An Evil October Surprise

In American political jargon, an "October surprise" is some sort of event or news that makes one candidate look bad, to the benefit of his opponent, but which occurs so close to the November election that there's not enough time for the victim to respond.  October surprises are considered somewhat sleazy, but every campaign seeks them out.

Of course, publicizing reasons not to vote for the other guy is what campaigns do, there's nothing at all wrong with that.  If a campaign has obtained a juicy bit of opposition research, sitting on it until just before the election is not a nice strategy, but, as they saying goes, "Politics ain't beanbag."

Underlying conventional political campaign punditry, though, are a couple of core assumptions: that the substance of the surprise is at least substantially true, and, that both sides have equal opportunity to play the game.

Unfortunately, neither is true anymore, as we saw to spectacular effect in the 2020 election.  Trump surrogate Rudy Guiliani had obtained the now-infamous Hunter Biden laptop, containing solid proof of its owner's personal debauchery and corruption, possibly even treason, and highly suggestive evidence implicating his father Joe Biden in the same.  Guiliani took his time to release it to public view, eventually doing so to the New York Post, resulting in articles in early October.

Whereupon, not only did the remainder of the mainstream media completely blackball the scandal, the Tech Lords banned any discussion of it on social media in the most gobsmackingly widespread act of national censorship and election manipulation in American history.  Mr. Guiliani's October surprise should have ensured Mr. Biden's loss, as later polls and surveys proved; because of the biased actions of leftist titans, Americans were barred from being informed of the truth prior to pulling the lever at the polls.

The Democrats, therefore, are all too aware of the potential power of October surprises, and use their full might to ensure that technique can't be used against them.  In the other direction, it's a different matter - nearly every Presidential campaign in living memory has featured some scurrilous accusation against the Republican candidate, often later found to be untrue or grossly exaggerated, but loudly trumpeted at the time by a dishonest media entirely in the Democrat tank.

2022 is not a Presidential election year.  It is nonetheless highly consequential, given the evenly-split Senate that has greatly hampered Democrat efforts to ram through their agenda.  A handful of traditionalist Democrats refuse to support the end of the filibuster which allows the minority to obstruct bills they feel strongly about even when there's a bare majority in support; a few more Democrat Senators, and this restraint on majoritarianism will be for the chop.

So, as October heaves into view, with an increasingly surly electorate and struggling economy, what might the Democrats present by way of an October surprise?

Politics By Other Means

Over the past few years, we've been discovering that analyzing events in light of American history simply doesn't work anymore.  While we do have a Constitution, much of our political culture and process have evolved over the years into habits and assumptions that are either not laws at all, or are very difficult to enforce against a party in power determined to ignore them.  To name merely the most obvious example, there's long been an understanding that Presidents don't get prosecuted for crimes, or at most, get off with a wrist-slap one way or another - Mr. Nixon was pardoned, Mr. Clinton admitted his perjury but paid no significant (to him) price, etc.

Today, in contrast, we see Mr. Trump's home being ransacked, and dozens of his supporters raided by the Feds even when there was no risk of their going on the lam.

At the same time, we see Mr. Biden using the Presidential bully pulpit in its literal sense to bully and condemn half the country:

Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic.

There is no question that the Republican Party today is dominated, driven, and intimidated by Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans, and that is a threat to this country.

Here, in my view, is what is true: MAGA Republicans do not respect the Constitution. They do not believe in the rule of law. They do not recognize the will of the people...

MAGA Republicans have made their choice. They embrace anger. They thrive on chaos. They live not in the light of truth but in the shadow of lies.

Is this a suitable look for an American president?

To better understand what's going on, we need to set aside what we think of as being American politics - those days are over.  Instead, consider what we'd expect to see in a semi-modern banana republic, or the history of some ancient proud autocracy with no pretense of individual rights or rule of law in the abstract.

So let's follow the breadcrumbs here:

• Joe Biden condemns "MAGA Republicans" - basically, non-RINOs who stand in the way of the far-left agenda he proceeded to cite later in his speech - as fundamentally un-American and undeserving of American rights.
• His Federal police forces shortly start bashing down the doors of those MAGA Republicans, or, even those anonymously accused of being so.
• Other Democrat leaders call for violence against conservatives and their organizations, a call which has been answered by violent action that, somehow, doesn't seem to engender any law enforcement response.
  
• The FBI labels innocent charities and nonviolent conservative political groups as "terror organizations" despite previous investigations confirming the obvious truth that they weren't.
• FBI whistleblowers report that the Biden White House has been pressuring the FBI rank-and-file to find, or create if necessary, white-supremacist domestic terror cases.  So far, fortunately, they have had little success because there basically isn't any, and hasn't been for decades!

But in a nation of more than 300 million people, including vast numbers of undocumented criminal illegal aliens and experienced "antifa" thugs with training in urban violence and false-flag operations, is it really that far-fetched to imagine an October surprise along those lines?

Be Careful What You Wish For

Is Joe Biden the second coming of Adolf Hitler?  Despite his penchant for Nazi design cues in lighting and dramatics as illustrated in Philadelphia - no, he is not.  He's simply not smart enough or with-it enough, and probably not out-and-out evil enough, to be an effective genocidal dictator.

This is a good thing, or so you'd think, except that it's generally understood that Joe Biden is not really in charge of his own administration.  How many times has he clearly stated something in a speech, only for his White House staff to walk it back and say he didn't mean what he clearly said multiple times?  He did this most recently regarding Taiwan, but has done the same regarding Putin, immigration, and many other matters.

At the same time, a majority of Democrats think Mr. Biden should not run again for President, including a fair few officeholders.  Indeed, in this election cycle, with Democrat power on the line and under threat, it's striking how many Democrat candidates don't want his help.

Free yourself from your American view of the way politics is done.  Take a broader view.  What would happen in Rome?  How about Byzantium?  For that matter, Game of Thrones?

The answer is blindingly obvious - it requires only a powerful cabal with unlimited financial resources, effective control of mass media, operational control of the national law-enforcement agencies and no moral scruples whatsoever.  Do we not have ample reason to believe that this is no conspiracy theory, but rather, such a thing truly exists?  You can call it "the elites", the Swamp, the "ruling class," the Deep State, or the permanent bureaucracy, but it's very real, very powerful, and seems to have no red lines they are unwilling to cross.

They even have a slogan - "Never let a crisis go to waste" - and its unwritten corollary, "If you don't happen to have a crisis on hand when you need one, create it."

Don't be surprised if this October finds us with one less Joe Biden, brutally cut down in his prime by, we are told, representatives of that very half of the country he so presciently condemned as un-American in his historic speech just a few weeks ago.  How terrible!  How sad!  How... convenient.