Tag: Republicans Are Fascist

The Inevitable, Tragic End Of The American Free Press


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The clock is ticking on the American press. I give it about a year at this point. Once Trump steals the 2020 election, there won’t be, in real terms, any political accountability for him anymore. As such, he will go after the only form accountability he has left — the press.

It seems logical that using a variety of methods, from brute force to sympathetic “German industrialists,” the “fake news” that is the “enemy of the people” will be gutted. It will likely happen extremely quickly and without any warning of explanation.

We’ll just wake up on day and mysteriously, there will suddenly be all new late night talk show hosts. CNN and MSNBC will have new owners. The New York Times and Washington Post will mysteriously have new owners as well. Then, the Internet will be fucked with, to the point where Facebook and Twitter will make it “against community standards” to talk shit about House Trump at all.

And, really, if need be, Trump will simply sick MAGAQ on the HQs of these media companies and murder anyone necessary to get the point across.

OANN will be the only thing we can watch and, generally, American entertainment will be completely mum on politics. And there’s a chance that Hollywood might decamp to another country if things get too hot.

That’s the future. This is going to happen.

The only way it might not is if Trump, I don’t know, raises taxes or becomes a Muslim.

Otherwise, lulz.

Twitter Liberals Are Delusional


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Fascism is here. The United States is an autocratic managed democracy. We are Russia. Russia is us.

The only thing that may give us a momentary pause in this state is Trump himself. Every macro trend, every metric indicates not only will there not be a free and fair election in November, but if somehow Biden overcomes the odds and is actually legally sworn in, that will be the beginning of something akin to a civil war.

I say this because MAGA-Qanon no longer believes in liberal democracy. In fact, they don’t even believe in politics at all. They only believe in power and how to keep it. They somehow they can’t keep power using the thin veneer of politics, then they’ll just start murdering anyone who gets in the way.

The surreal element to all of this is given how weak the center-Left is in the United States, MAGAQ could pretty much get everything they wanted long-term and there wouldn’t, in real terms, be that much resistance to it. They go even go so far as to allow a free-and-fair election, lose and then turn around and get power again to finish the job.

But they’re greedy and inpatient.

They have become so overcome with their own overwrought rhetoric, that if they don’t get what they want as quickly as possible, they’re willing to burn the country to the ground in the hopes that they can get it anyway. The issue with this is, there are lot of conservative-but-not-MAGAQ who might, finally, distance themselves from MAGAQ if this happened. That the entire fate of 240 years of American democracy rests on this possibility doesn’t exactly make me feel great.

Every day, it definitely seems as though Trump is either going to win outright on Election Night, or soon there after. Then what already exists — America as an autocratic managed democracy — will become more and more difficult for Twitter liberals to deny.

As such, all my nightmare scenarios will come true gradually over the next four years, to such an extent that the election of 2024 — if it happens — will have an identical dynamic to any election in Putin’s Russia.

This is our future. I simply don’t see any possible way it is not.

The media will be purged one way or another. People will be snatched off the street across the country. Notable critics of House Trump will be pushed out of windows. Without a press to report any of this, how are we going to know?

Again, really, it’s Trump’s own craven stupidity that might pause our current fascist, autocratic managed democracy, but it’s not going to end it. I hate to say this, but, really, in a sense, the absolute worst case scenario — actual civil war — is, in a way, the only way we MIGHT get past any of this.

I don’t want a civil war. I’m a man of peace and ideas.

All I’m saying is, if both sides stop believing in politics, then Blue States are in a far stronger position than they might realize. MAGAQ has the advantage right now because they’re using the broken American political system to consolidate power. But if the average American has to do a gut check about what they believe in, if they’re FORCED to pay attention to current events for no other reason than tanks are rolling down their street, there’s a chance, maybe that the “good guys” might win in the end.

But, really, that’s an extremely sad state of affairs when out of desperation you look around and see a civil war as the only way to…eventually…put the country back together.

I really don’t expect that to happen. And don’t want it.

What’s going to happen is we’re going to be under the yoke of tyranny for about 40 years. Then the dead hand of demographics is going to make the MAGAQ regime’s hold on the nation a least a little bit less absolute.

It’s over. America is no more. We’re simply a vassal state of Russia and will continue to be so, probably, for the rest of my life.

Wargaming The Coming Second American Civil War


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’m pretty good at scenarios. I spend a lot of my time daydreaming about different historical scenarios. That’s my thing. That’s my jam. When it comes to the prospect of a Second American Civil War, things grow difficult even for me. There are just so many different variables that I can’t pace out. So many things that haven’t been decided yet.

And, really, the thing to keep in mind is what may simply be unprecedented political violence that is simply marketed as a “civil war,” when, in fact, it’s more like the “Troubles” in Northern Ireland. Another important thing to contemplate is a sign of how our political system has collapsed that Republicans are increasingly turning to violence, even though they could probably get everything they wanted if they continued to stay within the conventions of liberal democracy.

Anyway, just for simplicity, let’s assume the “civil war” starts because there are dueling presidents. On Jan. 20th, both sides absolutely believe they have an absolutely legitimate claim to the throne, to the point that CNN has a split screen of rival swearing in ceremonies.

The thing we have to keep in mind is Trump (and Barr) would rather destroy the United States than leave office. As such, if there was significant political violence in January (or before) it’s easy to see Trump working with the U.S. Military to abolish Blue State governments because they are in a “state of rebellion.”

Or, there’s the other option where the U.S. Military absolutely refuses to get involved in domestic political affairs and bloodthirsty MAGA-Qanon mobs bgin to murder liberals at every opportunity.

Another thing to remember is Americans are so absolute in some basic assumptions that we’re simply not prepared. It’s easy to imagine Trump nationalizing the National Guard and using them to purge the national media. This would be recorded and there might be significant violence as the residents of NYC swarm the area to defend freedom of speech. That, in turn, would give Trump the pretext to declare martial law in the city.

Or, put another way, it’s likely that no matter how the “civil war” starts, one of the first things to go will be the press in major urban areas. I don’t think we really appreciate how taunt America is right now — and how bloodthirsty MAGA-Qanon has become — so a “soft target” like the HQ of CNN or MSNBC (or The New York Times) might be simply too inciting. But, again, the heart of the US media is in Deep Blue NYC, so there could be significant death surrounding this inevitability.

Once the final bolts pop off civil society in the United States, the country will implode. One really big unknown is the African American community, especially in the South. It is logical to assume MAGA-Qanon will, essentially, try to stoke a race war of some sort and that would unleash a dynamic that no one — especially MAGA-Qanon — would be prepared for.

But the thing we really need to mull is out totally out of control all of this will be. Trump will have the entire power of the U.S. Government at his disposal, but after the initial shock wears off, it’s at least possible that a lot of conservative-but-not-MAGA people might sit up and take notice and break in a rather unexpected fashion. Or not. I may be deluding myself on that one.

Another issue is land density.

This is why MAGA-Qanon refusing to work within the norms of politics is so dumb. If the initial sucker punch isn’t a knock-out blow, it’s easy to imagine a situation where the Blue States organize and go on a counter-offense of some sort. Given that Trump is completely bonkers now and it’s all a lulz, that really opens up some pretty astonishing possibilities.

And, it really makes you wonder if the goal of the civil union would be Union or what. Would Blue States simply want the opportunity to leave the Union, or would the whole thing turn into “who gets control of the USA brand?”

There’s just so much I can’t determine right now.

And, really, this could all be rather moot. We’re already a fascist state and it could be that we’ll simply continue to lurch into an autocratic managed democracy in fits and starts as suits Trump’s vanity.

Everything Is About To Change


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I can’t predict the future. But all the metrics point to some pretty well-established things in the United States vanishing rather abruptly within, say, a year. One way or another, House Trump is going to consolidate power.

Really, the only thing that could potentially stop this from happening is Trump himself. He’s such a fucking incompetent self-own artist, that he could very well be on the cusp of his final consolidation of power in the United States and things go completely haywire because he screws up in some way.

I don’t see that happening, however.

Within a year, the media is going to be purged. The more difficult it is for House Trump to stay in power, the more likely this happens quicker than it might otherwise happen. But is going to happen.

Once the press is purged, then Trump can go about the business of snatching people off the street and pushing them out of windows. The ICE camps will become Trumplandia death camps overnight. MAGA-Qanon will begin to murder the entire liberal class en mass and the U.S. Military won’t do anything because they don’t want to get involved in domestic politics.

So, lulz. We’re all fucking doomed and there’s nothing we can do about it.

Good luck.

The Two ‘Tracks’ of Election 2020


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Two different things are happening with Election 2020. On a strictly political level, Biden is in a pretty good position. Meanwhile, everything else indicates that’s a serious lulz.

In other words, a lot of Twitter liberals are working on the assumption we’re still a liberal democracy with a functioning political system. This, sadly, is not the case. Politics in the United States is no longer functioning. The Right in the United States is now completely fascist. They don’t believe in traditional American democracy and see it only as a means to an end.

As such, even though under the traditional rules of American elections, Biden is doing pretty well, under the so-called “new rules” that fascist Republicans love so much, he’s simply not going to be allowed to take power, even if he actually legally wins.

Remember, this is happening in the context of Trump throwing everything he has — including conspiring with the Russians — BEFORE the election happens. So, it’s reasonable to assume all of this wraps up Election Night. We may be left scratching our heads about some things, but Trump will win re-election and we’ll continue our gradual slide into autocratic managed democracy. Trump will demand a Constitutional Convention and if you really wanted to get dystopian, he’ll tell the military to stand down so MAGA-Qanon can murder millions of liberals in cold blood.

At the other end of the spectrum, there’s just a civil war.

I don’t know how that civil war would play out, but I would guess that initially what would happen is MAGA-Qanon would sucker punch the country, hoping for a knock out blow. If that wasn’t successful, then it would become something of a pitched battle. Trump would use this violence as an excuse to consolidate power even quicker than he would anyway and the very thing that would happen gradually over a few years will happen in a few months.

The point is — it’s over. Darkness has fallen.

I really wish I was wrong, but all metrics, all macro trends point to this as being inevitable. People are going to get snatched off the street nation wide. People are going to be pushed out of windows. The media will be purged.

All I can say is good luck. You’ll need it.

Prediction: Election Night 2020 Will Be A Dud


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Liberal democracy in the United States is dead. We’re now nothing more than an autocratic managed democracy. We are Russia and Russia is us, at least on a political level.

We’re in the twilight of the First Republic. Soon enough Trumplandia will be officially founded and we’ll have about 40 years of fascist tyranny at the hands of House Trump ahead of us very, very soon.

I say this because all the macro trends point to it. For Trump to be this popular after being an “asshole” as former Vice Magazine Tim Pool would say, is a testament to how, on a structural level, the First Republic is kaput. It all happened very quickly, but in hindsight, the history books will go on at great length about how it was all very obvious how this was going to turn out.

There is a lot of sturm und drang on Twitter about what may or may not happen on Election Night and afterwards. But I’m of the opinion it’s all going to be a huge letdown. By the time it actually happens, most politically aware people will see that 2020 is going to be a replay of 2016.

Biden wins the popular vote and Trump squeaks by in just enough states that he wins the Electoral College and fuck you. Here is why I think this.

  1. The Russians
    The Russians are going to hack directly into our election systems, giving Trump a result identical to 2016. Maybe even a little bit better. The polls will tighten just enough that this will hide the ratfucking at the hands of Russian hackers. A lot of people will be left scratching their heads about the details, but Trump will still be in power and fuck you.
  2. Kanye West
    As part of the above electoral ratfucking, the Russians will move just enough votes to Kanye to give their hacking some cover. Trump and the Russians are now actively working together to steal the election so even if someone begins to question the outcome, we will never find out until it’s a moot point.
  3. The Durham Investigation
    This is going to be the Second Comey Letter of 2020. Really, the only issue at this point is will Barr get greedy and indict Biden and Obama directly, or will he somehow simply get so close to Biden that there is just enough of a whiff of criminality that Trump wins.

This doesn’t even begin to address postal service ratfucking.

I absolutely, 100% believe this is going to happen. I say this because we are so far down the road to tyranny that something pretty spectacular would have to happen for the final embrace of fascism not to happen. And if it doesn’t happen, there are a lot of bloodthirsty MAGA-Qanon people who are going to start murdering people in cold blood to make sure it DOES happen.

It’s kind of irritating that so many people are oblivious about our decent into autocratic managed democracy. They’re going to get really upset. So upset, that there might be massive protests, which House Trump will only use as an excuse to knock some heads.

We are completely, absolutely doomed. There’s no going back. There may be a few moments of false hope, but there’s absolutely no way House Trump is ever power for any reason. They would rather burn the country to the ground than let that happen.

So, lulz, nothing matters.

‘Nothing Matters’


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

My favorite refrain these days is “Lulz. Nothing matters.” I say this not because I’ve given up hope, but because the usual recipient of this comment — Twitter liberals — are completely oblivious to The New Normal.

Trump has destroyed America. Or, at least, the America I once knew. We’re now an autocratic managed democracy, no better than Russia. If we want to change this, we’re going to have to risk things important to us in the real world, like our lives, our families and our careers. Simply making sound effects on Twitter isn’t going to cut it anymore.

MAGA-Qanon is out for blood and they’re going to stop at nothing to ensure that House Trump stays in power. They will destroy any norm, break any law, anything. They honestly don’t care about anything but maintaining power. And, remember, even in Putin’s Russia, there is the occasional big protest. But nothing changes.

The same is going to happen in the United States.

Trump could very well, at some point after he “wins” the election purge the media and Congress and or arrest Blue State governors and I simply don’t see anything happening. His supporters will cheer him on, in fact. That’s the type of person they thought they were getting in 2016, only he turned out to be an incompetent moron. But Interior Minister Bill Barr is going to fix any problems that the Russians hacking directly into our election systems doesn’t fix in advance.

Politics is dead in the United States and, really, the only issue at this point is how much Trump has to force the issue of his victory. The more difficult it comes, the more radical he’s likely to be when everything is all over with. Americans would REALLY have to shock me at this point.

All the metrics point to about 40 years of an autocratic managed democracy ahead of us. Only when the Baby Boomers finally drop dead will there be a slight chance that something might break the stranglehold House Trump has on the country. Even then, it’s going to be iffy.

I’m not a violent man. I’m a man of peace and ideas.

I’m just pointing out that the rules have changed an Twitter liberals haven’t noticed. The entire 260 year edifice of the First American Republic is no more. Trump is the state. The state is Trump.

Something pretty dramatic would have to happen — something I could never possibly predict — to prevent this absolute darkness possible scenario I can think up right now from happening.

It’s all over but the shouting.

Prove me wrong, fam.

1861 & 1933 — Two Years, Two Futures For America


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It definitely feels a though we’re in the twilight of one era and the cusp of the beginning of another. But what type of new era? It seems to me two years symbolize what may be about to happen in the United States: 1861 and 1933.

1861 — “Renewal Through The Crucible Of War“
It is obvious, in hindsight, that in the years leading up to 1861, that the country was tearing itself apart. The thing we have to remember, of course, is at the time no one knew exactly what was going on or the consequences. That’s the thing about living through history — you simply don’t know how it’s going to end. It’s given a narrative after-the-fact by historians so people can understand it. At the time, it seems like just a random sequence of events. As such, if our future can be gleaned from 1860 — it would seem as though the “bad guys” are likely going to win at first and then, after considerable struggle, leadership will arise and things will get sorted out in a new way. A lot of people will die tragic deaths, but in the end, America will bounce back. Though, I suspect the First Republic’s goose is cooked given the exact set of circumstances we find ourselves in.

1933 — “A Darkness At Noon”
On the other hand, there’s this. In this historical analogy the bad guys win and that’s it. We cross the Rubicon into an autocratic managed democracy (or worse) and that’s it. The end. And the only thing that might loosen House Trump’s grip on power will be the dead hand of demographics. Once the last of the Baby Boomers finally drop dead, then the internal dynamic in Trumplandia will slowly begin to shift and something new will pop out of the rubble of what was once the United States.

I honestly don’t know which one of these years is our future. Could even be a mixture of the two. But I do know the fault lines in American politics are about to shift in a rather dramatic fashion. We should all brace ourselves for historical earthquake.

The New Normal



by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

We have to accept that the United States is no longer a liberal democracy. We’re now identical to the autocratic managed democracy of Russia. Really, at this point, the only issue is how quickly the end of the free press comes. My guess is it will happen rather abruptly sometime in 2021.

It will all happen “legally,” in the sense that no laws will be broken, but there is going to be a shit-ton of abuse of power. A combination of threatening to take broadcaster’s licenses and an “German industrialists” will fix the problem of the so-called “fake news.” We’ll wake up and CNN will be identical to OANN. And the New York Times will be force-nationalized then spun off to Rupert Murdoch.

Once the free press is dead, then Trump will have a free reign to do whatever the fuck he wants. We simply won’t even know he did it.

By 2024 the United States and Russia will be literally identical on a political level. Throw in Trump at some point demanding a Constitutional Convention and the First Republic has fallen. We’re just in the gauzy twilight period between the fall of the First Republic and when Trumplandia is strong enough that we notice how much things suddenly suck.

Something truly extraordinary would have to happen for Trumplandia not to come into existence. And, just like with impeachment, no one and nothing is going to save us.

In passing, I will casually note that Trump a self-own artist who only continues to survive because the tribal nature of post-politics America. He has an entire edifice designed specifically to enable him. And, really, the very thing that Trump seems to long for so badly — some sort of unprecedented political violence –is the very thing that might actually hurt his dream of becoming the Dear Leader.

Once you start murdering people for political reasons — as is already beginning to happen — the traditional rules of politics stop functioning. It’s a least possible that some pretty surreal and unexpected things might happen for no other reason than Trump is so dumb that he doesn’t realize that politics is actually good for him.

Anyway, I think a lot of the angst about a civil war is going to turn out to be overwrought. Trump has half a dozen things he can use so he “wins” on election night. But, like I said, he IS a self-own artist, so it’s at least possible that if we have some sort of “civil war” happens solely because Trump is a fuck up.

All I can say is either get out of the country now or be prepared to take a side. You’re going to have to risk the things that are important to you in the real world if stay in the United States. Get out while you still can.

America’s Political System Has Collapsed


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

In the strange Upside Down that is the MAGA-Qanon echochamber, Dear Leader Trump is the only thing stopping rabid Communist cannibals from turning America into a woke “cancel culture” nightmare. They totally and willfully ignore what an enormous systemic clusterfuck Trump’s rule has been and focus on that one thing — the protests occurring across the country.

That their logic is essentially, only Trump can save us from the mess Trump has directly contributed to is besides the point. Their politics is barely more than a tribalistic grunt.

It seems clear that MAGa-Qanon is chomping at the bit for the opportunity to engage in some sort of political violence, which may go so far as an actual civil war. The logic is there, that’s for sure. And Trump’s bonkers behavior on Twitter only feeds into this.

On the face of it, all the metrics indicate that if things did finally turn to wide-spread violence, that MAGA-Qanon would “win,” at least the first round. And, really, given how they will have House Trump on their side, there is every reason to believe that their first punch will be a decisive and knockout one.

And yet.

While I don’t really have much hope at this point — it definitely seems as though the “bad guys” are going to win and the country is going to implode for no other reason than the U.S. Military will not do anything to stop it (or follow Trump’s orders to put any resistance to House Trump down), I will note that history does NOT go in a straight line, especially once everyone gives up on politics and starts killing each other. (Which I most definitely DO NOT WANT.)

The case can be made — and I will make it just to make myself feel better if anything else — that to date House Trump has been so successful because they’ve been able to get everything they wanted because of the unexpected weakness of all of the norms and laws we all assumed would protect us from…someone like Trump.

Just a brief glance at history, however, will show that once the average person — who “who doesn’t have time for politics” is absolutely confronted with not politics but existential violence, all bets are off. MAGA-Qanon is extremely bloodthirsty, organize and passionate, I will give them that. But once an actual shooting civil war starts the built-in power they have because, lulz, the vast majority of people are completely indifferent to politics will be gone.

So, yes, all the metrics point to House Trump consolidating power after a brief and potentially bloody “civil war.” But. Or, put another way, it’s probably in House Trump’s best interest to do everything in its power to prevent things leaving the realm of politics and entering the Thunderdome of civil war. I feel their absolute drive for violence is potentially a major strategic miscalculation on their part.

I’m not saying everything is going to work out for the “Good Guys” if an actual shooting war starts, but, in general, violence of any sort — especially political violence — is, as Issac Asimov said, “the last resort of the incompetent.” Wars of any sort have a completely different set of metrics than politics and once they start they always, ALWAYS, take on a life of their own.

Once the threat to the population is no longer an abstract, there’s a least a small chance that things may not break MAGA-Qanon’s way in the long run.

But, really, who am I kidding.

We’re all doomed. Trumplandia is here.

Good luck.