response on the part of our doofus president’s administration. If there was a “Flughazi” scandal, it would be huge and likely maybe — maybe — be the thing that brought down House Trump….but even then, it wouldn’t be until the middle of Trump’s second term. Trump’s not going anywhere for any reason. Even if there was a Second Great Depression. He’ll bribe Electors if he has to.
But there’s a huge wildcard, the thing that could change everything about campaign 2020 — what if they have to cancel the campaign because, well, we turn into fucking Wuhan on a national scale? Or if — God forbid — we have a massive “die off” off the old coots who run the country? I’m not a praying person, but I don’t wish anyone physical harm simply because I disagree with their politics. I would much rather just figure out how to survive the Fourth Reich than go through a pandemic. And there are no assurances that the “good guys” will win — see also, A Handmaid’s Tale.
South Korea, Iran, Italy What’s going on in these three countries is an example of how Americans lulz anything that doesn’t involve, well, their country. Three major regional powers are being consumed by WuFlu and fucking Twitter Liberals are still obsessed with the 2020 Campaign. This is really, really fucking weird. But whenever the history of this moment is written — if we get the chance to write it — this will likely be seen as, say, November 1941. World War WuFlu is on its way — and maybe even The Gray Plague — and Twitter Liberals are completely indifferent. It’s shocking. Both South Korea and Iran have geopolitical issues that complicate their national faceplanting. South Korea, specifically being written off could cause not just sharp, if brief economic nose dive, it could also cause a major regional war that will suuuuuuuck.
9 Months That Shook The World I believe we may have a sequel to 9 Days That Shook The World if the absolute worst happens with WuFlu. I just doubt the governments of China, Russia or the States will survive as they currently exist. I love America with all my heart, but what Trump has started, WuFlu may finish. The country may collapse in reform into two different countries — or MAGA will go full Nazi and use ICE camps to have killing American Killing Fields. You pick your poison on that one. The Russians are ripe for another revolution (probably in association with Putin using the confusion of a pandemic to start a general war against Ukraine). And things can only get so bad in China before, well, it just implodes. This is probably the most speculative of this post, but at least the conditions are there for what I suggest to have happen, happen.
Burn, Hollywood, Burn I still think it may be a year of people not going to the movies that will lead to “immersive media” rising from the ashes like mammals after the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs. The entire infotainment industrial complex is going to get nuked if the worst happens. Talk about creative destruction! I really hope this doesn’t happen, but it’s at least possible.
I’m pretty good at strategic thinking. That’s my thing. So, let’s wargame the consequences of a major pandemic in the next, say, 28 days. The first thing we have to understand is such a pandemic would be the biggest historical event not since 9/11, but since August, 1945 — the end of World War II. As such, initially, the entire global order would likely lock up and collapse in the beginning stages of the process for lack of institutional memory as to handle such a situation, if nothing else.
My real concern at the moment is the “beginning” of the pandemic won’t be marked by what’s currently happening in Wuhan, but whenever there are reports of multiple “warm zones” across the United States all at once. Initially, CNN’s gut reaction will be to market it as a 9/11 Redux, when, in fact, it’s more like WWII redux — a world war against WuFlu (WWW) if you will. (You might call it WWX, but, then, people would confuse it with World War 10.)
Once we actually descended into the process of pandemic, the first event would be mass chaos the likes of which we’ve never seen in modern American history. Yes, 9/11 caused a lot of chaos, but that was one fucking day! Imagine two weeks of such chaos as we all figured out the “new normal” of the essentials of life being – for the time being — of dubious supply. Add to this that Trump is nothing more than a deranged version of Being There’s Chauncey Gardner and, well, Flughazi! If the entire country turns its eyes to Trump and he goes full Col. Kurtz on us and just tweets all day in his bunker behind Mt. Rushmore as three regional wars erupt, go nuclear and even involve the US (Hi, Little Rocket Man!) then, well, there might (?) finally be some political consequences for House Trump? Maybe? MAYBE?
The great tragedy of it FLUGHAZI would be that it would be sometime in 2021 or 2022 before we recovered enough to get around to impeaching and convicting Trump for FLUGHAZI and by that point, lulz! I do, however, doubt the United States (or Russia or China) will make it through a serious pandemic. Just like during the 1914-1945 period, empires will rise and fall if history woke up and ran around in traffic for a few months.
Anyway, the point is — you could not write a worst case scenario if we go full pandemic in the next 28 days. Heroes will be made. Cowards will be shamed. We all remember them all. It is at least within the realm of possibility that not only will we lop of the existing old codger power structure of much of the world, but some pretty astonishing historical figures will pop out of nowhere for no other reason than are giving the opportunity to prove their true personal valor (or lack thereof.)
I hope none of that happens, I really do. But there’s at least a chance that 2021 pop songs are going to be pretty serious songs about love and love lost for tragic reasons. Maybe rock will come back. That would be cool. Sigh.
But we’ve still not reached the tipping point. There’s no narrative to any of this. I have no idea what’s going on. I can’t even formulate an educated opinion at this point.
In these two rambling videos, I talk about both the novel I’m writing and how fucked we are when it comes to Trumplandia. May God have mercy on our collective souls.
For about four years now, I have been telling anyone who will listen that I think Donald Trump is an existential threat to the Republic. The last few days have pretty much proven my case. It’s rare that I look out in the blue winter sky and wonder if I’m going to see a DPRK ICBM in the sky, heading to nearby-ish DC.
I have even begun to pace out how I would know it had happened. The EMP burst would zap all electronics in the general area of the nuclear blast and so, well, nothing would work. I have thought about how many sites the DPRK would target and the likelihood they would actually be able to blow them up. I love Koreans, but they have no “medium” switch on a cultural level. So if president crazypants managed to get them to the point where they wanted to take us down with them, then, then they would probably shoot as many as five ICBMs towards us. They have a pretty nice H-bomb arsenal at this point and the means to deliver them across the entire United States.
But they haven’t really had a chance to test the whole system, so there’s a good chance what would really happen is we would all collectively shit our pants at how fucking close we came to 10+ million dead (at least) in the United States alone. We aren’t really prepared on a psychological or emotional level to deal with THAT many dead in the context of civilization continue to exist. But that would be a real possibility — as long as the Chinese and Russians sat on their hands, any nuclear war between the DPRK and US would be on the low end of a “limited exchange.” Given how fucking bonkers Trump is, of course, he would probably nuke the North Koreans out of existence using not just tactical nukes but h-bombs. You could probably turn most of North Korea into an unlivable radioactive hellscape with as few as 5 h-bombs. Think about that. That’s pretty deep.
The point is, however, that we’re definitely lurching towards what I’ve suggested all along — things are going to get so extreme and so surreal pretty soon that we’re going to learn a lot not just ourselves as a people but something pretty basic about our nation as a whole. If there’s nothing Trump can do that will lesson his support for any reason, what happens if he get’s so bad on a mental level that we all start to think maybe we’re entering The Dead Zone. Maybe the reason there’s no intelligent life in the universe is inevitably an ET Donald Trump pops up and blows the planet to bits? Is it possible that Trump’s not just an existential threat to the Republic, he’s an existential threat to the species?
I suspect that we’re just fucked. MAGA just needs Trump cognizant enough to make it into his second term. That’s it. By that point his new Veep — The Kooch, Kris Kobach, Tom Cotton, Tucker Carlson or Don Jr? — will be in place to pick up the slack. So I fully expect one of the scenarios we face is Trump uses any war in the Middle East to win re-election and the he promptly turns into a psychological puddle and we get the American Hitler we’ve all been expecting in Trump.
I just can’t see ANYTHING that will force Trump out of office for any reason other than a peaceful death sometime in the next 10 years. He’s just one tweet away from demanding a Constitutional Convention to “pass a balanced budget amendment.” He will get it, they will go rouge and pass Enabling Acts on a Constitutional level and I die in an ICE camp sometime in the next two to three years. Lulz!
Another, far darker scenario is Trump doesn’t make that far. He manages to crater on a psychological level not when MAGA needs him to (any point after Jan 20, 2021) but, say, sometime in the January-October time frame. If things get as mindblowingly surreal as fear, Republicans will have three lines of defense, 1) Let the people decide 2) If only we back off and give him some space, he’ll make America Great Again 3) The Pence Piviot.
The last one is one of the more clever moves they might use. If things get so absolutely extreme that the Republican Lizard People finally face the unthinkable of having to admit that, well, maybe Trump really WAS a worse choice than Hillary Clinton, they will simply say that Trump needs his rest and Pence is making sure Trump’s vision of America (ugh) becomes a reality. We’re safe because of Pence, in other words.
But let’s say that doesn’t work. Then what. What if what I’ve mulled before happens. I mean, what if Trump really finally flips his lid — and in the middle of a major regional war in the Middle East, no less! Then what. Poor old Hugh Hewitt’s brain may break. If you’re such a cockholster for The Dear Leader and finally reality comes crashing into the situation in a way that even you can’t spin or deny, then, well, things are going to get fucking lit. A lot of smart, educated grown-ass men have debased themselves absolutely for the sake of Trump and every day Trump gets worse and more dangerous for not just America but the FUCKING WORLD.
The single most surreal event of my life will be if Dennis Prager+Hugh Hewitt+Matt Schlapp get on TV and have a complete, total mental and emotional breakdown when, like The Simpsons’ Comic Book Guy, they realize they hitched their “lives and scared honors” to the wrong guy. This is unlikely to happen, but thinking about it happening is kind of chilling. That level of bonkers behavior on the part of a “public intellectual” would be rather disturbing.
Only if, say, a few million people died and everyone blamed Trump for it could I see that happening. In real terms, those guys have gotten what they wanted from Trump — a tax cut and young, hack MAGA judges. They have no shame and our media ecosystem is so broken that the moment Trump is no longer politically viable, they’ll change their tune in mid-conversation and act as if nothing happened. Fuck those liars.
Anyway, I generally don’t think any that extreme is going to happen. Far more likely is Trump will always be just on the cusp of losing his mind and yet never quite get so bad that Nancy Pelosi strikes by sending the Articles of Impeachment to the Senate so they can be used essentially as the 25th Amendment. He will drift into his second term and The Kooch (or whomever) will be the person who puts me in a camp and is indirectly responsible for my death in American Killing Fields. (In upstate New York maybe?)
I am not one for personality cults, regardless of ideology. Just not my scene. And I continue to believe that Nancy Pelosi had no plan when it came to Trump’s creeping tyranny — she was just lucky when his natural tendency to self-own finally happened to get bad enough that he was impeached. She had no idea when this would inevitably happen. We could be in the middle of his second term and still be waiting. Pelosi probably knew he would do it, but she had no “plan.” It was all just dumb luck. I, for one, would rather NOT have the fate of the Republic hinge on dumb luck. She could have been a LOT more aggressive on the Mueller front in January 2019, but did nothing.
Anyway, here we are.
It definitely seems as though Pelosi not giving something Trump assumed was his — easy “vindication” in the Senate — is beginning to eat away at him. So, it’s at least possible that Pelosi had a hunch this would happen. It’s at least possible that this IS a part of a “plan.” Now, again, we simply don’t know when — if ever — Trump is going to snap because of this Tell-Tale Heart situation. It may never happen. Trump runs on “vindication” no matter what, cruises into his second term, get a Constitutional Convention convened to “pass a balanced budget amendment” and away we go.
But there’s also a chance that Trump’s feeling of powerless may get the best of him in a pretty astonishing fashion. He may just lose his shit so bad that it’s THAT that leads to his conviction in the Senate. He finally becomes such a ranting insane person that Pelosi strikes — she sends the Articles of Impeachment to the Senate and Trump’s removed from office not for any political reasons but because the 25th Amendment is a dead letter.
There is the risk, of course, that given how fucked up MAGA is, they could very well simply use this theory of mine as their “stab in the back.” In other words, they will whip themselves up into an apoplectic trance at the idea that if ONLY Nancy Pelosi hadn’t driven the Dear Leader bonkers, there could have been a Golden Age of American Nazism or some such bullshit. Fuck those guys. Fucking Nazis.
Anyway, here’s some other relevant writing I’ve done on this matter.
I hate to break it to you, folks, but if impeachment really does reach a tipping point we’ve entered the darkest timeline. It won’t be impeachment, it will be Trump’s reaction to it that we’ll be talking about.
Trump has long had some sort of chronic mental problem. The stress of simply an impeachment investigation — which would likely take months — would, in it self, potentially cause him to decompensate. It’s would make a lot of sense if Trump found himself in something of a logic trap. He would absolutely feel as though he would survive an Senate vote. But he would also absolutely feel paranoid that he might not.
So he goes bonkers.
I therefore propose that in the end, it won’t even be impeachment that is Trump’s downfall — it will be his reaction to it. If Trump finally goes off the deep end, some astonishing surreal thing will happen. The first will be MAGA Stalwarts will find themselves defending ever-more demonstrably indefensible things on Trump’s part. First they will simply say he was “joking.” But there will come a point when they take the final plunge into their own destruction. Trump will tweet out a dick pic. Trump will begin to tweet out the N-word to Obama. And they will defend it, thinking that Trump, like always, will stay in control of the narrative.
And so, in the end, Trump’s tendency to self-own will get so absolutely bad that there might be an intervention, of sorts. They might propose to Trump that he gets to choose Pence’s replacement as veep. And maybe a promise of a full pardon after Pence wins re-election in 2020. Trump accepting such an offer would be the best case scenario for Republicans.
The worse case scenario is he won’t accept it. And in the end, Trump so far gone mentally that the Senate finally does, in fact, convict him not so much because of any particular crime, but for the complete failure of the 25th Amendment to work.
And then, I’m afraid, we have a once-in-generation event. Young people won’t reference 9/11, they’ll reference Trump’s downfall. It will probably play out a lot like the OJ’s slow motion police chase in a white Bronco. It will last days, even weeks. The entire country will grind to a halt as we attempt to lure Trump out of The White House.
It will be a dark day in our history.
Here is how it may play out. I wrote this some time ago, but the premise is the same.
9/10ths a story fragment of a possible near future by Shelton Bumgarner
April, 2019
The eyes of the world were on the White House.
Just moments before, President Donald J. Trump, 45th president of the United States, had been convicted by 67 members of the Senate for a whole list of high crimes and misdemeanors. Trump had for weeks now been ranting on Gab about his case in the Senate, bouncing back and forth between threats to start a war with Iran or the DPRK and not-so-subtle hints that he might take his own life should he be convicted by the Senate.
And, now, at last, the moment of truth had arrived.
Trump legally, at least, was no longer president, but he had been oddly silent since the verdict had been announced with great fanfare from the well of the Senate. Trump’s conviction had come after months of investigations on the part of the now Democratic Congress. The length and breath of Trump’s malfeasance discovered by these hearings had rocked the nation to its very core. On more than one occasion, MAGA talking heads on cable news had been interrupted by astonishing breaking news that left them, for once, unable or unwilling to defend the president.
The hearings had ground on for months to such an extent that Trump’s approval had slowly drifted to the 20s and stayed there consistently. Trump’s support was now made up of the very rich and the very poor. Oddly, despite Trump’s near constant demands on Twitter for violence on the part of his supporters, little, if any was reported. Trump had grown so frustrated that he had all but abandoned Twitter at one point for the more receptive Gab social media platform. Though on more than one occasion Rudy Giuliani had made it very clear it was within the rights of the president to declare martial law if he deemed it in the best interests of the nation. More than one delegation of Senate Republicans had gone to the White House to explain to Trump that he was going to be convicted, no avail. Trump made it clear to them, in not so many words that his simply living in the White House made him president, a sentiment best expressed by the legal saw that, “Possession is 9/10ths of the law.”
Finally, a post to Gab came out: “My so-called ‘conviction’ is the work of the Deep State and as such illegitimate. I remain president.”
This set off a chain of events, the likes of which Americans had never seen. Suddenly, everyone on Twitter became a Constitutional scholar as everyone studied the exact wording of the Constitution as to what happens if the president is removed from office by the Senate. The wording is quite clear: he or she is no longer president and that’s it.
Nowhere in the Constitution did it explain what to do if the president simply decided to ignore the Senate. What’s more, nowhere in the Constitution did it state what to do with the nuclear launch codes should a president be removed from office and he refuse to accept the decision of the Senate.
The next few hours were chilling as they were surreal for millions of people not just in the United States but around the globe. The issue of Trump’s physical access to America’s nuclear launch codes was suddenly at the forefront of everyone’s mind. Though it was finally announced that while the nuclear football remained in Trump’s possession, Sec. of Defense Mattis had ordered the American armed forces to stand down for the duration of the crisis.
Trump, on Twitter, was as defiant and unhinged as usual.He threatened to kill himself. He threatened to start a nuclear war. He vowed to declare martial law.
The usual suspects on cable news did their best to spin all of this for Trump. As an anxious nation waited for the now former president to leave the White House, a cavalcade of former Republican Senators and Trump White House staffers attempted to make the former president’s case. Their final argument was that for the good of the country, Trump should be allowed to remain president, despite his lawful conviction by the Senate.
Things began to move rapidly at this point.
Vice President Pence was sworn in but Chief Justice Roberts in a dark, somber event in the Old Executive Building. Meanwhile, it was learned Trump had quietly replaced his Secret Service detail with a private security force that made it clear it was prepared to defend Trump until the bloody end.
At this point, two things happened. A final bipartisan delegation of Congressional leaders came to the White House grounds under the flag of truce. During the course of an hour-long meeting, Trump screamed at them that they had never supported him and the world would be better off if it just ended instead of allowed the forces of the Deep State to ruin America. He made it absolutely clear that he would never leave the Oval Office willingly.
With that, they left.
Next, a surreal, bizarre event, the FBI slowly began to surround the White House. There was much debate online and on TV about how long the nation should wait for Trump to leave the White House. CNN went so far as to do a deep dive into the exact amount of food the White House grounds might have available at any one moment.
Finally, shots rang out from the White House as the battle was joined. It took several hours but in the end, the FBI was finally able to secure the facility. Nearly a dozen personnel on both sides died during the course of the Battle of The White House.
In what would become ionic footage, Trump was quietly escorted from the White House grounds. He spent the remainder of his days ranting on Twitter and Gab that he was the rightful president.
I have several conservatives in my immediate family. I love them dearly on a personal level and they’ve been very, very gracious to me over the years. They aren’t really MAGA people but they love, love, LOVE Trump’s policies and so any debate with them on a political level is rather moot. They will concede that the Dear Leader is, in fact, fallible, but that’s about it.
They either feign political indifference or they say “they don’t know who to believe.” Both of these statements are extremely unacceptable to me because they’re pretty much just a modern, American version of the “Good Germans” of Nazi Germany. In other words, as we careen towards an American Reich their unwillingness to take a stand against the rise of American fascism is growing ever more alarming. This is because their willingness to act on a personal level to help me from dying in a weaponized ICE camp is growing less by the day.
A conversation tonight was very troubling. My conservative relative simply waved away my concerns that once Trump is inevitably acquitted by the Senate that he will turn around and run on a plank of calling a Constitutional Convention to “pass a balanced budget amendment.” What is so troubling him equating my fears with InfoWars rhetoric during the Obama Administration is I’m not pulling this out of my butt. Trump is notorious for cherry picking concepts from the loony far Right and doing just as I suggest fits his MO perfectly. He already jokes about running for a third term and the groundwork is lain for Trump to do exactly as I suggest — we’re already just a few states away from a Constitutional Convention as it stands.
So once Trump wins re-election — through whatever illegal or corrupt means — he will babble about the need for a Constitutional Convention to balance the budget. The fact that Republicans gave a huge windfall to plutocrats doesn’t matter. MAGA has no shame and all they care about is power and cold hard cash. As best I can tell, members of the Constitional Convention would be named by members of individual state legislatures. As it stands, the vast majority these bodies are Republican. As such, the members of the newly convened Constitutional Convention would have a huge amount of incentive to codified the “American Carnage” of MAGA into the Constitution itself. This series of events is not InfoWars level bonkers. This is actually extremely likely given Trump’s autocratic leanings.
I would go so far as to say all MAGA needs is to get Trump into his second term. It doesn’t matter how. Trump could dox or brazenly bribe individual Electors. As long as they vote for him and get him into a second term, Trump’s new veep — be it The Kooch, Tom Cotton, Tucker Carlson or Kris Kobach will be the person who uses Trump’s blood-lust for Constitutional-level Enabling Acts to establish an American Fourth Reich.
Once they are successful, then we’ll enter about 1935-1937 in the Nazi takeover of Germany. And, I hate to break it to some people, but I don’t care how much Trump wants to fuck his Jewish daughter, once Trump’s peacefully shuffled off this mortal coil, some of the nastier aspects of MAGA will take over the whole movement and history will, in fact, repeat itself.
I would suggest you leave the country immediately if you have the means.
The only thing that may delay — but not stop — the rise of the American Fourth Reich would be Trump abruptly losing his fucking mind in a very, very dramatic fashion at some point between now and Election Day 2020.Here are some extended thoughts on that.
I hate to break it to you, folks, but if impeachment really does reach a tipping point we’ve entered the darkest timeline. It won’t be impeachment, it will be Trump’s reaction to it that we’ll be talking about.
Trump has long had some sort of chronic mental problem. The stress of simply an impeachment investigation — which would likely take months — would, in it self, potentially cause him to decompensate. It’s would make a lot of sense if Trump found himself in something of a logic trap. He would absolutely feel as though he would survive an Senate vote. But he would also absolutely feel paranoid that he might not.
So he goes bonkers.
I therefore propose that in the end, it won’t even be impeachment that is Trump’s downfall — it will be his reaction to it. If Trump finally goes off the deep end, some astonishing surreal thing will happen. The first will be MAGA Stalwarts will find themselves defending ever-more demonstrably indefensible things on Trump’s part. First they will simply say he was “joking.” But there will come a point when they take the final plunge into their own destruction. Trump will tweet out a dick pic. Trump will begin to tweet out the N-word to Obama. And they will defend it, thinking that Trump, like always, will stay in control of the narrative.
And so, in the end, Trump’s tendency to self-own will get so absolutely bad that there might be an intervention, of sorts. They might propose to Trump that he gets to choose Pence’s replacement as veep. And maybe a promise of a full pardon after Pence wins re-election in 2020. Trump accepting such an offer would be the best case scenario for Republicans.
The worse case scenario is he won’t accept it. And in the end, Trump so far gone mentally that the Senate finally does, in fact, convict him not so much because of any particular crime, but for the complete failure of the 25th Amendment to work.
And then, I’m afraid, we have a once-in-generation event. Young people won’t reference 9/11, they’ll reference Trump’s downfall. It will probably play out a lot like the OJ’s slow motion police chase in a white Bronco. It will last days, even weeks. The entire country will grind to a halt as we attempt to lure Trump out of The White House.
It will be a dark day in our history.
Here is how it may play out. I wrote this some time ago, but the premise is the same.
9/10ths a story fragment of a possible near future by Shelton Bumgarner
April, 2019
The eyes of the world were on the White House.
Just moments before, President Donald J. Trump, 45th president of the United States, had been convicted by 67 members of the Senate for a whole list of high crimes and misdemeanors. Trump had for weeks now been ranting on Gab about his case in the Senate, bouncing back and forth between threats to start a war with Iran or the DPRK and not-so-subtle hints that he might take his own life should he be convicted by the Senate.
And, now, at last, the moment of truth had arrived.
Trump legally, at least, was no longer president, but he had been oddly silent since the verdict had been announced with great fanfare from the well of the Senate. Trump’s conviction had come after months of investigations on the part of the now Democratic Congress. The length and breath of Trump’s malfeasance discovered by these hearings had rocked the nation to its very core. On more than one occasion, MAGA talking heads on cable news had been interrupted by astonishing breaking news that left them, for once, unable or unwilling to defend the president.
The hearings had ground on for months to such an extent that Trump’s approval had slowly drifted to the 20s and stayed there consistently. Trump’s support was now made up of the very rich and the very poor. Oddly, despite Trump’s near constant demands on Twitter for violence on the part of his supporters, little, if any was reported. Trump had grown so frustrated that he had all but abandoned Twitter at one point for the more receptive Gab social media platform. Though on more than one occasion Rudy Giuliani had made it very clear it was within the rights of the president to declare martial law if he deemed it in the best interests of the nation. More than one delegation of Senate Republicans had gone to the White House to explain to Trump that he was going to be convicted, no avail. Trump made it clear to them, in not so many words that his simply living in the White House made him president, a sentiment best expressed by the legal saw that, “Possession is 9/10ths of the law.”
Finally, a post to Gab came out: “My so-called ‘conviction’ is the work of the Deep State and as such illegitimate. I remain president.”
This set off a chain of events, the likes of which Americans had never seen. Suddenly, everyone on Twitter became a Constitutional scholar as everyone studied the exact wording of the Constitution as to what happens if the president is removed from office by the Senate. The wording is quite clear: he or she is no longer president and that’s it.
Nowhere in the Constitution did it explain what to do if the president simply decided to ignore the Senate. What’s more, nowhere in the Constitution did it state what to do with the nuclear launch codes should a president be removed from office and he refuse to accept the decision of the Senate.
The next few hours were chilling as they were surreal for millions of people not just in the United States but around the globe. The issue of Trump’s physical access to America’s nuclear launch codes was suddenly at the forefront of everyone’s mind. Though it was finally announced that while the nuclear football remained in Trump’s possession, Sec. of Defense Mattis had ordered the American armed forces to stand down for the duration of the crisis.
Trump, on Twitter, was as defiant and unhinged as usual.He threatened to kill himself. He threatened to start a nuclear war. He vowed to declare martial law.
The usual suspects on cable news did their best to spin all of this for Trump. As an anxious nation waited for the now former president to leave the White House, a cavalcade of former Republican Senators and Trump White House staffers attempted to make the former president’s case. Their final argument was that for the good of the country, Trump should be allowed to remain president, despite his lawful conviction by the Senate.
Things began to move rapidly at this point.
Vice President Pence was sworn in but Chief Justice Roberts in a dark, somber event in the Old Executive Building. Meanwhile, it was learned Trump had quietly replaced his Secret Service detail with a private security force that made it clear it was prepared to defend Trump until the bloody end.
At this point, two things happened. A final bipartisan delegation of Congressional leaders came to the White House grounds under the flag of truce. During the course of an hour-long meeting, Trump screamed at them that they had never supported him and the world would be better off if it just ended instead of allowed the forces of the Deep State to ruin America. He made it absolutely clear that he would never leave the Oval Office willingly.
With that, they left.
Next, a surreal, bizarre event, the FBI slowly began to surround the White House. There was much debate online and on TV about how long the nation should wait for Trump to leave the White House. CNN went so far as to do a deep dive into the exact amount of food the White House grounds might have available at any one moment.
Finally, shots rang out from the White House as the battle was joined. It took several hours but in the end, the FBI was finally able to secure the facility. Nearly a dozen personnel on both sides died during the course of the Battle of The White House.
In what would become ionic footage, Trump was quietly escorted from the White House grounds. He spent the remainder of his days ranting on Twitter and Gab that he was the rightful president.
There comes a point when you have to finally admit that the Trump is not a cause, but a symptom of deep-seated, existential problems with the United States’ political system. As such, the moment Trump’s acquitted by the Senate, the Republic has effectively fallen.
At that point, it’s simply a matter of how bad things get and for how long. This is when you have to take a deep breath and realize that there’s a real risk that MAGA will rapidly mutate and go full Nazi very, very soon. If The Kooch or Kris Kobach becomes Trump’s Veep, not Pence, this is all but assured. All Republicans have to do is get Trump past Election Day 2020 and they’re set for a generation, if not more.
They can weaponize ICE camps, round up everyone they don’t like and start the American Killing Fields. I wish this was hyperbole, but, alas, it’s not. It’ll happen in fits and starts, but it will happen. Once Trump — or his successor — starts ranting about the need for a Constitutional Convention to “pass a balanced budget amendment,” then, well, American Carnage is here for good.
There are any number of really dark scenarios you could pace out at that point. The literal end of the world. Millions dead. A Thousand Year Trump that lasts at least until global climate change shakes things up enough that the regime buckles.
I wrote all that to lay out what I believe will, in fact, happen, over the course of the next few years. But there’s one major unknown unknown — Trump’s mental state. It’s rather dark and tragic that in the short term, the only way that the Republic stands is not because we all come to our senses, but because Trump loses his so quickly — and manages to bring Pence down with him in a very quick series of events — that President Pelosi serves as a caretaker president simply for there to be a free and fair election in 2020. But that is so completely unknown — he could simply be a puddle in 20202 and still re-election — that I would not bet on it as saving us.
But it is, at least, something to think about. I just hope ICE lets me finish the novel I’m writing before they drag me out of my bed in the middle of the night.
So MAGA is waiting with baited breath for the Durham Investigation to save Der Fuhrer from being impeached. This is very possible. The impeachment is supposed to wrap up on Dec. 9th as I understand it. It could drop a big turd in the impeachment process and Trump will yet again survive to tyrant another day.
If you are looking forward to this, please eat shit. Fuck you. Rot in hell. I say this only because Trump is such a racist misogynist tyrant that if you support him you’re a piece of shit.
But the question is, of course, will the Durham Report do what MAGA expects it to do? Given how Trump was able to escape justice after the Mueller Report — only to turn around and do the same thing 24 hours after the “poor optics” of Mueller’s testimony to Congressional pardoned him — I’m inclined to think that our criminally incompetent “president” is likely to escape even being formally impeached.
It’s all very tragic. The only thing keeping us from going full autocratic plutocratic theocracy is, well, Trump’s a piss-poor president. I’m not saying he won’t somehow manage to pull this off in his second term, I’m just saying it may be The Kooch, or Kris Kobach or Tom Cotton that history ultimately decides finished the job.
As such, I’m patiently waiting for an ICE agent to track me down at some point in Trump’s second — or third — administration put me in a camp and murder me after torturing me for some time. I’m a man of peace, words and ideas, so all I can do is just work on my novel and brood. I feel a little like the Man in a High Castle in that respect. Whenever I get mad about how fucking insane Trump is on a criminal level, I use that as motivation to keep plugging along on the political thriller I’m writing.
There are a number of different possibilities. One is that the plot works. Another is it all just gets muddled and yet Trump is still at least impeached. And, lastly, it’s possible that 60% of the population realizes the whole thing is bullshit and it doesn’t work.
The key issue before us is the Republican Party has finally, officially come detached from any connection to liberal democracy. On an institutional level, it’s the Trump Party now. The Republican Party is so completely consumed by Trump’s ideology — or lack thereof — that they simply don’t care about anything other than defending Trump em masse. They have a short term goal, and that’s it: successfully get Trump acquitted in the Senate by any means necessary, even if it means destroying civil society in the process.
So all the tut-tuting of Republican logic by Blue Check Liberals on Twitter is wasted time. This is not about logic or facts, this is about white knuckled political tribalism — identity politics for angry white male Baby Boomers, if you will. Throw in plutocrats, the Religious Right and gun rights advocates and well, here we are.
All of their talk about “letting the people decide” is a bad faith argument to its core. Given what Trump’s accused of — bribery, extortion and political cheating on a strategic level in the upcoming 2020 election — they know the moment Trump’s acquitted he will pretty much go full Putin. He will pardon everyone he needs to pardon and he will instruct Barr to indict (criminal referrals) whomever needs to be indicted. He will, at last, be the authoritarian autocrat he’s always wanted to be. The only things stopping him will be his growing mental instability and his general criminal incompetency. That’s it. That’s why I think their next immediate goal will be to replace Pence with someone like Kris Kobach, or Tom Cotton or The Kooch. Someone who can take over for Trump in his second term should he turn into a mental puddle.
All signs are pointing to the bad guys winning. ICE will be weaponized and I will die in an ICE camp or maybe an American Killing Fields somewhere like upstate New York. So if you see this worst case scenario as your BEST case scenario, you can really just fuck off you piece of shit.
Having said all that, there are at least some known unknowns at this point. Republicans are so completely invested in Trump’s fate on an existential level that they have one of two high-risk endgames before them. Either they “win” and we become a Putin-style “managed democracy,” or they lose and the crisis grows even worse for everyone involved (in a sense.) A major political party can’t grow this radicalized so suddenly without a bolt popping of somewhere. But before we get to that point, let’s see what might stop Republicans from finally destroying the Republic.
Trump Loses His Mind This is a real wildcard. It’s a big deal because it’s a lingering issue that may pop up at any moment in a fashion that would throw the country into an unprecedented crisis. It could be today, it could be tomorrow, it could be July 2020 (if he’s still in office.) In real terms, it’s the most likely thing that would force him out of office politically anytime soon.
Major Anti-Impeachment Violence On The Part of MAGA I used to think this might happen. Now, not so much. But if it did happen, that would be one of those impossible-to-spin-but-they’ll-try-anyway things that would really ramp up the political pressure to end Trump’s presidency sooner rather than later.
His Taxes This is one of those things that is so important and yet may only happen after he’s acquitted so it’s a lulz.
Unexpected Testimony Don McGahn or John Bolton or one of the Russians involved in Rudy’s “drug deal” unexpectedly testifying in a timely fashion would definitely put a different spin on things going forward.
But the thing is — a growing number of people not in the Republican criminal cult are flabbergasted at their complete refusal to see what’s going on with Trump. Americans are not Russians. While as of right the moment I think Republicans have a 110% chance of burning the whole fucking country down and successfully protecting Der Fuhrer — and indirectly leading to my death in an ICE camp sometime no later than maybe 2023 — there is also a greater-than-zero-sum chance that some pretty shocking things might happen in the near term to at least make that now near-inevitability a bit more complicated.
What those “shocking things” may be, I simply have no idea. But the conditions are there for political events the likes of which we’ve only seen rarely in American history. I’m talking 9/11-levels of shock to our political system. And maybe more than one! The sad truth is no matter what happens in the next few months, the nation is in a new political era. It’s up to us if it’s a good or bad one.
Shelton Bumgarner is writing his first novel. He may be reached at migukin (at) gmail (dot) com.
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