Tag: Vichy Republicans

A Second American Civil War & The Lesson Of Ensign Pulver


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I spend way too much time these days thinking about the possibility of a looming Second American Civil War and I keep thinking about a few things. One is, I simply can’t find any logic for the Right wanting a civil war. It makes no sense. None.

On a political level, they’re in a position to get everything they want. Even if Trump lose, the gradual trend in American politics is rightward. The center-Left is weak and divided. The center-Left is so weak and divided that it’s very possible that all this angst over a second civil war is a whole lot of nothing because Trump is simply going to consolidate power after stealing the 2020 election. That’s a very real possibility. It will all happen on a political level, no violence needed.

And, yet, here we are.

A number of far Right militias are full speed ahead in their belief that we’re already in a civil war.

The other thing that I keep thinking about is the character Ensign Pulver from the World War 2 movie Mr. Roberts. All during the movie, Ensign Pulver — played by Jack Lemon — is a lazy cad. He is the movie’s comic relief. At the very end of the movie, however, he has Mr. Roberts’ job and he is shown as a hero. He’s risen to the occasion because he had to.

As such, I would suggest to Neo-Confederates and other political scoundrels to slow your roll with talk of civil war. Just because you have a very low opinion of Blue State people, doesn’t mean that when politics finally fails us and the issues of the day become far more existential in nature that they won’t be up to the task.

It’s easy to imagine a situation where once we have some sense of where things stand — and what each side’s agenda is — that Blue State citizens shock everyone — including maybe even themselves — by really putting a hurting on Red State folks.

One thing I will note is there are a lot of variables that simply don’t fit the second civil war porn of Neo-Confederates. One is how modern American women are not going to sit idly by if defeating Trump is no longer a political question but a war aim. That’s an entire untapped source of mindskill and potential soldiers.

Also, and I can not stress this enough — what the fuck does the far Right think is going to happen with African Americans. If they literally turn most of Dixie into white racist ethno states, then there’s a good chance that many African Americans will revolt against that situation.

So, I dunno. Apparently the civil war is already here.

I still think it’s an extremely dumb idea for the Right to advocate.

‘We Don’t Need Your Civil War…’


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’m seeing with a great deal of alarm growing chatter on Twitter that the extreme Right believes that a Second American Civil War has already begun. This is very disturbing for a number of reasons.

But one thing we have to accept, as I’ve said before, is no matter what happens as part of the 2020 election, we’re in a new era.

And, yet, let’s go down the dark rabbit hole of a Second American Civil War. Let’s think about this seriously for a moment. It seems to me that the key thing we have to think about is there are likely to be a number of last-ditch efforts to avoid a civil war. Threats of secession, constitutional amendments and conventions and God only knows what else.

Sadly, it’s possible that they will all be for naught.

There’s a lot of talk about California leaving the Union if an actual civil war begins and the more I think about it, the more dubious that seems. MAGA-Qanon are seriously conflating what they’ve managed to get as part of their destruction of the American political system with what they think they might get by running around murdering people.

Yes, it’s very well possible that MAGA-Qanon, with the help of House Trump could strike a knockout blow against Blue States simply because they take the idea of an actual civil war far, far more seriously than most “coastal elites.” But as the opening days of the original civil war indicate, history doesn’t go in a straight line.

As such, once Blue States understood the gravity of the situation, there’s a decent chance that they won’t leave the Union, but fight for its soul. And key to winning that fight would be California staying in the Union. It’s easy to imagine a large military force from California swooping across the Great Plains and linking up with their compatriots in Minnesota and Wisconsin.

That would make the Blue States contiguous on a geographic level and then they could begin to strike east and south towards the heart of the old Confederacy.

But that’s all really very speculative at this point. It could be that while there will be significant political violence — no matter what happens in the fall — that Trump will simply use Barr to steal the whole thing in a “legal” fashion and he’ll consolidate power and that will be that.

Remember, it’s extremely likely that the Russians are going to hack directly into our election systems so Trump “wins” on election night. In fact, as of right now, that seems the most logical outcome to all of this. The Republic will die a political, not military death.

Going back to the tragedy of civil war again, if American really does implode, you have to think about the macro geopolitical consequences. Who gets the US Military? What happens if the DPRK attacks South Korea? Or Russia does a major military strike again, say, the Baltics? What are we going to do? Anything?

The whole thing is tragic and needless.

And, yet, I keep getting pings from different directions that definitely indicate something akin to a civil war might happen. MAGA-Qanon is really fucking bloodthirsty right now and in their craven quest for absolute power over the Blue States, they might get a lot more than they bargained for.

Ratfucking The Election With The Russians: The Case Against Donald Trump


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’m just a nobody in the middle of nowhere. But I’m pretty good at abstract thought. I’ve been ranting about how Trump is going to steal the 2020 election as part of a quid pro quo with the Russians, but why do I think that? Here’s why.

Ratfucking an Election is Trump’s Thing
Just with the 2016 election alone, Trump did two major ratfuckings — he paid off Stormy Daniels just before the election and, in more general terms, was actively working with the Russians to tip the scales in his favor.

House Trump’s Blocking of Election Protection
Both the Trump Administration and the Republics in Congress really, really don’t want any investigation into what the Russians may be up to in 2020. They do everything in their power to stop any protection at all of our election or election systems. And we keep finding evidence that the Russians are already fucking with our election systems. And, yet, Republicans are completely indifferent.

Trump Keeps Talking To Putin
Since just about when Trump realized he might lose, Trump’s been talking to Putin on the phone about every two weeks. In fact, he is doing everything in his power to talk to Putin in private in September when, I think, the G20 summit is going to be held.

Trump Has Removed 1/3 of Our Troops From Germany
No one has any good reason for why this has happened. None. Trump, just out of the blue, freaked out and demanded this to happen in September. Very strange. It’s almost as if someone told him to do it for some reason. Maybe as part of a quid pro quo? And who benefits the most from such a move? Putin.

As such, it’s easy to imagine a situation where during one of Trump’s many phone calls with Putin, Putin suggests if he really wants Russian help so bad, that he do something concrete to show a good faith effort to help them out. What better thing than move troops out of Germany? It pisses the Germans off and, yet, there is plausible deniability. The deal gets the final go-ahead when Trump meets Putin in private at the G20. They shake on it. It’s the perfect crime.

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.

‘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.

We Have To Be Willing To Risk Things In The Real World Now


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I hate to sound so dark and dystopian. I wish I could give you “hope” that somehow, some way House Trump will be defeated in the fall and we can go back to “normal.” Sadly, there’s no metric I can point to that suggests that. Everything points to a spectrum of autocratic rule.

On one end, House Trump “wins” reasonably easily. If that’s the case, then we will continue or gradual drift towards an autocratic managed democracy. We’ll look back, rightly, at Trump’s acquittal by the Senate as the end of the First Republic. On the other end of the spectrum there’s a civil war of some sort. The more difficult it is for House Trump and its enablers to maintain power, the more radical they will become for no other reason than they’ll be desperate and won’t care what they have to break to keep power.

I continue to talk to liberals who are completely delusional about all of this. They scoff that Trump has it in him to do anything so drastic. What they miss is while Trump is a criminally incompetent autocrat, he’s still an autocrat that has a personality cult to back him up and absolutely no institution with the power to check his craven need to protect his own hide.

We have to begin to think about some pretty basic concepts about what it means to be American. Just like how the Roman Empire gradually declined and then fell really, really fast, so, too, will the First Republic go. Americans are simply too divided and / or apathetic to do anything, in real terms, about House Trump. The logic necessary for House Trump and MAGA to run roughshod over the Constitution in an effort to stay in power is already there.

As such, there’s going to come a point when the milquetoast “resistance” on social media is going to be faced with some very real world decisions. I’m a man of peace, a man of ideas, but I’m absolutely never fucking shutting up about the tyranny of House Trump. If that means I get snatched off the street or pushed out a window by ICE or Little Green Men, so be it.

The cold, hard reality that America is now nothing more than a fascist state does give one pause for thought. The simple act of not shutting up, no matter what, about House Trump’s tyranny will soon enough be a radical act. The whole thing is rather unexpectedly existential. I mean, all I want to do is exercise my 1st Amendment right to free speech.

Once House Trump purges the media of all the “fake news,” then lulz, I’m going to be in serious, serious trouble. How is anyone going to know that people are being pushed out of windows if there’s no press to report it?

I keep thinking about the original “V” miniseries about lizard people aliens taking over the world. There was an old woman who fought back in her own personal way as it became clear who the “visitors” really were. And, I guess that’s my fate if the worst happens. I’ll figure out some way to do my part to help whatever meager “resistance” there may be to the tyranny of House Trump in the coming years.

It will definitely be interesting to see how, exactly, things shake out. I guess in the end there will be some sort of alliance with Russia as the United States pulls out of NATO. That will be interesting.

But, if anything, I’m a survivor.

Republican MAGA Radicalization & Trump’s Ultimate Political Fate

YikeS!
Shelton Bumgarner

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

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.

Republicans Have No Shame & Crave Power For Power’s Sake

Shelton Bumgarner

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

I’m not feeling so great about the chances that Trump will be convicted in the Senate. I say this because Republican defenses for Trump right now are pretty much just, “You don’t like our politics, fuck you.” So, all the Twitter liberals you attempt to use any fact-based logic with fucking fucktwit Republicans are wasting their time. Republicans are such cult that the moment a Democrat ever happens to be president again, they will impeach him or her the moment they have the power to do so. They will want to prove the point and also take some of the sigma away from being impeached so Trump doesn’t look so bad.

Not that I think there will ever be another Democrat president the way things are going. The dystopia is here. The bad guys have won. For the autocrat, all that matters is remaining in power. Everything else is a lulz. So we could have Trump dead-to-rights (which we do) and he will be acquitted and turn around and do the exact same thing. He will grow even more brazen to such an extent that election 2020 will be American Brexit. The whole thing will be such a massive clusterfuck — that Trump will win in the end — that it will be pretty self-evident our democracy, our Republic, is dead.

Trump will push for a Constitutional Convention at some point in his second term and I will promptly be “vanished” by a weaponized ICE.

Now, having said all that, there are still a few issues that I simply don’t know how they will play out. Trump’s mental state is getting worse and Republicans are so bloodthirsty on a rhetorical level that some pretty tragic things may happen when someone takes them both seriously and literally. Those two issues might be the things that bring down Trump at some point.

And, really, if you are MAGA reading this because my worst case scenario is your best case scenario — you’re a piece of shit.

But I think while it is exciting and interesting to see the impeachment process take place, we have to prepare ourselves for the absolute worst. MAGA will start murdering people in cold blood soon enough. Those of us lucky to be able to leave the country when that starts to happen will do so.

Tough Love For Twitter Liberals About The Current State Of The Impeachment Process

Darkness falls.
Shelton Bumgarner

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

If you’re MAGA reading this from the Deep South and you think my worst case scenario is your best case scenario — please eat shit. Fuck off, you piece of shit MAGA traitor.

Trump’s going to be acquitted. In fact, to be brutally honest, given that Trump does NOT want to be impeached, there’s a pretty good chance he won’t even be formally impeached.

Here’s why.

Bill Barr is lurking around, waiting to pounce. He’s likely to finally release his “anti-Mueller Report” just around Thanksgiving. As of right now, formal impeachment is set for sometime around Christmas. So, if past is preface, Barr plays the part of Q. He drops a big turd in the impeachment punch bowl. The press spends a week debating the merits of his totally bullshit report. Everyone begins to fear that John Brennan is going to be indicted. We’re so busy thinking about this totally surreal and nonsensical report — even if it appears to be backed up by “facts” — that the momentum for even impeachment fades and Trump escapes.

I say this quite sincerely because Trump is going to turn into a very moronic, very deranged Sun King at this point. He’s going to become so brazen after escaping justice AGAIN that it will be pretty obvious by no later than, say, February that there will NOT be a free-and-fair election in 2020. And pretty much everyone is going to stand around and watch it happen, too. Trump may “end” birthright citizenship via Executive Order. He may make rumblings about the absolute need for a Constitutional Convention to “pass a balanced budget amendment.”

The first part of his second term will be calling a snap Constitutional Convention and codifying American Carnage. Don Jr. will be America’s doofus Crown Prince. We’re going to be little more than Putin’s bitch. Tyranny will finally descend upon across America. Liberal-progressives in Hollywood will bounce from the country altogether and many in New York City and Silicon Valley may do the same. The ICE Camps will be weaponized and people like me will be “vanished.” We’ll simply not be around anymore. The ICE Camps will grow ever larger with not just scary brown people, but people like me.

I would note, however, in passing, that I can’t predict the future. The MAGA Right is growing extremely hysterical in its overheated, overwrought rhetoric. Things have stabilized enough for the time being that my initial fears of Trump finally losing his mind completely or there being significant anti-impeachment violence on the part of shithead MAGA people are beginning to subside.

So, in essence, I think by no later than Thanksgiving, the Mueller Playbook will kick in and a lot of liberal-progressives will scream at the top of their lungs that Trump was supposed to be impeached….and nothing actually happened. I used to think the impeachment train had left the station, but I’m beginning to doubt even that.

This week may be a big test of my predicting abilities. If we can make it through this week without the air completely draining from the impeachment balloon, then we’re in the clear…until next week. The bullshit Barr Report looms large in all of this. This week is also the first week where I’m growing a little bit more concerned about anti-impeachment violence on the part of MAGA. I only say this because their daily 2 minutes of hate is now completely focused on outing the Whistleblower and no good can come of that.

Who knows.

Debunking MAGA’s Bullshit Impeachment Defenses Of Trump

LeT THe PeOPLe DeCiDE
Shelton Bumgarner

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

So, here are the bullshit defenses of Trump I’ve seen on Twitter of late. All of them are really attempts to message the base. We’ll see how successful they are.

“No Due Process”
This defense muddles the rights someone has in a criminal case with what the Constitution affords a politician in the strictly political process of impeachment. They mix and match pieces of the Constitution to conflate things in the minds of the public. By definition, impeachment is a political process and as such, the whole thing is really basically partisan — especially in this era of extreme political tribalism and identity politics.

“Political Death Penalty”
This defense says that while what Trump did was bad, it wasn’t bad enough for the “political death penalty” of conviction in the Senate. This is complete and total bullshit because of what Trump is credibly accused of doing — not only trying to give himself political cover to pardon Paul Manafort and Mike Flynn, but to get dirt on Joe Biden to use against him in the 2020 campaign. What’s worse, Trump didn’t even want the dirt, he just wanted a public announcement on the part of the Ukrainians that they were looking into Biden. Trump remaining in office through the 2020 election doesn’t actually give me much confidence that there would be free-and-fair elections.

“Partisan Witch Hunt”
This is defense is bullshit because the facts are that Trump did, in fact, do what he’s accused of doing. What’s more Bill Clinton was impeached in large part because of an actual partisan conspiracy on the part of Linda Tripp, Lucianne Goldberg and Matt Drudge and Bill Clinton was impeached because of it, though not convicted. Two things can both be true — a lot of people hate Trump and Trump did, in fact, do something that warrants his impeachment and removal from office.

“Let The People Decide”
This defense goes hand in hand with the “bad but not worth impeachment, much less conviction” defense. This is complete bullshit because Trump’s proven that he loves, loves, loves to meddle in elections and if he’s politically pardoned again, he’s going to grow so brazen and emboldened that there won’t be any stopping his re-election by any means necessary. Which, of course, is pretty much what the person who uses this dumb defense actually really wants.