Weimar America – Page 19 – The Trumplandia Report

The Coming Of The Republican Gotterdammerung Impeachment Strategy

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

I continue to struggle as to what the endgame for this catastrophic clusterfuck is going to be. All things being equal, it would appear that Trump will be impeached and acquitted in the Senate. He will grow even more brazen in his tyranny afterwards with election meddling and Republicans will finally get the Russian-style managed democracy they so desperately crave.

And yet.

Something surreal is going on with Republicans. I can only suspect it has something to do with Trump freaking out at the prospect of getting impeached at all. This is yet another indication that Trump is not, in fact, the political genius that New York Times Trump Whisperer Maggie Haberman would have haysee rubes in flyover states like me believe. That he would grow so completely rabid at the idea of even being impeached does not bode well for anyone involved.

So I might suggest that you pause to consider that what may bring down House Trump — and Pence for that matter — may not be impeachment but Trump’s reaction to it. Or, more specifically, it won’t even be Trump’s reaction to it, it will be the violence associated with it. To put it another way, we are racing at an alarming rate towards people dying in a Republican Gotterdammerung strategy. Their thinking is that if they can inflict enough pain on the opposition in guise of people dying that that will cause the whole impeachment process to come to an end. They will make the case that we can’t even impeach Trump because people are dying. This is, of course, a completely fucked up, bonkers line of reasoning that comes more from House Trump believing its own FOX News coverage than anything else.

I find it dubious that if there was some sort of co-ordinated, violent and bloody attack on the part of MAGA truebelivers that average Americans would throw up their hands and give up on impeachment. What’s more likely to happen is the 60% of the population that isn’t MAGA would flip the fuck out. The political ground under the entire House Trump would buckle.

It would not happen right away. Republicans would for about 24 hours tell us all that they can’t be blamed for the actions of “mentally ill” people. The moment, however, that they started to say, “Of course we can’t impeach Trump if people are dying” is the moment they may, for once, face serious political consquences.

Remember there may come a point where the absolute fear of Republican Senators of being primaried from someone on the MAGA Right will equal their absolute fear that they won’t win a general election. It’s that type of high stakes conundrum that leaves me scratching my head. They have no shame and only care about power for power’s sake. So there’s a least a small chance that their high stakes gotterdammerung strategy might not QUITE work out the way they hope.

Who knows. I know I don’t.

The key point is the nation can’t sustain this state of crisis for any long duration of time. The fever is going to break one way or another. Either with people getting hurt or Trump finally be forced out of off, or maybe both. All I know is I hope no one gets hurt. But I’m not going to let insane Republicans cower me into submission either.

Thinking The Unthinkable — What Happens When There’s Impeachment Violence?

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

It pains me to no end to have to talk about this. But we have to prepare ourselves for impeachment-related violence. This is a classic desperate move of extremists — they think that if they raise the stakes high enough that the general public will cower in fear and stop the impeachment process altogether.

The only problem with this strategy is it’s a high risk – high reward one. And violence of the sort Trump supporters want is almost totally alien to the American political experience. While substantial impeachment-related violence might dominate a news cycle or two, there would come a point when a lot of people who have previously tuned out would suddenly sit up and take notice. And not in a way that Trump would like.

This is yet ANOTHER example of how Trump is NOT a political genius as The New York Times‘ Trump Whisperer Maggie Haberman would have us believe. Trump is so stupid — and rapidly cracking under the strain of impeachment — that he sees violence in his defence as a quick fix that will make all his troubles go away. He is so stupid that he doesn’t realize that his firebreak is the average person’s general political indifference. As long as the economy is going well they generally don’t care. If people start dying as part of some crazed gotterdammerung strategy on the part of House Trump, there’s a real chance of radicalizing — at least momentarily — a huge swath of the moderates who otherwise would give Mad King Trump a pass at least until election day 2020.

In other words — when politics involves death and destruction, Americans generally don’t appreciate it. Violence that can be directly pinned on the overheated rhetoric of the Right will initially give us as nation pause for thought, yes, but the moment the Right goes from, “Can’t blame us, it’s just crazy people!” to “Well, guess we can’t have stop the impeachment process now…” they’re likely to get considerable pushback.

But the key issue is — it’s only going to get worse as we grow closer and closer to Trump actually being impeached. In fact, that’s pretty much Trump’s last trick — to go transactional in his crazypants tweets. While I’m reluctant to count Trump out, when he is directing MAGA to kill people in his defense via his Twitter feed that would, well, take things to the next level.

Who knows what happens next. I guess we’ll find out soon enough.

Why Nobody Knows Nuthin About How Impeachment Will Turn Out

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

While we’re in the worst Constitutional since late 1860 there’s no discernable endgame at this point. I just don’t know how it’s going to endup. It could end up either way. Either way, we’re not prepared for the new era. Either we convict Trump and hopefully put him prison after due process or he escapes and things get very dark, very quickly. Here are a series of reasons why I simply have no idea what is going to happen next.

Bill Barr
Barr has been very quiet. It’s very possible he’s going to strike at what he feels is the best time to cause the impeachment process to come to a grinding halt. I could see him thinking that if he dropped the smoke bomb of a wide-ranging list of criminal referrals connected to the Infowars-level bullshit theory that it was actually Ukraine and the Democrats who were the origin of the Mueller probe that all of Trump’s problems would go away. He might think this because similar bullshit messaging worked before with The Mueller Report so lulz. There’s a huge risk associated with this, however. The risk is that after about 24 hours of The New York Times buying into this bullshit ploy completely, other people might come to the conclusion that it’s a staggering abuse of power. So it would be used as yet another Article of Impeachment.

Asymmetrical Radicalization
One thing we all underestimate is how completely fucking insane the Republican Party became in the latter years of the Obama Administration. The Republican Party only sees liberal democracy as a means to an end — and that end is as much power as possible. So, while the Democrat Party sees itself as bound by the normals of a democracy, the Republicans just lulz that. So Republicans will crucify Democrats for the slightest infraction while they lie and cheat as much as humanly possible to keep Trump in power. This is a very real problem. Do not underestimate it going forward in the impeachment process.

Republican Senators — Mission: Impossible
There may come a point where 20 Republican Senators face an impossible political decision — the likelihood they will be primaried if they vote for conviction will be equal to the probability they will lose their general if they don’t vote for conviction. I honestly have no way of predicting how they would solve this problem. It’s simply impossible. None of them have any honor or courage — or at least have shown none to date — so, I don’t know. It could go either way.

Brexit
If No Deal Brexit does, in fact, finally happen on Oct. 31, then there’s a chance that will slow the global economy in such a way as to harm Trump’s political fortunes in a very unexpected manner. Trump’s got a base of about 35%. It’s rock solid. If the economy tanks that might change just a little bit.

Violence
Trump could very well up the ante and start transactional crimes with his Twitter feed. In other words, instead of dog whistling this or that thing, he might actually say: Do this. It could be anything from killing members of Congress to killing the whistleblower. You would think this would be bad for Trump — and it would be — but there’s also a chance that it will slow impeachment down just enough for Republicans to say, “Lulz, let the people decide in Nov. 2020.”

Trump Going Bonkers
This is a such a big known unknown that I simply don’t know how to gauge it. If Trump finally snaps in a very, very public manner, things could get very, very messy. But the gears of government are so fucking slow Trump could still make it until January.

Government Shutdown
It’s possible the government will shut down long enough that impeachment momentum ends. Trump survives and he rigs the 2020 election in his favor. Lulz!

Moscow Mitch May Feel Sated
It’s also possible that just as Moscow Mitch fills the last possible open position on the Federal bench with a young hack MAGA judge, he will find Trump having his trial in the Senate. Moscow Mitch will feel he has gotten the last ounce of blood from Trump and he’ll abruptly do the Pence Pivot. Lulz!

It Doesn’t Matter If There Was A Quid Pro Quo, YOU IDIOTS!

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumarls

I feel like I’m taking crazy pills. Republicans’ messaging is this — if you can’t prove a quid pro quo then…four more years! This Big Lie is starting to gain traction as an effective messaging of the base. It gives Republican MAGA mouth breathers a talking point they can use to “own the moment” with people who disagree with them on Twitter.

But there’s one little problem with it — it’s entirely a construct of their messaging. The rough transcript of the call we have in black and white lays out all the impeach-and-convict behavior we need. But Trump’s rapidly falling back to Moscow if you will. He’s willing to cede whatever is necessary to simply stay in power. That’s it, that’s his endgame — stay in power.

I don’t what to tell you, folks. We’re in an existential political war with stakes that haven’t been higher without states leaving the Union.

Good luck.

Idle, Incoherent Rambling About #Writing A #Novel & #Impeaching #Trump #RadicalResistance

Some thoughts.

Imagining An Ivanka Trump Presidency

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

Oh, Ivanka. You so crave the presidency so much. Your stringbean husband with a warbling voice, too, craves that position but he has the stage presence of a gnat. But let’s supposed she gets her wish. Let’s look at how she might get it and what might happen.

First, we have to accept that she’s not going anywhere. You can’t be as directly connected to the levers of power as she has without having some serious long-term electoral prospects. She’s barely 35 and has 40 odd years to make her dream a reality. But she’s a member of House Trump, so, of course, she probably wants it now, now, now.

The first possibility that comes to mind is Pence appoints her his veep in a sop to the MAGA base. In fact, the things you have to address in any daydream about her becoming president is how she would be able to get the ignorant mouthbreathers (or plutocrats) of MAGA to accept her as they have her father. A lot depends on Ivanka not having any type of fight with her brother about “who gets the base” once her father is no longer politically viable. Seems to me that Don Jr. is much better positioned to get the base and as such the presidency, but lulz.

Ok, back to her being Veep. There are about a half dozen paths for her to become president should House Trump’s leader find his political prospects imploade. I could see Pence naming her Veep to placate her Daddy as a way to ease him out of office. Or…the list goes on.

But let’s say in early 2020, Ivanka is president. She at least seems to be the most put-together of House Trump. But she is only about 36 or so. To date, she’s had the perfect equation of all the power and none of the responsibility. She would find herself in something of a bind, however. She at least superficially appears somewhat moderate and fact-based, so there’s a real chance that her political honeymoon might be counted in days. The MAGA base will flip out when she doesn’t babble about a fucking wall or isn’t the bonkers orator that her father is.

Meanwhile, the center-Left will despise her on a personal level. They will resent not only how she never spoke up during her father’s presidency, but that she would be the first female president only because of the influence of her hateful father. Her Administration would likely crater so bad that she wouldn’t get the Republican nomination. She would limp politically to Jan. 20, 2021. Republicans would point to her administration as to why women should never be president.

But, remember, she’s not going anywhere. Maybe it’s not immediately. Maybe she simply lurks in Republican Administrations for a decade or two and then pops out when she’s 50 or so. That’s a very real possibility.

I can only get comfort in the fact that being president doesn’t exactly do wonders for your looks. So, honey, get ready to get really, really old really, really fast if you should happen to become president anytime soon.

Downfall, Maybe: The Constitution As Trump’s ‘Operation Barbarossa’

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

Comparing Trump to Hitler is something I have done a lot of in the past, but let’s look not at his policies, but Trump the tactician. It’s eerie how well one could overlay the progress of Hitler’s career in Europe over that of Trump’s political career to date.

Hitler believed in the “leadership principle.” He thought as leader he had a near God-like ability to lead the Fatherland to his dystopian vision of Europe free of Jews, Bolsheviks and Slavs. The Arans would turn Pols and the French into little more than slave labor. Most of Russia west of the Urals would be repopulated with the Master Race.

But we’re getting ahead of ourselves a little bit. Hitler was not insane. He was a very evil person, but he was not insane — which makes him worse. He was very lucky, too. His biggest mistakes were not really strategy, but bending the needs of the war effort to those of his own ideological desires. It was his invasion of the Soviet Union, Operation Barbarossa, that was his downfall. He could have gone south east through Turkey into the oil fields of the Middle East and into India. But his kooky ideas about the Jewish-Bolsheviks of the Soviet Union forced his hand in a pretty astonishing fashion.

Now, let’s look at Trump. The interesting thing is Trump is a moron. He’s simply a symptom of some fundimental rot in the American political system. So, you could say that his victory in 2016 was almost like Hitler’s surprise victory over the French in 1940. So, for the last few years, Trump has dominated America much like Hitler did Europe after the fall of the French Third Republic.

This grows even more interesting when you realize that while Hitler had his craven desire to murder people for ideological reasons as an existential flaw, with Trump it’s cheating to win. Combine his stupidity and cluelessness with a deranged 2-year-old’s need to win at any cost and, well, you have him calling up the president of Ukraine 24 hours after Chris Wallace gave him a political pardon after the “bad optics” of Mueller’s testimony.

So, while it’s definitely an extended metaphor, you could argue that the Constitution itself may be Trump’s Russia. It’s not kids in cages. It’s not the 12,000 lies. It’s not the harsh and cruel policies that Trump loves, loves, loves. It’s Trump himself. It’s Trump’s complete inability to uphold his oath of office. His complete, criminal inability to “grow into the office” that might, just might, be his downfall.

And with that, we reach the final question of this gratuitously extended metaphor — what will be Trump’s Stalingrad? What will be the final thing to break his iron hold on the cult that was formerly known as the Republican Party?

Well, as of right now, it doesn’t look like that is ever going to happen. Moscow Mitch will have a 20 minute trial, the Republican line will hold in the Senate and I find myself in a re-education camp just about the time I had hoped to try to sell my spec novel.

But Stalingrad did, in fact, happen. So there’s … hope? All I can think of is Trump again owns himself. But this time he loses his mind. He finally snaps. He goes completely bonkers to such an extent that the normal laws of American politics begin to finally, finally snap back into place. Or maybe after weeks of enormous revelations as part of the House’s impeachment proceedings the sheer absolute pressure of the rage of 60+% of the electorate is enough to wipe the perpetual smug grin off Moscow Mitch’s face.

I just don’t know. I’m not prepared to predict the endgame, either way. All I can say is, though, if we can’t convict Trump in the Senate then that’s all she wrote. Start making contingency plans for hiding in people’s attics if you aren’t MAGA.

Would be pretty funny, though, if both Hitler and Trump were brought down because of shenanigans in the general Ukraine area.

Radical Resistance, Beware Conservatives Bringing ‘Gifts’

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

I have a lot of respect for some of the more notable “#NeverTrump” Republicans on Twitter. And to a large extent, the following is not about them. This is more about the weird amalgam of “objective” commentators who think if only House Democrats would do this or that thing then everything would work out.

First, let’s get some stuff out of the way — there are a shit ton of people who do not want Trump impeached and or convicted. And, to be honest, there is simply no way they will ever change their minds. They have a vested interest in the MAGA grift on a personal level and, well, fuck you.

So, when they passionately articulate for thousands of words this or that bullshit reason that Democrats are doing it all wrong, I suggest you take it with a grain of salt. They wrap up their strategic goal — keeping Trump in office for a full eight years — in what seem to be logical tactical moves to impeach and convict Trump.

A big talking point among these assholes is Democrats need to “slow down.” This is taking a playbook from the gun lobby. What they really want is there to be no momentum. By that point it will be mid-2020 and, lulz, let the people decide sucker! They also get really bent out of shape about the impeachment drive coming off as “political.” This is a lulz given that the entire process is meant to be a political punishment.

And, really, the key thing is — they want to give Republicans, who are already asymmetrically radicalized — an absolute veto over any decision to impeach and convict Trump. They simply don’t see any successful political effort to end the cancerous Trump Administration early as a win for anyone but Democrats. That it might be a win for the nation doesn’t even enter their minds.

A key issue is that the clock is ticking. And, to date, House Democrats have actually done the things they should be doing. I think they should lean into “inherent contempt” now, but that’s just me. That is kind of a nuclear option that would likely have fucktwit MAGA people reaching for their AR-15s.

What happens next? I dunno. But I might gently suggest that some of the hack political talking head on cable news stop bickering about the 2020 race and start to prepare the nation for what was unthinkable just a few weeks ago — Trump could actually be convicted in the Senate. What’s more, we’re just at the beginning of this clusterfuck. There might be a cascading effect whereby Pence, too, leaves office pretty abruptly.

I worry that at the end of all of this we wake up to a President Ivanka, but that’s more me simply always assuming the absolute worst than anything else.

I hope.

Why Has Ambassador Gordon Sondland Agreed To Testify?

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

As I understand it, it’s Ambassador Sondland who is the guy who made it CLEAR in the released text messages that Trump did not want a quid pro quo. He’s testifying against the direction of State, so there are some on Twitter who are oohing and ahhing that this some sort of crack in the case.

Sadly, no.

Datapoints:

He’s not releasing any documents.
He’s already had a tet-a-tet with Sec. Pompeo.
He’s on the record saying no quid pro quo.

All he has to do is show up, make it clear there was — at least in his mind — no quid pro quo and it’s a win for House Trump. Or at least the optics will be. We won’t know what he said to Trump in the time leading up to the “No quid quo pro!” text.

Thus, theoretically, Ambassador Sondland could lie, or bob and weave, and give Chris Wallace all the bad-optics-for-impeachment he wants and the air will leave the impeachment proceedings as quickly as they arrived. The only reason why I still have any hope is that the House Democrats are interviewing other people involved in quick succession, so…I dunno?

If There’s Any Justice In A Post-Trump America, We’ll Treat The Kurds Like We Did The Hmong

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

By now, many of us have seen the video of the Kurdish Women’ Protection Force sniper barely avoiding having her head blown off by a stray bullet. She laughs it off. Literally laughing in the face of death.

Our president is currently a deranged racist misogynistic traitor, so he’s hung the the Kurds out to dry. This is similar to what Nixon did to the Kurds with the Shah. But we did managed to do the right thing with a different group of American allies — the Hmong. They were fierce fighters during the Vietnam War and, as I understand it, we allowed them to come the States en masse.

There are obviously a shit ton more Kurds than Hmong, but we as a nation ever want to find some absolution for electing a tyrant president I suggest we might look into giving the Kurds in Syria a similar gimme. If they can prove they were forced out of Syria because of Trump’s treason, we let them into the country, few questions asked.

For any number of reasons, I doubt this will happen. Trump’s likely — with the aid of Moscow Mitch — escape defeat and we’ll careening towards full blown tyranny. But in the unlikely event we do manage to save ourselves from ourselves, letting the Kurds we betrayed into the country is the least we can do.

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