The American midterm elections are here, finally.
The only elections that have more significance for us are our own. One of the most important voices on what’s happening politically and culturally in America as well as about the global, geo-political currents buffeting us, is classicist and historian, Dr. Victor Davis Hanson. He’s not just an American national treasure, but a western world treasure.
He’s a favourite guest on YouTube talk shows, such as that done by the Hon. John Anderson, former Deputy PM of Australia. Dr. Hanson has a gift for story-telling and an incredible ability to cut through the mist and manure pumped out by lesser beings in the corporate media. He can place what we’re observing within a historical context.
In a recent post on his own site The Blade Of Perseus, he makes some predictions about the November 8 midterm election posing the question, Will ‘Democracy Die in Darkness’ After November? This is the wild rhetoric of the Democrats in a last ditch effort to gin up their base and get them out to vote. VDH systematically takes apart the already emerging narratives being spun that will attempt to justify what most are expecting will be a Democrat wipe-out.
To be clear, it is usual for there to be a swing against the incumbent. This swing was the case in Obama’s first term where he lost heavily in both Houses and in Trump’s first term where he gained in the Senate but lost seats in the House of Representatives. Given all the metrics and polls, including of Independents, if this doesn’t happen it would be unusual. It would be an indicator there’s been meddling.
What happens on November 8 will have reverberations beyond America. If it goes down as predicted, in the very least the Biden Administration will have its agenda stopped. Depending on your worldview that’s either a good outcome, or not.
It’s advantageous to know in advance what ‘the narratives’ are because we’ll see them mindlessly regurgitated in our corporate media. Reading VDH’s post linked above is the best inoculation against the shameless spin, especially over what the top issues are and what the consequences will be.
Dr Hanson predicts that what we’ll see are self-serving justifications and no small amount of gas-lighting. In his view they’ll need to memory-hole detrimental policy and account for why America has disintegrated to its current state in only half a political term. Rather than blame the most radical left agenda in American history, they’ll still be blaming Trump and of course Putin, for all their woes. Included will be the energy crisis that is about to hit America this winter, similar to Europe. A pertinent fact is that oil from Russia only accounted for 8% imports to the US.
On gaining power and within the first few months of 2021, the Biden Administration deliberately dismantled energy independence achieved under President Trump. Two years ago America was energy independent with enough spare to export! In the last few days on the campaign trail Biden boasted about shutting down all coal energy too, to be replaced by intermittent energy…even as Americans consider the prospect of being unable to heat their homes this winter. While his White House minders promptly walked that back, it doesn’t mean it isn’t the agenda. Biden wasn’t supposed to spook an already deeply concerned population.
This year we’ve had the spectacle of the Biden Administration grovelling to Venezuela and Saudi Arabia, both of whom Biden insulted a few short years ago…not that he probably remembers now. He’s been begging them to pump more oil to stop America going down. The Saudis have declined and suggested America brace itself. In October OPEC voted to cut production.
In 2020 the Trump Administration was instrumental in Middle Eastern countries and Israel signing the Abraham Accords, normalising relations between them. There was recognition of mutual benefit in peaceful co-existence. Much of the ME and Israel are more concerned with the region destabilising activities of Iran, who fund terrorism and are trying to achieve nuclear capability. Biden rescinded the Trump sanctions against Iran and sucked up to them for oil.
So the Saudi response really isn’t surprising. Americans will need to brace themselves for winter.
What the Democrats fear most
VDH believes that what the Democrats fear most is that they’re about to get a taste of their own medicine. That Republicans will do what Democrats would do with control of both Houses. From impeachments to investigations the Democrats seem destined to learn that ‘what goes around, comes around’. Republicans have already flagged there will be investigations into the collapse of their border security, investigations of the Department of Homeland Security colluding with Big Tech to breach First Amendment Rights, Hunter Biden and his links to hostile nations such as Russian and China, COVID origins and jabs, and more.
The Republican base are in no mood for more investigations with no teeth and no consequences and what they see as political theatre, made for TV. They may have to wait until they also have control of the Executive Branch for the accountability to be delivered however. Many elected Republican representatives are in no mood to be told by their own party leadership that they need to be the adults in the room and to show restraint. That only works when all parties agree to play by the same rules of cricket.
The Democrats threw out the political decorum rule-book long ago, playing dirty, fast and loose politics and with it chucking out long established precedent. Take for example the revoking of President Trump’s Executive Privilege so as to have his home raided by the FBI. Every ex-President has Executive Privilege. A current President (or more precisely his puppet masters) have no right to revoke this. If Biden can revoke Trump’s Executive Privilege then the next President, if Republican, can revoke Biden’s, or Obama’s or Clinton’s!
The world had years of the Russia Collusion Hoax, for pity’s sake. An egregious example of weaponizing the intelligence apparatus and dirty politics designed to suck the energy out of a fledgling Trump Administration. They tried to take out a legitimately elected President on a bogus charge based on their lies. They even attempted to impeach him for Obstruction for the crime of defending himself against their false allegations. It’s the same contorted logic that was used to accuse women of witch-craft taking their protests of innocence as further evidence of their wrong-doing.
I’m inclined to agree that there’s no low Democrats won’t go to, and as such, lessons need to be learned. It’s why many sane and moderate Democrats, like Tulsi Gabbard are fleeing their own party, calling on others like her to do the same. She made the following statement:
‘I can no longer remain in today’s Democratic Party that is now under the complete control of an elitist cabal of warmongers driven by cowardly wokeness, who divide us by racializing every issue & stoke anti-white racism, actively work to undermine our God-given freedoms, are hostile to people of faith & spirituality, demonize the police & protect criminals at the expense of law-abiding Americans, believe in open borders, weaponize the national security state to go after political opponents, and above all, dragging us ever closer to nuclear war.’
November 8 has been a long time coming. All the indicators, such as approval ratings, right track/wrong track surveys and polls suggest that Americans are more concerned with kitchen table issues – job security, food security, cost of living, inflation, fuel costs, education. All of these issues generally favour the Republican party.
The world is entering into the most precarious time since the 1930’s. A weak and distracted America, consumed with a radical left/Marxist cultural agenda, isn’t in our interests either.