Tag: Radical Resistors

MAGA Is A Bunch Of Pussies — In The End, It Will Be Blues You Have To Worry About

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Here is a two stage scenario whereby America….uhhhh….has a kind of bumpy historical moment?

Stage 1
Trump wins in November 2024 and it becomes clear he’s going to be a tyrant. So exercising their Constitutionally protected right to Revolution, Blue States — and Blues across the country — work actively to topple “Magadonia.” There’s a functioning General Strike. Blue States actively work to overthrow Trump’s tyrannical reign. Because of how conflicted things are, the U.S. Military — except, maybe, Mike Flynn’s brother who controls the Pacific Command — stays out of all of this. It all happens pretty quickly and a Constitutional Convention is called with the specific purpose of renewing our democracy. The reforms implemented are fair and equitable.

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Stage 2
The PROBLEM is, that MAGA cocksuckers will freak out and because they want to fuck their guns, they do a counter-revolution just as we all think everything is figured out — we have a secession crisis. Then, well, things get totally out of control and before you know it, America looks like Afghanistan.

Good job, everyone!

Anyway. I can’t predict the future. But I do think we should keep an eye on Blues just as much as Reds. I do think — and hope — that we’ll just peacefully slip into a MAGA themed autocracy without any violence. Too many wealthy, smug liberals won’t stand their ground to be the leadership of a Blue Revolution. So, lulz.

‘Radical Moderates:’ The Future Is #NeverTrump


by Ender

The #NeverTrump people are what I like to call “radical moderates.” You can quibble about how “moderate” they really are relative to the Left-Right divide before Trump, but #NeverTrump goals are pretty moderate in my opinion. They want simply to protect our liberal democracy at any costs.

Abraham Lincoln, Radical Moderate

In a sense, they really do harken back to Lincoln. Father Abraham was the quintessential radical moderate. At his heart, he was pretty moderate, but in the severe crisis of the Civil War he made a very radical choice out of desperation: free the slaves so as to make the war one of liberation and Union, not just Union.

As such, because the United States is hurdling towards an existential choice of autocracy, military junta or civil war, it’s at least possible that for a moment in time everyone will be #NeverTrump — there will be a United Front with the leaders of the #NeverTrump at its head.

Should it happen, it will be astonishing on a political level because such a unification of political views has only happened one or twice in our history. I would say the Civil War and WW2 are the last times it happened. For AOC to join forces with someone as conservative as, say, Rick Wilson, under “radical moderate” rubric we would have to be suffering a very, very severe political crisis.

Now, as an aside, let me address something I’ve mentioned before – are #NeverTrumpers the modern equivalent of “War Democrats?” At the moment, they are. But the moment we’re facing the type of severe political crisis I fear we’re hurdling towards occurs, they will be something totally different — the vanguard of the the radical moderates.

In other words, the leadership of the people who will have the opportunity to finally destroy the scourge of the fascist MAGA New Right will come from the group of conservatives who are now #NeverTrumpers. The center-Left simply does not have that many leaders to use for such a cause. AOC is pretty good, but she’s still too young and untested.

I can think of half a dozen #NeverTrumpers who could provide crucial leadership for the — glup — war effort, should things get that bad.

Or, put another way, if the crisis grows as severe as I fear it will, instead of the current political situation where you have a huge center-Left then the #NeverTrumpers, you would have a United Front with the #NeverTrumpers providing the leadership.

But all of this is extremely speculative. I’m always wrong, at least to date. I’m just kind of sketching out possibilities given what usually happens in revolutions and civil wars

#RadicalResistance: If You See A MAGA Leader In Public — Blow A Whistle

Shelton Bumgarner

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

Trump was greeted today by a woman blowing a whistle. If enough of us follow her lead, we can save the United States from a Russian-style “managed democracy.”

Put your lips together and blow.

Whistles are an effective direction action form of protect because they’re non-violent, but annoying as hell. And, really, all you have to do is be anywhere near Moscow Mitch or Steven Miller or Dracula for it to be effective. And you could also just use your fingers in your mouth — or just your mouth — to whistle. That’s really hard to control. You don’t have to be in their face and risk arrest. Just blow anywhere near them and the idea of a whistleblower will be stuck in their mind.

If they can’t go anywhere, be in DC or a Congressional Town Hall meeting in their home district, without someone, somewhere blowing a whistle, that might at least, if nothing else, remind them of their failure to live up to their oath of office. And, you will have the satisfaction of making their live miserable.

Will this work? I don’t know. It does risk an escalation because MAGA may, in turn, just start murdering people with AR-15s. By as my Dad always says, no one ever got anywhere in this world without taking a risk.

It’s up to you if you feel having some agency in the fate of your nation is worth the risk or not.

There’s An App For That — How A Radical Resistance Could, In Practical Terms, End The Trump Administration And Accidentally Design A ‘Twitter Killer’

By Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

The macro-level forces at work against an effective Radical Resistance, one with the single-issue goal of impeaching and removing Donald J. Trump, 45 president of the United States, are pretty staggering.

Trump is an avatar for about 37% of the elector that feels historically disenfranchised. Meanwhile, the economy is doing — in relative terms — great, so a lot of people who might otherwise be angry with Trump honestly don’t give a shit. They’re more concerned with Little Johnny’s t-ball match that the fact that the current administration is headed by a treasonous, felonious 72-year-old toddler.

So, if you wanted to politically wargame the situation on a macro level, I have — and have had — at least one suggestion: build an app.

I have proposed building a social media startup designed specifically to facilitate regular massive national protests with the intent of putting pressure on Congress to finally do something about the cancer on the Republic known as the Trump Administration.


Doing such a thing would be very complex and potentially time consuming. But if you designed an app or a site specifically from the ground up to meet the needs of this concept, then I think it would help greatly.

Regular massive protests on a national scale would have to be legal, civil and well organized. I would not want to use Facebook or Twitter because I find them cumbersome and too easily compromised by trolls, bots and MAGA haters who would want to disrupt thing.

Anyway, in my vision of things, the service would be set up like this: You would have Groups that were divided into threaded Discussions. One third of the screen — the right side — would be live text chat. If you wanted to start a threaded discussion with someone in text chat, you just hit a button and invited them into a video chat that could have up to four people in it. This would be done in the context of a Discussion (which would take up the other two thirds of the screen on the left). Below the initial video chat would be a place to write a full page blog post. The whole thing would be threaded and you could have inline editing of someone’s post.

But this is just the basic concept. As time progressed and problems arose that needed to be fixed, the service would evolve to meet these problems. Best of all, after Trump was brought down, the service would be repurposed as something of a “Twitter Killer.”

I suspect the only way to fund this site would be either an angel funder or crowd funding. I doubt you could get a traditional VC to fund it simply because they wouldn’t see how they could make money right away. I believe if you see this site as the core of a potential Twitter Killer, however, it would be a pretty cool investment.

I guess what I’m saying is if the Radical Resistance simply existed in the first place and was organized enough, it could not only maybe bring down the Trump Adminstration via an app, it might also accidently produce a Twitter Killer social media app along the way.

Deadline August 2019: Radical Resistance In The Context Of Reconstruction’s Radical Republicans & No Deal Brexit

By Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

The major difference between the Radical Republicans and the Radical Resistance is the historical context. The Radical Republicans existed, in large part because there was a lot of bent-up political anger towards the South and, as such, a small, but powerful segment of the American body politic was pissed.

Meanwhile, right now, the very idea of a Radical Resistance is more theoretical. People are generally content on an economic level because things are doing fine and they’re more busy raising their kids and paying their mortgage than they are interested in impeaching the president. But, for me at least, we have a deadline — if we don’t impeach Trump by August 2019, he’s not going anywhere until at least 2021, if ever.

So, that’s why unless something really big happens in an unexpected way, all my writing about a Radical Resistance movement is more theoretical. But there is one major event that could change a basic aspect of this equation — No Deal Brexit.

As I understand it, the UK is now lurching towards leaving the EU in March 2019 without a deal. There’s a very good chance that the global economy could get kneecapped under such a scenario and, as such, so would Trump. As I keep saying, Trump is an avatar for about 37% of the population who feel historically disenfranchised. That he may also be something of a Russian agent is also something to take into consideration.

Put another way, what might happen is I’m just going to write out my frustration with a lack of interest on the part of the House to impeach Trump until March and suddenly my theoretical ranting about the need for a Radical Resistance won’t seem quiet so much like the rantings of just another Internet crank.

There’s a really good chance that the political center will grow a lot more willing to adopt the ideology of the Radical Resistance once the bottom drops out of the global economy. But that’s just me spitballing at this point. I just don’t see us making our deadline. Trump’s only weakness right now is a macro event.

Americans generally aren’t ones to get radical in any mass way. In real terms, not even the Vietnam War did it. So, all this writing I’m doing is just for my own sake unless I might be able to get a famous person to re-tweet a link to this site.

Or something.

The Case For Radical Resistance — Embrace The ‘New Rules’

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

One thing that’s interesting is Trump appears to be fishing for some new catch phrase to lob at people he doesn’t like and he right now is talking about “Radical Democrats,” which doesn’t have the marketing umph of what I think we should call ourselves, which is “Radical Resistors.”

So, it seems only a matter of time before it clicks with Trump and all he’ll do is talk about Radical Resistors and how evil we are. This, of course, probably will make Blue Check Liberal Intellectuals wring their hands and clutch their pearls in dismay, saying self-adoption of the phrase is a “gift” to Trump and MAGA.

You know what I way about that?

I say fuck that.

You know what Radical Resistance is to me? It’s that feeling of anger you get after listening to Pod Save America. That sense that something is deeply wrong with the political culture of the nation you love and yet it seems as though there’s this weird asymmetrical dichotomy in the eyes of the mainstream press.

The press — whom I love — still has their fair set of problems, and their conspicuous double standard for MAGA and Radical Resistors is one of them. MAGA is quite proud to run their political game under completely different and “new” rules than what the Democrats typically use. I say, why not adopt these “new rules” as well at least in the short term if that’s what’s needed to have a functioning governent.

At least in the short term, The Resistance needs to throw aside it’s politeness and throw down the gauntlet and pick up the rubric Radical Resistance. Both sides are in the Thunderdome, but only one side realizes it. The Resistance needs to radicalize on an ideological level for a very specific reason — the future of the Republic is at stake.

And, really, the ideology that I propose isn’t even really all that radical. Simply demand that if a Democrat wants your vote, they have to be in favor of the immedate opening of impeachment hearings and the eventual impeachment and conviction of Donald John Trump.

Everything else is just white noise.

I get the sense that people are slowly radicalizing, but maybe because they’re busy, like, having a life, they haven’t spent the time needed to figure out exactly the ideology of their growing anger. I propose that we name ourselves Radical Resistors as a homage to the Radical Republicans and bumrush the Freedom Caucus.

But this is more a liberal progressive daydream than something I think might actually happen. I guess because of the rise of people like AOC, I’m slowly turning into a Democratic Socialist. But even AOC has disappointing me in her wishy-washiness when it comes to the topic of impeachment.

Again, let me note that there would be any debate about the need for impeachment — at a minimum — at this point is kind of flabbergasting. Someone, somewhere with some power needs some backbone. Someone needs to kick the powers that be in the ass and get them to do their job

If you want to say adopting the phrase Radical Resistor is a “gift” to MAGA, then so be it. But get out of our way, we have a Republic to save.

The Audacity Of A Mobilized Center — We Need A Radical Resistance

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

It’s pretty self-evident that the Democratic Establishment in Washington is completely useless right now, at least for people like me. I’m a high information independent voter who was among the first in my district to vote Election Day because I wanted to vote for a Democrat. I felt that if a Democratic majority in Congress simply showed up to work in January, we’d have impeachment hearings by the middle of February.

Sooooo… here it is nearly the end of January…and nothing.

We’re set to have the Cohen hearings in early February, but that’s pretty meh. Why is it so hard for Democrats to be as fucking bloodthirsty as Republicans when it comes to investigating the president of the other party. What is wrong with you dumb-dumbs?

I guess I’m radicalizing in a strictly ideological manner. In other words, I’m NOT one to, like, start building pipe bombs in my apartment. Fuck that. I’m a man of peace and I don’t wish physical harm on anyone I disagree with politically. Even punching Nazis, while cute to talk about, makes me queasy in any real terms.

But I do think once you establish what the ideology of the Radical Resistance is, that the rest falls into place pretty easily. Massive peaceful protests are pretty much the only weapon the people have at this point, apparently.

Yet that’s not going to happen as long as the economy is doing well. So, all I can do is just vent online and hope the FBI doesn’t knock on my door — even though I’m definitely NOT advocating violence. Using my Constitutional rights to public assembly, yes, violence, no.

I am very frustrated, regardless. And I can talk and write fairly well, so it at least makes me feel better than I’m playing little drummer boy in that regard. But probably what’s going to happen in a best case scenario is at some point between now and August 2019, the economy will go south (because of No Deal Brexit?) or the Mueller Report will drop or something REALLY bad will be reported about Trump.

I don’t know. I’m just frustrated and I find myself thinking up different angles for the topic of Radical Resistance. So, that’s what’s happening. I wish people would start to talk about this concept, though. That would be pretty cool.

If we could get the center radicalized then we could get rid of Trump. But, alas, it’s surreal how cagey Democrats in the House are about even looking into Trump at all. Fuck that. Come on guys take a stand for once.

Pod Save America & A Potential Radical Resistance Movement

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

I’m decompressing a little bit again from developing the thriller I’m trying to write and as such I have a lot of urge to write about something near-and-dear to my heart right now — the possibility of a Radical Resistance and its ideology.

The main problem, as I’ve mentioned, is time.

The economy is doing too well and generally there’s no political will-power to do anything about Trump’s treasonous, felonious illegitimate and tyrannical regime, so I guess we’re stuck with it for the forseeable future.

Having said that, if the guys of Pod Save America might gently broach the subject of a Radical Resistance to their multitude of listeners, maybe the idea might strike a cord. Just because 37% of the electorate are in a lobotomized MAGA cult, doesn’t mean the rest of the population has to lie down and cover itself with leaves.

Right now, I feel a lot of high information voters feel like me, but they don’t quite know how to articulate their ideology. If the people of Pod Save America were to say if you want to say fuck it, demand Trump is impeached immediately, regardless of when it becomes politically viable under the cover of the magical mystery Mueller Report then you a Radical Resistor.

That’s it, that’s your ideology for the Radical Resistance.

It’s not violent at all. I’m thinking a lot less Weather Underground and a lot more, maybe using Rage Against The Machine’s Renegades of Funk or John Lennon’s Power To The People as protest anthems during the course of massive rolling — and peaceful — protests across the country.

Really, that is where Crooked Media sure could come in handy in making this vision a reality. Simply saying don’t be afraid to call yourself a “radical” in the sense that you are a one-issue voter for the immediate future — impeach Trump NOW.

We really need to channel our inner punks and AOCs and stop being, like, uh, Joe Biden? We need to say fuck the Establishment, fuck the Powers That Be. We need a radical centrist movement that simply says enough is enough — Trump, at the very least, has to be impeached by the House immediately and any Democrat who doesn’t support doing that risks being primaried by the base in 2020.

Though if Trump lasts to 2020, we really are fucked.

So, I guess if I could get a “many people are saying” reference on PSA, that would rock.

Not that it’s going to happen.

Radical Republicans Redux — Radical Resistance In Historical Perspective

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

I fancy myself something of an armchair historian and I’ve always thought Reconstructions Radical Republicans were badasses. They took their fight to the top and pretty much ran the country during much of an extremely turbulent period in American political history.

So, it seems to me, we need to tap into our race memory and gird our loins for a political war against the Trump Administration now, and not until the Mueller investigation wraps up at some magical mystery moment in the potentially far distance future.

Let’s put things in perspective — we have the president dead-to-rights on a massive coverup and violation of campaign finance laws. And what is Congress doing about it right now? Nada. Nothing. Zip. Zilch. Not a damn thing. Meanwhile, there are 17 (!) open, active investigations of the Trump Administration and we’ve learned that the FBI believed that “obstruction was collusion” enough to open up a counter-intelligence operation against the President of the United States when he abruptly fired James Comey because of the FBI’s Russia probe.

But again, what is happening right now? Nothing. Not. A. Damn. Thing. As such, it seem pretty obvious something, anything political needs to be done. We need to get radical, we need a Radical Resistance.

We’re all supposed to sit back and let Trump politically destroy every democratic norm he can think of while we either eventually get the Mueller report or we’re given the option to fight it out with a bunch of circle jerking plutocrats who are actually quite pleased with the fetid, traitorous, felonious tyrannical racist, misogynistic Trump Administration.

I often vacillate between simply shrugging and saying Trump is president and there’s nothing I, as a lone citizen can do and being apoplectic and talking about starting a political movement such as this liberal fever dream I’m writing about right now.

No one listens to me. No one. And, really, all of this writing I’m doing about this idea is simply me decompressing from doing a huge amount of developing on my novel I’m attempting to write.

But enough of that aside — I guess what makes me so angry is this is not some sort of cryptic political observation that only tinfoil hat cranks without any credibility are noticing. This shit is right there in front of everyone’s face and yet Democrats in Congress are following this surreal political calculus whereby only until the shithead MAGA people see the light and decide to support impeachment will they then follow the will of the people who voted for them specifically because they expected them to at least, like, uh, do their job?

Invesitgate something actively, and immedately?

Another way of articulating all of this is maybe the Democratic base should take a few plays for the “New Rules” GOP and go for the political jugular as well. We need to get politically woke and radical in way not seen since the end of the Civil War.

We need to bring back the spirit of the Radical Republicans. Break something. Stir some shit up until the milquetoasts in Congress get their act together and AT LEAST impeach Trump. I honestly don’t care what happens in the Senate. Fuck them. I just want Trump to have the stain of impeachment on his record when he gets stroked by plutocrats in 2020.

I don’t think THAT is too much to ask.

Radical Resistance Is Needed To Prevent The Trump Administration Abscess From Going Septic

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

This should not be this difficult to get through people’s thick skulls. The American Republic is in a crisis not seen since the end of the Civil War in 1865.

The Trump Administration — by its mere existence — is an existential threat to the American Republic, the American experiment in self-governing that happened when the brave Revolutionaries decided to take a stand in 1776. What bothers me is how self-evident the need for Radical Resistance is.

Radical Resistance, as I define it, is the ideological belief that Congress should not wait until Mueller provides cover for impeachment. Congress should not wait until the sun turns into a blackhole and the MAGA red hat deadenders finally see the light. If you are a Radical Resistor, you vow to use whatever political power you have as an individual to help move the nation towards the immediate impeachment of Donald John Trump, 45 president of the United States.

If enough of the 60% of the electorate that is aghast by the Trump Administration shenanigans took to the streets long enough, someone in Congress might take notice and actually do their job. The South Koreans proved it is, in fact, possible to have something akin to a People’s Impeachment, and I don’t mean just sitting on own hands and waiting until a bunch of fucktwit plutocrats have a circle jerk in 2020 to see if Trump gets another four years.

I mean we strive to take serious political steps on a grassroots level to effect the immediate commencement of impeachment proceedings against Trump. Now. Today. Tonight. This whole business of waiting until Mueller issues a report so we at least have that fig leaf is bullshit. That’s a massive cop-out that leaves open the possibility that we’ll be mentally masturbating about this until Trump leaves office on Jan. 20, 2025.

Let’s do it NOW. Let’s put whatever political pressure in needed to get — at a minimum — Congressional hearings into Trump’s pay off of Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 election. I mean, of a dozen things we could impeach — and convict — Trump of, that’s the easiest of the easy pickings.

And…yet…nothing. Nada. Not a peep from Congressional Democrats who I supported whole-heartedly believing they would at least look into the Stormy Daniels issue within days of the House flipping. This “phony war” going on between Trump and Congress is bullshit.

Someone in the Democratic Party needs to strike politically, and if we, the people have to be dicks to get them to do it via a Radical Resistant movement, let’s rock.

But as I have said elsewhere — no one listens to me. If we could get George Will to write about being a Radical Resistor, then, well, that’s a different matter altogether.

I guess I’m just frustrated at how slow things are going. If Congress would just do its job, then Trump would be out of office. He really is that bad.

My fear is if we don’t do something immediately, the abscess on the American Republic known as the Trump Administration will go septic and we’ll be in even more of dystopian nightmare than we already are. There’s a real chance that if not Trump, but one of his successors will lurch the country into full tyranny if we don’t stop the MAGA infection now.