The Mid-Term Elections Hole Card

The mid-terms of 2022 are just a couple of weeks away. As seems to have become the norm, they will be the “most critical election” in our lifetime. Maybe so, maybe not. Going into these mid-terms, the Democrats have a slim majority in the House, while the Senate balances on a knife’s edge. If the historical pattern of recent mid-term elections is any guide, the Republicans should take control of both houses in this election.

Since the 2020 “most critical election” in our lifetime, the Democratic Party has ruled the country, their Republican opposition a pale mirage mumbling incoherently. During that time, the only speed bump on the way to the Grand Vision of the Priestly Order of the Great and Good has been one of their own, Joe Manchin.

Senator Manchin has proven a worthy successor to Robert Byrd, the previous occupant of his Senate seat. Over his 51 years in the Senate, Robert Byrd gave regular master classes on the use of opportunistic triangulation in the interests of his career. Based on the past year, Senator Manchin was paying attention, taking lessons from the Master.

Those two years of Democratic ascendency have not been good ones for the great majority of Americans. While the Deplorables are accustomed to the regular appearance of bad times, Adorable America’s last experience of such things is nearly 45 years past. With no experience of falling portfolio values and incipient joblessness, they are grappling with a new reason to self-medicate – concern about their future prospects. Thus the dismal experience of the past two years by a large part of the citizenry reinforces the historical expectation of pattern – the Republicans should win big this fall.

And yet . . . .

The polls do not reflect such expectations. Of course, over the past six years the polls have lost credibility, an experience shared by virtually every other public voice in American life. But, I for one, think the polls are right – in the main.

I do expect that the Republicans will eke out some gains in the House, perhaps sending the octogenarian Ms. Pelosi into a well deserved retirement from the levers of autocratic power. After this November, her personal Botox esthetician may well experience a substantial reduction in earnings. The Senate may continue its 50/50 split, continuing to provide Ms. Harris a platform for her trademark public speaking opportunities. But I don’t expect anything like the electoral bloodbath both logic and history predict.

What on Earth?

There was a time, a time before marriage necessitated the assumption of adult responsibilities, when poker was a big part of my life. I spent far more time, and more importantly, emotional and intellectual energy, on games of chance than on my college classes.

The appearance of family and attendant mortgages put an end to the opportunity for personal gratification. But the game’s lessons stayed with me, even as I assumed a staid suburban “dadhood”. When the settled routines of a sober domesticity became too onerous, I searched for an acceptable outlet. And so the more socially acceptable path of entrepreneurship provided the necessary cover for my return to games of chance.

And during those years of exultant highs and desperate lows running a company, I always remembered the lessons of the card table. I don’t think a day passed without my silent recitation of the Gambler’s Rosary as articulated by Kenny Rogers:

“Every gambler knows that the secret to survivin’

Is knowin’ what to throw away and knowing what to keep

‘Cause every hand’s a winner and every hand’s a loser

You got to know when to hold ‘em know when to fold ‘em

Know when to walk away and know when to run

You never count your money when you’re sittin’ at the table

There’ll be time enough for countin’ when the dealing’s done”

I think Kenny Roger’s Gambler’s Rosary explains this year’s mid-term elections, “the secret to survivin’ is knowin’ what to throw away and knowing what to keep. Cause every hand’s a winner and every hand’s a loser”. The Democrats have taken that simple truth to heart, while the Grand Old Party continues its clueless wandering the wilderness is search of an identity.

For the past two years, the Democratic Party has ruled the country, holding the Presidency, both Houses of Congress as well as maintaining a virtual lock on the state and local governments of America’s population centers. The great majority of American citizens are governed by the Democratic Party, from top to bottom.

Those two years of Democratic ascendency have also seen a breathtaking collapse in the public’s well-being. The Democratic Party has presided over this descent, seemingly preferring anarchy to order, bread and circuses to responsibility, conclusions reached by sophomoric bull sessions in the faculty lounge rather than our nation’s foundational doctrines.

Inflation is a roaring bonfire in the citizenry’s pocketbooks, even more so in the government’s. As the floodgates of money creation have opened wide, the Federal Reserve has triggered a serious recession by tripling interest rates. We are witnessing our fiscal fire department fighting a raging inferno with hoses flowing gasoline.

The debacle of our abrupt and feckless abandonment of a decades long engagement in Afghanistan triggered a real war in Europe. The very real possibility of nuclear weapon usage in the Ukraine being used for partisan advantage by our highest officials. The growing closeness between Russia and Iran, whose drones are being used in the Ukrainian War. One wonders what Iran is getting in exchange for its drones?

In the war and along its periphery, agencies of our government appear to be involved in unseen and unspoken machinations that are worrisome. We are supplicants, hat in hand, to the most odious governments on the planet seeking their oil, even as we prohibit and penalize our own producers.

There is dawning public realization of just how inept the various levels of governments’ handling of the Covid epidemic were. Despite the best efforts of our responsible media to bury these stories, the widespread malfeasance and breathtaking corruption accompanying the Keystone Kop-like Covid bureaucracy is coming to light. Even as their Covid dictates highlighted the clown car incompetence of the Nanny State, its reach and cumbersome intrusion only accelerated. We now look with dismay over the resulting deterioration in our schools, the walking wounded in our economy and the mindless bureaucratic detritus remaining – a now permanent fixture in our lives.

Public safety has been dealt a crippling blow. The sound of gunfire in public parks at night is no longer worthy of comment even as shoplifting has become an acceptable lifestyle. Hordes of the homeless in our urban centers spread like algae in stagnant ponds. Even as city inspectors aggravate their law-abiding residents with the picayune promulgations of the Nanny State, piles of feces and garbage remain piled up outside their doors.

An outside observer would think that in the wake of this smashup, this real life imitation of a Marx Bros. movie, there would be hell to pay. The Red Tide of November 2022 should be a tsunami of historic proportions. Instead, Donald Trump, the silverback gorilla of Deplorable America, hovers over this election like Banquo’s Ghost.

How could a President running for a second term during a time of near universal prosperity with virtually no unemployment and a tranquil foreign horizon lose an election? Despite this historic debacle, a personal failure of monumental proportions, Donald Trump continues to dominate the Republican party, setting its agenda while serving as gatekeeper for its candidates.

Much is made of the Democratic Party’s provocations, its incitements, its encouragements facilitating the Trumpian center stage. There was the long running theater of the “Jan. 6 Insurrection” hearings. While there were certainly those who held to their integrity, such as Liz Cheney, the rest served to lower the reputation of their institution even further than its already abysmal state. How they kept a straight face as they spoke is a question. Perhaps Ms. Pelosi’s regular Botox treatments were doubled in frequency.

In many Republican primaries, the Democratic Party has spent more money promoting fringe candidates endorsed by Donald Trump than either the candidate themselves or Republican PAC’s have. Called “dog whistles”, named after ultrasonic dog whistles, these messages use suggestive language that are unheard by the general population but inflaming the sensibilities of a target audience.

Obviously the Democratic Party knows that both “the secret to survivin’” and “what to keep” is Donald Trump. Equally obviously, the Republican Party, assuming a modicum of savvy, would know that “the secret to survivin’” and “what to throw away” is Donald Trump.

One can almost see some darkened train car back in early spring of this year, some dejected figure – an amalgam of Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, Barack Obama, etc, – contemplating their Party’s prospects for the mid-term election. Opposite this dejected figure sits a shadowy presence – The Gambler.

““And he began to speak

He said, “Son, I’ve made a life out of readin’ people’s faces

And knowin what their cards were by the way they held their eyes

So, if you don’t mind my sayin’, I can see you’re out of aces

For a taste of your whiskey I’ll give you some advice””

The Gambler goes on to say that “every hand’s a winner”. Something the Democrat’s needed to hear last spring because they held a pair of deuces at best. The Gambler also said something else, “every hand’s a loser”, equally encouraging because the Republicans were holding a full house at the time.

Evidently, the Democratic Party gave The Gambler “a taste of their whiskey” because this forlorn and dejected figure “found an ace that he could keep” —-  Donald Trump.