Over the past three decades far too many Republicans and Establishment Conservatives have acquiesced to the conventional wisdom that the American Left (i.e. the Democratic Party), are superior tacticians in the arena of political warfare.  This hypothesis took hold as spineless Republicans and the Washington-based conservative intelligentsia were willingly intimidated by the Left and their allies in the mainstream media.  But is this cabal nonpareil political tacticians or just the overconfident beneficiary of decades of feckless and near non-existent opposition?

The election of Donald Trump in 2016, the subsequent reaction and the repeated failed attempts to intimidate, remove or effectively castrate him by the Democrats and the mainstream media graphically illustrates that this cabal may well be the Keystone Kops of political warfare.

2,500 years ago, a Chinese philosopher, general and military strategist, Sun Tzu, wrote The Art of War, the most influential work of military strategy and philosophy ever.  Throughout the centuries this treatise not only influenced military thinking but culture, politics and sports.  Two of his most notable admonitions for defeating one’s enemy are:

If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.  If know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat.  If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in battle every time.

It is the unemotional, reserved, calm warrior who wins, not the hothead seeking vengeance and not the ambitious seeker of fortune.

The past three years of fabricated Russia accusations as well as near daily contrived and fake news allegations culminating in a farce of an impeachment proceeding have revealed that not only does the Left and the media not know their declared enemy but they do not know who they are or what they truly stand for.  At its core their motivation is centered solely upon vengeance.

The American Left has openly declared Trump the enemy and by extension those who either voted for him or support his policies.  But they have no clue as to who he is and why he appeals to such a vast cross section of the American populace. 

Despite his seemingly elite upbringing and inheritance of a fortune and the sheer determination and hard work by which he transformed himself into an iconic international brand, he remains the “everyman billionaire.”   Donald Trump uniquely can relate to and communicate with those in flyover country regardless of race or ethnicity.  He is able to do this because he is incapable of being anyone other than himself, and he truly has an affection for this nation and its people.  A majority of Americans who recognize that they have been forsaken by the self-absorbed Ruling Class see in Donald Trump someone who genuinely cares and will without hesitation take up the cudgel and wade into the fray on their behalf.

On the other hand, the cabal that is the American Left, the Democratic Party, and the mainstream media are a hodge podge of dedicated Marxists, bureaucrats, academics, pundits, politicians and elite wannabes who have but one thing in common: a crippling and overweening self-absorption.  The majority do not favor outright Socialism or radical environmentalism but cynically ally with those that do as means to an end: their permanent control and individual involvement in operating levers of ever-expanding governmental power. 

Thus, there is no coherent and consistent philosophy or guiding political principles undergirding this army of egotists.  They do not now nor have they ever known who they are.  Thus, if they ever succeeded in achieving their goal of permanent control of the levers of power, this nation would descend into unbridled and violent chaos.

Over the past 30 years the Left and the Democratic Party have utilized a dog-eared playbook whose only entry encompasses the personal destruction of any opponent by any means possible as their singular strategy.  Just the threat of or the opening salvo of this tactic has been successful as innumerable Republican and conservative leaders surrendered virtually without a fight.  The Left knew its enemy but its enemy did not know the Left.  Accordingly, the Left calmly and unemotionally went about forcing Republicans out of office or dramatically changing their positions on an issue. 

That is until Donald Trump burst upon the scene and vengeance for being Donald Trump and defeating the crown princess, Hillary Clinton, became the overriding emotion of the anti-Trump cabal.  However, they still relied on the same 30-year old dog-eared playbook as they stumbled and fumbled amid the pratfalls of “getting” Trump.

No easily disproven lie about Trump, his family or his supporters was too outrageous to splash across the front pages of the New York Times or the Washington Post.  The preposterous and fanciful accusation that Trump was a traitor colluding with Russia became the drumbeat of 24-hour television news coverage for over two years.  Every salacious rumor or innuendo regarding Trump’s personal life became fodder for hours of cable news coverage.  The comedic and daily threat to initiate the impeachment process over any accusation promoted by the cabal since the day after the election in 2016 was reminiscent of a screenplay for a slapstick comedy. And now the nation is being held captive in the kabuki theater that is impeachment being staged on Capitol Hill by the Three Stooges: Nancy Pelosi, Adam Schiff and Jerry Nadler. 

Succumbing to vengeance and not knowing who they were dealing with is evolving into a disaster for the Left, the Democratic Party and the mainstream media, as Donald Trump, per Sun Tzu, knew who his enemies were and calmly and unemotionally chose to stand his ground and to aggressively confront all accusations and those promoting them.  Meanwhile the reporting and investigations undertaken by the alternative media exposed the myriad of falsehoods and set-ups. 

Donald Trump has been vindicated in the Russia matter, the vast litany of lies and fake news has been dispatched and shown to be false and the partisan impeachment process will only destroy the candidacy of Joe Biden.  After three years of this reckless and baseless inquisition, many Americans grasp that this rotting corpse of vengeance reeks of frame-ups and mendacity.  Having gone through and survived the gauntlet foolishly planted by the Left, Donald Trump is now a more popular and stronger candidate for re-election.

The time has come to stop attributing invincibility to the Left and the Democratic Party.  The rest of the Republican Party and conservative movers and shakers need to recognize that their adversary has but one tactic and Donald Trump and his army of supporters have exposed their vulnerable underbelly and how to soundly defeat them on the battleground of political warfare.

Photo credit: Gage Skidmore