Worse-Case Scenario ?

(Worse-Case Scenario ?)

Colonel Reinhard Gehlen was the intelligence officer for the German Ostheer (Eastern Army) in World War II. It was his job to keep the German armies apprised of Soviet intentions and capabilities and help plan operations to counter Soviet activities. Gehlen is most known as being a bad intelligence officer because he and his department failed to notice the massive Soviet build-ups on the Don and off the steppes southeast of the Volga. On November 19th. 1942, these forces were unleashed and in a matter of days, converged at a point some miles west of the Volga. And Stalingrad. So, because Colonel Gehlen was bad at his position, he was partly responsible for the greatest disaster to befall German arms.

Like Gehlen who missed the Soviet offensive that would doom the German Sixth Army at Stalingrad, so there seems to be a surge of Republican electoral strength that had not been evident till recently. It is true that polls have been narrowing in Republicans' favor but it had been Republican performance when placed face to face with their Democrat counter-parts. The "debates" from the other night are cases in point.

And it is not just debates. Polling over the past weeks has demonstrated Republican inroads in what have traditionally been Democrat strongholds. The New York Governors race has been mentioned but look also to the Governor's and Senate races in Oregon. Nevada is likely to flip to GOP and then add the Arizona Senate contest. Then, beyond politics, Elon Musk is completing the "purchase" of Twitter this week.

So, say the GOP exceeds expectations, even beyond what pundits have been predicting. What will be the effect on Democrats, at least those that survive the purge ? What will be lost primarily will be the loss of the ability to control the narrative. The narrative that has constructed the Democrat story on the Party's efforts to promote the green socialist agenda, the agenda that will prove costly to Democrats in the House and Senate, not to mention state houses and state legislatures.

But the next twelve days will not be winding down with no Democrat and Biden resistance. The issues they care about like abortion and climate change, equity in law enforcement and education, pronouns and so on. And, of course the lingering spectré of Donald Trump. And, truth be told, it will Trump's "America First" agenda that will begin to manifest itself, twelve days from now.