I’m Telling You, Folks, Big Tech Can Read Our Minds


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

A number of things have happened recently that lead me to believe Big Tech can read our minds via our electronic devices — specifically our cellphones. The most conspicuous abuser of this technology is Tik-Tok.

Now, let me be very specific — I’m talking about instances where my For You Page on Tik-Tok presents me information fits a very specific metric: information that no one but me knows. So, we can dismiss any instances where I’ve spoken to someone about something, or texted, or messaged, or posted about some bit of personal information. I’m talking about a very specific type of information.

So, I’ve written before about Tik-Tok presenting me with information about women who have a very specific phenotype. So specific, in fact, as to be down to that of an individual woman. It’s beyond spooky. The most recent instance of this happening is with something gross — ear gunk.

I’ve been having an excess of ear wax recently and, until now, absolutely no one knew this about me. But, lo and behold, Tik-Tok was serving me ads about how to reduce ear wax. I’m well aware that such niche ads are everywhere these days and correlation is not causation.

But it is, if nothing else….spooky.

One day, when MAGA becomes technology-hating Patriot Party– it’s possible it’s mind-reading technology that they will really get worked up about.

Now What


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner


I had a really interesting conversation with a conservative relative recently. The more I think about it, the more it epitomizes the state of the Republican Party now. He didn’t vote for Trump in 2016. He was given a permission structure to vote for Trump in 2020.

And….now he wants him to leave office early via impeachment or some other political solution.

Talk about whiplash!

What Republicans want is for anti-Trump people to see the Trump Era as value free so they can sit back and chuckle at all the young hack MAGA judges they got as well as the huge plutocrat tax cut. They want that so they can demand that the laws of politics snap back into place — suddenly we’re not talking about Big Ideas anymore, we’re talking about Kamala Harris wearing a tan suit.

Anything, but anything, to have us not talk about what just happened the last four-odd years.

And, remember, the point is that Trump isn’t an autocrat, but just a big olde ding-dong. That’s the thing people like me missed — Trump I kept ascribing to Trump political acuity and acumen that he just didn’t have. So, the United States is an autocracy without an autocrat.

All the conditions are there for us to slip into a Russian-style autocracy, but for one thing — Trump isn’t an autocrat.

The question, of course, is given how all the tools of autocracy exist to be picked up, will someone like Tom Cotton, or Josh Hawley, or Mike Pompeo or Ted Cruz finish the process that Trump began.

I honestly don’t know.

A lot depends on how, exactly, Trump ends his administration. There’s still a decent shot that he’s going to do one last thing that is so astonishing, so spectacular, that it punts our slide into autocracy down the road for a generation.

The Prospect Of A ‘MAGA Revolution,’ Reassessed


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I have long suggested that any MAGA shithead cocksucker touting the idea of a “MAGA Revolution” was an idiot. And they are. They’re idiots for a number of reasons. One is, generally revolutions at least start off with a Leftist bent and also, well, any such “revolution” would likely be a civil war, not a revolution.

But, given the events of January 6th, let’s do a reassessment.

The only time I can think of that there was the prospect of a Right wing revolution was in the early days of the Nazi take over of Germany. The SA were a lot more radical than the the rest of the Nazi movement and they were quickly squashed with they got a little too uppity. The SA wanted a far more radical transformation of Germany life than Hitler was prepared to enact. So Nazism remained a somehow bland version of fascism for a lot longer than it might have otherwise. The really nasty parts didn’t pop out until a few years later.

As I understand it, it was the viciousness with which Hitler got rid of them that made people sit up and take notice that he was not the clown everyone thought he was.

So, is it possible there may be a “MAGA Revolution” sometime soon?

After January 6th, I have to say my answer is now a firm “maybe.”

The key to any such “revolution” would be Trump. If he really leaned into going transactional as he really began to lose his mind, then, yes, there might be significant rolling violence across the country that might be marketed as a “revolution.”

But the United States is a big, big country and the while things might get bloody and scary for a while, the moment Biden is in control of the U.S. Military, the dynamic of things changes rather dramatically. I guess the difference between a “revolution” and a “civil war” would be how much of any significant action on the part of MAGA had the thin veneer of legality to it and how much didn’t.

If it was a revolution, rather than a civil war, then at its onset, there would be some sort of SA / SS attacks on state capitals across the country. This, sadly, has already begun to happen. But, like I said, the United States is a big country both in geographic size and population, so while you probably could pull of a successful MAGA revolution in, say, North Dakota by simply seizing the a few cities, if you attempted any such “revolution” in a Southern state, all you would do is incite a race war.

Not that a lot of Turner Diaries reading Proud Boys wouldn’t want that, but a revolution, by definition, is even more radical than a civil war and a lot of conservative-but-not-MAGA people would likely blanch at the atrocities that MAGA “revolution” would entail from day one.

As such, what might happen is a combination civil war – revolution. In the sparsely populated Red States of the heartland, you might have secession, while in the South, you just have a regular old race war in conjunction with a “revolution.”

But all of that — at least for the time being — is rather dystopian even for me. A lot — maybe all of it — depends Trump. If he really and I mean REALLY loses his mind, then his followers may get their revolution – civil war sooner rather than later.

I still think it’s more likely to be closer to 2025.

So, as Mitt Romney would say we have to all “hold our breath” for a few more days to see which way things will go.

MAGA Trump Deadenders Are The Future Of The Republican Party


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Trump is probably going to be a modern day Watergate for the Republican Party. Its entire center of political gravity will shift so Trump is its be-all and end-all. I say this because that’s what Nixon became after Watergate.

Reagan was pretty much a Nixon deadender and he almost won the nomination in 1976. So, it makes sense that the Republican Party will either split into a pro-Trump and a lukewarm Trump factions, or Trump will simply consume the whole thing now. It’s also possible that if the Trump faction doesn’t take over the Republican Party that it will bolt into its own party. The Patriot Party, maybe?

So, I would keep an eye on people like Jason Miller as to the future of the Republican Party. If Trump or Ivanka aren’t the nominee, it could be someone like him who gets a lot closer to the nomination than you might think.

Or, maybe Miller will run for Senator. Or Governor.

I guess what I’m trying to say is things are a lot more up in the air than you might think.

Advice To The ‘Patriot Party’


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

First, — eat shit you fucking fascist shithead cocksuckers.

Now that that’s out of the way, I would suggest to would-be Patriot Party founders to have some vision and think outside the box. Put your stick where the puck is going to be, not where it is now.

So, in that sense, don’t see the Patriot Party as the MAGA party, see it as the neo-Luddite party. Remember, Elon Musk could very well destroy the trucking industry virtually overnight with self-driving semis. That’s three million people out of work right there.

As such, if you’re going to be thinking up some sort of National Socialist American Workers Party ideology, I would suggest you attack technology. Or, specifically, worker-replacing technology. This is something that would give you broad appeal in both the far Right AND far Left. If you played your cards right, you could totally upend the entire American political system in fairly short order.

But I would also note that Trump seems primed to flame out politically in a rather dramatic fashion. You might want to look for a new leader who can articulate this anti-technology agenda in a smooth, toothy fashion. Trumpism without Trump.

I don’t wish you good luck. But it will be interest to see what the future of the fucking fascist Patriot Party will be.

‘Downfall’


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner


I feel I have a certain insight into Trump’s mind because he reminds me a great deal of my late mother — if you added testosterone and a wealthy Queens upbringing.

Anyway, the thing I learned from my mother’s behavior is people like Trump have a certain power from their instability. You just never know how they’re going to react to something. Are they going to flip out or are they going to take it calmly like a normal human being.

Having said that, there’s an element of Trump’s mentality that we’ve been kind of eyes wide shut about. Let’s call it the “Downfall” endgame. In this scenario, Trump’s mind falls into a logic trap and he snaps mentally. It would be at this point that he scares the shit out all of us.

So, let’s say his last-ditch effort to overturn the election fails on Jan 6th. He has about two weeks to wreak havoc. He could go transactional on Twitter in any number of different ways. He would demand MAGA murder liberals in cold blood. He could demand secessionist conventions in Red States. Or, things could get far, far darker.

He might start to get really, really passive aggressive on Twitter. To the extent that he starts talking about his ability to launch nuclear weapons and how he’s “protecting America” by being in office. If that wasn’t enough to scare the shit out of everyone, he might start to whine about how everyone hates him and liberals would be happy if he was dead.

I’m not joking — this is a real possibility.

This brings up the idea that Trump could very well hold up in the White House and refuse to leave. While a lot of Twitter liberals seem to express a certain glee at this prospect, in reality having to coax Trump out of the White House isn’t exactly something I would like to see the country have to go through.

But it gets worse.

What if, by that point, he’s so far gone that he goes the Downfall route. The implications of this would be staggering. It would be his final selfish act. Because it would be something that would-be Patriot Party people could hang an ideological agenda on.

Trunp-as-martyr would scramble our politics for a generation.

And, yet, that scenario is so fucking dark that I don’t like to think about it for no other reason than in the end Trump is a physical coward and for him to do something so drastic would mean he REALLY had lost his mind.

Anyway, he’s something I wrote about trying to get Trump out of the White House a few years ago.

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.

The End.



The ‘Patriot Party’ As Existential Threat To The Republic


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

For the moment, The Patriot Party is more an expression of MAGA frustration that the person they thought would murder American democracy — Donald Trump — was less Hitler and more Chauncy Gardner than anything else.

What MAGA-Qanon-Patriot Party cucksucker shitheads want is, essentially, an American Nazi Party. They want a party that is so absolute in its fidelity to the Dear Leader that any member with any power will break the law rather than let anyone but a member of The Patriot Party take power.

That’s why Trump’s ding-dong “soft coup” to date hasn’t been successful. Republicans still have just enough respect for the rule of law that even if Trump attempts to get them murdered, they stand up to him. The Patriot Party would work hand-in-glove with Trump or whatever American Nazi who happens to pop up in the next few years.

So, in the guise of The Patriot Party, MAGA feels they would get what they haven’t gotten from the Republican Party to date: such absolute partisan allegiance to the autocrat that they destroy American democracy.

But for the moment, this is just a vague inclination among MAGA. It would take Trump joining The Patriot Party for it to really take. Or something. The Republican Party make simply turn into the Patriot Party before it’s over with. Or maybe American democracy will again limp along as the Republican Party implodes for an election cycle.

While we’re in a very dangerous place politically right now in America, unless some sort of “political 9/11” happens, the frustrations of MAGA will remain just that for a few more years.

Prediction: Trump Picks Ken Starr to Be The Hunter Biden Special Counsel


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I am just the right age to remember how Whitewater turned into Paula Jones which turned into The Blue Dress which turned into Bill Clinton being impeached. At the center that clusterfuck was Ken Starr.

So, now that our dipshit ding-dong would-be autocrat Trump is on his way out and is looking for some asshole to look into Hunter Biden, the perfect person for the job is Ken Starr.

By picking Starr, Trump would get exactly what he wants — a showboat who would root around any and everywhere possible to destroy the Biden Administration. Mysteriously, Starr will wrap up his investigation just as the 2022 mid-terms are hitting their silly season.

Starr implicates Biden himself in some way, Republicans win the House then impeach President Biden within moments of the new House being sworn in. It doesn’t matter what happens next — MAGA will have, ex post facto, proven a point: every president gets impeached in the modern era, so lulz, what Trump did was no big deal.

Then someone like Tom Cotton or Mike Pompeo — or Trump! — wins the nomination in 2024, becomes president, goads Blue States to leave the Union and the very civil war that MAGA-Qanon-Patriot Party cocksucker shitheads want so bad NOW, will finally happen.

But, remember, my predictions are almost always wrong.

Chauncy Gardner Doesn’t ‘Cross The Rubicon:’ Government By Ding-Dong


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

MAGA these days craves autocracy. In fact, one could say that’s the central issue of the moment — Trump was supposed to be an autocrat, and “not lose.” And so, when he didn’t do what everyone thought he would do — be an autocrat — it’s left us all, both me and MAGA, in something of a daze.

Trump really is Chauncy Gardner.

That’s why we’re careening towards an extremely surreal moment in American political history. We’re an autocracy without the autocrat. All the conditions are there, but Trump is a ding-dong. His power comes from being a pure avatar for the rot and rage found within the American political system.

But, weirdly enough, Trump really is nothing more than a deranged Chauncy Gardner of “Being There” — he’s so lazy and incompetent and stupid that he simply can’t give his followers what they want: an autocracy. Hence, his followers beg him to “cross the Rubicon” and take “total control” but he’s just not up to it. And, in a sense, it’s too late.

If Trump had struck in some autocratic fashion right before or right after election day, then he probably would not only be cruising towards a stolen second term, but he probably would have goaded the Blue States into a secession crisis which would have given him the ability to reconstruct them in his own image.

Which, of course, is exactly what MAGA-Qanon-Patriot Party cocksucker shitheads want, NOW. It’s a very surreal event that if you take Trump seriously as a political Great Man, him being an idiot has saved American democracy to fight another day. We all overestimated him.

This is not to say he still can’t cause trouble.

Have to be an autocrat to “not lose.”

There’s a decent chance he may finally go completely fucking insane at some point between, say, Jan. 6th and Jan. 20th and do all kinds of accidently-on-purpose autocratic things on his way out the door. He could go transactional on Twitter. He could demand that Red States leave the Union and have “real” America have its “real” president…maybe with a capital in Montgomery, Alabama?

But that’s a wildcard at the moment. It definitely seems as though besides a huge tax cut for plutocrats and hundreds of young, hack MAGA judges the Trump Era could be pretty much entirely value-free. The country will continue to be 48% Blue and 48% Red, but for the time being have something akin to a functioning, if weakened, democracy.

As such, what the MAGA-Qanon-Patriot Party cocksucker shitheads want — an autocratic strike that causes a civil war — will still happen, just in about four or so years. It won’t be Trump, it’ll be Tom Cotton or Mike Pompeo who finally strangles American democracy.

Or, put another way, once Trump is out of office, there’s a chance that American politics will snap back into place in a rather surreal fashion. Republicans will try to use Jedi mind tricks on the American populace so they can go back to bad faith arguments about this or that contrived kerfuffle as though we’re back to Obama’s second term. The massive hypocrisy of this won’t work on a lot of people, but it will probably work with enough people for Democrats to lose the House and Biden to be impeached as soon as possible.

I have no idea what is going to happen in post-Trump America. But I do suspect it’s going to be extremely surreal because when Trump had the means, motive and opportunity to murder American democracy…he went golfing.

Of ‘The Patriot Party’


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

In a sense, the Republican Party is down low imploding. On one end of the spectrum, you have conservative NeverTrumpers openly talking about starting their own party. Meanwhile, MAGA hates the Republican Party so much that it wants to start its own “Patriot Party.”

It seems to me that the Patriot Party is more about the fire next time than it is anything going on right now. The goal of a “Patriot Party” would be that it would be an honest-to-God fascist party that would completely ignore any law or norm that got in the way of them obtaining and maintaining power.

But there’s an immediate problem with this. One is, if you slice the MAGA base from the Republican Party, then the rump Republican Party is far more likely to snap back to some semblance of being a “normal” party again.

At least for one election cycle.

The long-term consequences of a Patriot Party would be the United States would finally turn into the autocracy that MAGA wants it to be — and it would be, but for Trump being a total ding-dong and not an autocrat.

So, I guess in a sense, what I thought would happen — a civil war now, has just been punted down the road to sometime between 2023 and 2025. Or not. Trump could still lose his fucking mind and go transactional on Twitter between now and January 20 and somehow cause the United States to buckle into severe political violence.

All I can say is — fuck you, MAGA, you fucking cocksuckers.