Weimar America – Page 17 – The Trumplandia Report

Why Trump’s Taxes Will Be A Big Deal, No Matter What

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

Ahhh, Trump’s ever-elusive taxes. I don’t know exactly what’s going on in the Federal courts right now to give you a detailed explanation, but I enough to get some sense of the significance. Really, at this point, the best case scenario for House Trump is they’re able to successfully slow-walk the whole thing past the Senate trial. Once Trump’s acquitted, House Trump can pretty much tell the rule of law to fuck off and do whatever the fuck they want. No power grab will be too brazen as we lurch towards the 2020 election which will, by definition, be neither free nor fair.

But let’s suppose SCOTUS rules one way or another in time for it to be relevant. Let’s go through the possible endgames.

SCOTUS Punts
If Justice Roberts simply punts the issue, then that’s a pretty big decision. Trump will have either cough his taxes up, or not. Either decision will be a massive turning point in not only House Trump’s political history, but the nation in general. More on this in a second.

SCOTUS Rules In House Trump’s Favor
Justice Roberts takes the case and fascist Republicans’ vision of a remaking the Judiciary finally pay off the way they crave, then Trump’s a Putin-style authoritarian. He’s above the law. Game over.

SCOTUS Rules Against House Trump
Like I mentioned, all this only matters if it happens in time to influence the existing impeachment process. Otherwise, lulz. So, let’s say the House Trump attempt to slow walk fails. In a 5-4 vote, Trump’s ordered to release his taxes immediately.

Trump Ignores This
While the dipshit MAGA fuckheads would spin this as a mere “process crime,” in fact, it would be the biggest Constitutional Crisis since the end of the Civil War. If Trump simply ignored this ruling, it would likely be thrown into the impeachment pot as “obstruction of SCOTUS.” For the average dumbass MAGA person who just hates black people and women, I guess they’ll feel free to overlook this situation until Trump’s acquitted and the ICE camps can be weaponized.

Trump Abides By This
If Trump weirdly does the right thing and releases his taxes, this just might save his sorry ass. If everything we’re afraid of is in them, is in them, it would be such an explosion that House Democrats would realize they had to dig into the taxes to sort out exactly the astonishing scope of Trump’s criminality. By the time the dust settles, it’s Feburary 2020, “let the people decide” is a Republican mantra and Trump is free to get Peter Thiel to bribe individual Electors. Or not. There’s a small chance it would be this taxes that might tip the political scale against him in the Senate. But I find that dubious.

It’s more likely to be Trump completely losing his shit or MAGA anti-impeachment violence that would ultimately cook Trump’s political goose.

If Trump Really Was A Political Genius Like Maggie Haberman Keeps Suggesting, He Would Do This

Yeah, Maggie Haberman, Trump’s a political genius.

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

Trump is a moron. If he really was all that smart, he would flood the zone with corruption and sit back and wait. Instead of stonewalling, he would open the floodgates. Release his taxes. Let everyone testify. Release the unredacted Mueller Report.

This would so overwhelm House Democrats that they would spend months investigating all of this. They would be pushed into the primary season and people would just say at some point, “Let the people decide.”

Trump would then be effectively politically pardoned AGAIN. He could become even more brazen. He gets re-elected through criminal means. Yeah, the 2020 election would be an American Brexit at this point, but all he cares about is getting into his second term. Once he’s in his second term, his new Veep Kris Kobach (or whatever young, passionate fascist he picks to replace Pence) will establish the Thousand Year Trump. Don Jr. eventually becomes president and we have Trumps for the next twenty years.

Though Trump could just name Don Jr. his veep for 2020 and cut out the middle man. That really would establish The Thousand Year Trump.

But Trump’s an idiot. He’s nothing more than a deranged version of Being There’s Chauncey Gardner. He’s going to be acquitted by the Senate unless something extra-political happens and it backfires.

Well see, I guess.

Some Sobering Words For Twitter Liberals

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

On a basic political level, we have to accept that Trump is going to be acquitted by the Senate. He will grow even more brazen between then and the 2020 election. It will not be a free-and-fair election. And, really, the only things that will stop him from going full fascist will be his own criminal incompetence.

But that’s not even really an issue because he just has to get into his second term. Once that’s happened, even if he finally goes batshit insane, whatever young, passionate fascist he picks to replace Pence will establish The Thousand Year Trump and for at least the next 20 to 30 years American Carnage will turn America into the Far Right’s dream. Plutocrats will run the country even more than they already do. ICE Camps will be weaponized and people such as myself will be “disappeared.” Any hope that we have of returning to the America I grew up in will have to wait until the youngest of the Baby Boomers die off and the Browning of America kicks in. Even then, the fascist state could linger for decades until a Nelson Mandela type figure arises that rights the ship of state, at last.

If you see this worst case scenario as your best case scenario, please, on a personal level fuck off. Eat shit. Fuck you and the horse you road in on.

The issue is, everyone has to drop the facade about what’s going no. Republicans are not dealing in good faith in any way. They live in abject terror of Trump’s Twitter feed. There are systemic, structural problems at the heart of our government (and at least one) of our major political parties. These issues are not going to be fixed anytime soon, no matter what happens. It doesn’t help that the press is apparently completely oblivious to what’s going on and continue to believe that Republicans are acting in good faith, when in, fact, it’s quite obvious they aren’t and haven’t been for some time. They crave power for power’s sake. They have an absolute lust for money. There’s no stopping them in this quest for at least the next 20 years. Even if they lose in the short term, they will win in the long term.

Having said all that, it’s rather tragic that the only scenarios I can think of whereby we don’t turn into a Russian-style “managed democracy” the moment after Trump is acquitted in the Senate all involve some pretty batshit insane — and in real terms, unpredictable and unwanted — events.

I mean, I don’t really want Trump to snap mentally in a very public manner. I certainly don’t him to go transactional with his Twitter feed to such an extent that people start to get hurt.

I’m just noting in passing that some combination of those two are the only weaknesses to the 40 year plan on the part of the Republicans to burn our democracy to the ground and turn us into a plutocracy based on a “blood and soil.”

As I’ve said before, I can’t predict the future. Usually, things are far more muddled than one can predict. And the impeachment process may be no different. And, yet, I’ve also long said that whatever the outcome of this clusterfuck, we’ll be in a new era.

Life During Trump Time — We Are So Fucked

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

Right now, all down to a matter of specifics when it comes to MAGA fuckers breaking the law and outing the Trump Whistleblower. Sen. Rand Paul apparently thinks there’s no law preventing him from simply blurting the name out whenever the mood strikes him, so lulz.

Meanwhile, Sean Hannity is a very wealthy man. There’s simply no downside to him blurting the name out on his show tonight — or anytime this week. So he gets sued. He hires the best lawyers in the nation and gets whine about about being a martyr for the cause in the face of the Deep State. Trump will owe him a solid. And, really, what better way to kick of Hannity’s political career than to do something so absolutely stupid in the name of Der Further. Trump can pardon him, if need be.

Once the Whistleblower is outed in a major, public way, then the two sides go back to their corners to plot their next move. Republicans will scream at the top of their lungs that the impeachment process has to end immediately because Whistleblower had a work relationship with Joe Biden and Susan Rice. They will do everything in their power to “kavanaugh” him in the eyes of the public. The will wallow in whatever political dirty tricks they have to get the base to dismiss Trump’s growing number of proven Big Boy Crimes against the Constitution.

Logically, all this would happen….NOW. Why it hasn’t happened yet is something of a mystery to me.

Two other things continue to linger in my mind. One is Trump’s mind exploding, not imploding in a really massive, public manner. Really, that particular fear is a long-term one. It could happen anytime between now and whenever Trump gets Peter Thiel to bribe just enough Electors to get him into his second term. At that point Trump will be a puddle and Trump’s second term Veep, Evil JFK Kris Kobach, can take over and establish The Thousand Year Trump.

The other thing I have a lot of unease about is extra-political moves on the part of MAGA fuckheads who are inspired by Trump unceasingly overheated and overwrought rhetoric on Twitter. Republicans will defend it, of course, and will even spin it as a reason why impeachment has to end. “People are getting hurt!”

But I believe Americans will collectively call bullshit on this foolishness and the political ground under Trump’s feet would begin to buckle in a pretty significant manner. Political violence is so alien to Americans that should there be any anti-impeachment violence, Trump’s fire break of general apathy on the part of the non-Twitter using public would go poof.

We also need to accept that good faith debate is now a dead letter in America. Republicans are old school fascists at this point. They have macro trends in their favor, but they’re so craven — and their leader so stupid — that they’re careening towards such a massive clusterfuck that their inevitable consolidation of power may at least be momentarily delayed. Even that is simply a “maybe.” But I do think if we are honest with ourselves and realize the Republican Party is a fascist, criminal enterprise now the sooner we will be more serious about impeachment stakes.

Republicans only care about laws and democracy if it helps them again power or money or both. No one is going to save us. There is no “Resistance,” we have to save ourselves. If we were a functioning democracy, we’d have massive rolling protests across the entire country until Republicans took notice. But that’s just not going to happen.

Things are going to get very, very dark. I would say the next 20 years will see America as nothing more than a Russian-style “managed democracy” until the youngest of the Baby Boomers begin to drop dead and the Browning of America kicks in. Even then, there’s a good chance it could be decades after that point before we stop being a mixture of modern day Venezuela and Apartheid South Africa. The political pendulum has broken for the next few decades.

The worst case scenario of the American Republic is here.

Dear MAGA: Extra-Political Solutions To Your Current Impeachment Woes Will Be Counter-Productive

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

The moment the extra-political move of releasing the Whistleblower’s name is a done deal, MAGA may find itself in something of a pickle. Now, the thing they want from this illegal act, they will get, at least in the short term.

They will dominate the newscycle for at least 24 hours. They will have something to pivot to whenever someone asks them about Trump’s many, many, many impeach-and-convict crimes. And they can probably, at least within their own bullshit echo chamber, make everything about the character and motives of the Whistleblower, not the proven criminal offenses against the Constitution that Trump has committed.

So, on a superficial level, at least relative to their own metrics, MAGA will have scored a major victory in their burn-everything-to-the-ground to save the Dear Leader impeachment strategy. But the current impeachment war is not The Mueller Report. Though Bill Barr is likely to hand down a slew of bogus criminal referrals before this is all over with, the actual impeachment train has likely left the station.

Trump’s going to get impeached. But he’s also probably going to be acquitted by the Senate. And, yet, the very extra-political things MAGA thinks will help them in the short term, could seal Trump’s long-term political fate in a way that they may not like. Maybe. If it all boils down to simply messaging the base with vitriol against Whistleblower for getting the Dear Leader in trouble, then I guess it’s a win.

But there are some pretty serious known unknowns.

There could be serious anti-impeachment violence on the part of MAGA if Trump spends all day losing his shit over the identity of the Whistleblower. What to him will be a throwaway line about, “Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?” may come back to haunt him in an existential way. Americans don’t brook political violence of any sort. If there’s some obvious causality between Trump’s ranting on Twitter and any kind of anti-impeachment violence, that old Thousand Year Trump may not be as much of a sure thing as Don Jr. might think.

Add this to the non-zero sum chance that Trump will simply lose his shit when what he thinks will happen once everyone knows who the Whistleblower is — the impeachment process abruptly ends — doesn’t happen, and you have a recipe for a very, very dark moment in our nation’s political history.

I can’t predict the future. I have no idea what is going to happen. But do know that Whistleblower’s name is going to pop out in a big way very, very soon. My current theory is Sean Hannity will martyr himself for Der Fuehrer and blurt the guy’s name out on his show. Trump will then turn around and rant for weeks about how the guy is a traitor or hates America or wants to take people’s guns, or whatever insane bullshit happens to pop into his fevered fucked up mind.

But it could happen any number of different ways. It is, however, just a matter of time before we enter the extra-political phase of this unfortunate clusterfuck.

Why Trump Is NOT A Political Genius

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

I had a minor tempest-in-a-teapot run-in on Twitter with The New York Time’s Trump Whisperer Maggie Haberman. She sniffed – in so many words — that I was a hayseed rube in a flyover state who did not know how REAL journalism was practiced. It says a lot about my personal relationship to power I have a lingering resentment over this little minor event. It’s not like I have any recourse. She’s got fame, ACCESS, power and the respect of her peers.

All I got is a novel I’m trying to write.

Anyway, the whole point of that was to bring up something I feel Haberman gets so very, very, very wrong about Trump. Trump is a doofus. He’s a moron. Something is mentally wrong with him and he lacks any sense of empathy. As Benjamin Wittes of the Lawfare blog quipped once, Trump’s “ambivalence is only mitigated by his incompetence.” Trump won the political lottery of a lifetime. Someone like him was probably going to pop up between 2016 and 2024 do to macro socio-economic trends in the United States. Trump just happened to the would-be president of Sharknato who happened to jump in at just the moment.

You could, of course, make the case that Trump got a little help from his Russian friends along the way. But in real terms, just won because of dumb fucking luck.

Haberman and her fellow access journalists simply can not process that Trump is simply a doofus — nothing more than a deranged version of Being There’s Chauncey Gardner. They probably feel that if they accept that Trump is just a very lucky Right Wing celebrity Twitter troll then their own investment in their person ascent to power is somehow invalidated. They have a vested interest in making me believe that Trump’s latest clusterfuck is really him subtly messing white women ages 24-35 in the exurbs of Phillie.

There’s no there there when it comes to Trump’s acumen. Yeah, he’s an adept marking and branding guy. And he has a celebrity’s knack for knowing an intended audience. But to suggest he has some sort of native political acumen is an insult to my intelligence.

One need go no further than what’s going on at this very moment. Trump is such a fucking moron that he not only waited 24 hours to do the exact same thing that Mueller’s poor “optics” in front of Congress pardoned him for, he bragged about it on the very phone call! Then was so clueless that instead of slow walking the release of the damaging information until sometime early next year, he releases it so House Democrats had time to find their backbones and start the impeachment process with time to spare before the ever-critical 2020 primaries.

Trump is so stupid on a political level that instead of taking the L with impeachment and laughing all the way to acquittal in the Senate, he is actively doing everything in his power to produce the conditions for his fate being decided by extra-political means. By this I mean anti-impeachment violence. Of course, that problem goes hand in hand with the real likelihood he’s going to snap on a mental level at some point during the impeachment process.

So, Maggie Haberman, spare me the ever-so-serious tweets about Trump’s fucking political genius. He’s a doofus and your willingness to trade access for any semblance of journalistic independence is enough to make me smirk whenever I hear one of your peers tout your journalistic abilities.

Buckle Up — The Sequence Of Events Leading To Trump Tweeting A 21st Century Version Of ‘Will No One Rid Me Of This Meddlesome Priest’ Has Likely Started

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

Things are beginning to move fast now. Right Wing media is out for blood when it comes to the Whistleblower. They have apparently posted an imagine of the home of the person they believe to be the Whistleblower. So, that’s a pretty good indication that we’re racing towards some sort of situation where Trump feels he has the political cover to simply blurt the guys name out on Twitter.

I don’t think the average person realizes how bumpy things will get at that point. Trump is going try to message the base that this is all a witch hunt and or some sort of surreal attack on the guy’s personal character or history. My real fear is he’s going to get so fucking worked up about this poor guy that he’s going to say something so shocking, so transactional in a clueless way that it will be easy for the average person to believe a Trump tweet directly lead to an unprecedented indictment of political violence.

But that is, thankfully, the absolute worst case scenario. A more likely outcome is that in their desperation, Republicans will demand the guy testify before Sen. Lindsey Graham’s Committee so he can yell at the guy for 11 hours on TV.

I have lingering concern, however, that Trump is willfully going all-in on the Whistleblower that rational political thought will be sorely lacking for a pretty sizable chunk of the electorate. They will be so rabid in their desire to….uhhhhh….what? What point would they prove by physically harming the Whistleblower? What political objective, in real terms, would they achieve? None, of course, which is why after 24 hour hours of Republicans spinning this tragedy as a sign that impeachment has to end because “it’s obviously tearing the nation apart” the drive to get rid of Trump will go into overdrive. I just can’t see the average American shrugging if this horrible event happen. Political violence is so alien to American civil society that if there was even a whiff that Trump was somehow responsible for it that he may face some pretty serious political consequences.

But I’m not a mind reader. I don’t know. I guess anything is possible.

We are, however, just about to enter a very dark, very surreal moment in our nations political history, no matter what happens once the Whistleblower’s name is common knowledge.

Why The Racist, Misogynist Fascist MAGA Asshats Want The Whistleblower To Testify In Person So Bad

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

Trump’s going all in on having the Whistleblower come forth personally and testify in public — even though Trump himself was such a wussy he wouldn’t give Mueller in-person answers to his questions. But, then, hypocrisy is very on-brand for MAGA, so there you go.

Here are my person hot takes on why Trump’s so wrapped up in this idea of being able to see his foe on TV testifying in person before Congress.

They Want A Mueller Moment
What MAGA shitheads took away from Mueller’s “poor optics” during his testimony before Congress was they have a chance of winning not on the facts but because we live in a media age and how something plays on TV is far more important than anything else. Even though we have enough to impeach and convict Trump as it is — they think if they can only get the Whistleblower in front of Lindsey Graham for 11 hours, all their troubles will go away.

They Want To ‘Kavanaugh’ Him
MAGA fuckwits want to do to the Whistleblower what they feel was done to Justice Kavanaugh. They want to swap out policy differences for facts, however. They want to prove a point — at least in their own minds — that the only reason why Democrats were so hard on Kavanaugh is they did not have politics on their side so they played dirty. Given that Republicans hate that someone may have bested them at their own ratfucking (at least in their own minds) they have a near-sexual craving to repay the favor to Democrats. If they can get women screaming at Democrat Senators in elevators over some personal issue in the Whistleblower’s past, dipshit traitor Republicans will cackle themselves to sleep at night.

They Want To Focus Their Hate On Him Personally
This is kind of the darkest part of all of this. This is the worst case scenario. They are so wrapped up in their own overheated, overwrought rhetoric that they are blinded to what might happen if someone took it the wrong way and physically harmed the Whistleblower. (Hint — it would be bad politics, to say the least.) But in the moment, they don’t care. They have bloodlust at this point and when it sinks in what a horrific mistake they’ve made, it will be far, far too late. They will pontificate on how Trump was “just joking” and he “can’t be held responsible” for the actions of a mentally-ill person, but they will say in the same fucking breath that OBVIOUSLY we have to stop the impeachment process because people are dying.

Addressing Criminal Fascist GOP Anti-Impeachment Talking Points

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

I still have no idea what’s going to happen to Trump politically. We haven’t gotten to the point where the politics of impeachment really make it existential for Trump. He’s flipping out, yes, but that’s more a matter of him NOT being a political genius, but a man-child with poor impulse control.

But here are some Trump defenses I’ve seen lately and some of my hot takes on addressing them.

The Putin Defense
Trump may have done something wrong, but, really, politicians in general do bad stuff all the time and this is just a matter of degree. MAGA, MAGA, MAGA. Trump 2020.

Response
Trump’s specific crimes in this instance are so brazen, so egregious that if you hide behind this Putinesque defense, then there’s not much to say. You’re showing yourself to be so absolutely unwilling to consider the facts of the case that what’s the point?

The ‘Bad For The Country’ Defense
Trump’s impeachment is too divisive. We can’t impeach him because he won’t be convicted and he’ll only grow stronger. This is usually stated in the same breath as “Let the people decide.”

Response
This is a bullshit defense because what you’re really saying is it hurts your side too much politically. You secretly are a partisan hack and you have but a thin-veneer of objectivity to hide behind. You’re probably either too wealthy, too blinded by your love of young hack MAGA judges or too otherwise invested in the status quo to ever seriously think about the issues that impeachment would address. Bonus: “Let the people decide” is bullshit because the very thing Trump is accused of — fucking with the election — is something he’s going to do again anyway if he’s a free man and at least he should suffer some political consequences for doing it.

The Whistleblower Is A Partisan Hack
We’re likely to see this more very soon. This defense is that essentially, only a completely objective person can get you in trouble. If anyone with ANY sort of disagreement with you on a political level has evidence you committed a crime, lulz.

Response
This is something that is so passionately stated and yet so poorly thought out that it can take you aback. This is a strained attempt to muddy the waters between the rule of law and the laws of politics. Also, Bill Clinton was impeached in large part because of a partisan political trap sprung by Linda Tripp, Lucianne Goldberg and Matt Drudge. This is sort of the, “I’m not going to defend Trump, but attack the person who caught him” defense. I can only suggest you stay calm and somehow get the person to agree with you before hand that the rule of law is meant for everyone. They are likely to say Hillary Clinton should have been indicted. You have to remind them that not only did the Justice Department find she did nothing wrong with her emails, but that she’s not the issue at the moment, Trump is. This can lead to you going in circles because, well, you’re probably not talking to someone discussing this issue in good faith.

The Brit Hume Defense
Hume — and the editors of The Wall Street Journal — believe something along the lines of since Trump didn’t actually get the dirt on Biden, lulz.

Response
That otherwise cognizant, cogent and intelligent people would prostrate themselves in front of the Orange Caff of Trump in such a brazenly bad argument is pretty spectacular. This defense is a desperation-is-setting in defense. This is the defense of people who have gotten a little cocky after the “bad optics” of Mueller’s testimony to Congress got their man off politically….only so he could turn around and do it all over again. It’s a bad defense because the ask, itself, is a crime. It doesn’t matter if he got what he wanted. And, really, do you want a person like Trump as president if he does such a thing? (Of course they do, they are getting tax breaks and young hack judges on the Federal bench for life. Lulz!)

The Nancy Pelosi Should Not Be President Defense
I struggle to figure out what’s going on with this one. The argument is that Nancy Pelosi has too much of a vested interest in Trump being forced out of office and so, lulz, the whole thing is invalid, why are we talking about it.

Response
Mike Pence has a lot more on the line with impeachment than Nancy Pelosi. Why would people assume that simply because impeachment would make her one heartbeat closer to the presidency that, in real terms, she has a vested interest in Trump leaving office? Pence isn’t going anywhere and it would be he — not Pelosi — who named his veep successor. This one is pretty textbook misogyny in my book.

V-Log: The Perplexing Pause In The Whistleblower Name Outing Saga & The State of The #Novel I’m #Writing

Some thoughts.

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