A Hannibal Barca Strategy For The Democrat Party

In a response this morning to my post about relative politics, a reader asked me if I thought the Democrats could survive as a viable political party and what I would do if I ran the DNC to save it—and strangely enough, I have been thinking about how it could be possible the Democrat Party could ever return to relevancy, given that it has sold its soul to collectivism, communism and antisemitism.

First of all, given that over the past year there have been actions taken (defunding NGOs, cleaning up voter rolls, deporting illegal aliens, SCOTUS declaring racial gerrymandering illegal) and information revealed (the revelation that ActBlue has never monitored foreign money flowing into Democrat coffers) that have materially weakened the Democrats financially, electorally, and reputationally, it would seem their legitimacy as a political party is in question. Their success appears to depend completely upon siphoning taxpayer funds, election fraud, manipulation of representation (via inflating population headcounts using illegal immigration, racialism and foreign funding.

I mean, Holy hell, Batman, from Snakehead Carville to Graham “Herr” Platner espousing everything from confiscation of private property to violent revolution to assassinations, it does appear the have lost their ever-lovin’ F-ing minds.

The lurch to the far left is just part of the story, but it also might be the only thing that saves them.

Sounds weird, right? Maybe a little counterintuitive?

It is, but stay with me here.

If I were in charge of the DNC, I would plan an ambush— and the single most celebrated example of an enemy being intentionally invited into what appeared to be success, only to discover too late they were trapped is Cannae. It is usually considered the gold standard because Hannibal essentially convinced the Romans they were winning right up until the moment they realized they were surrounded.

At the Battle of Cannae, the Carthaginian general Hannibal Barca faced a Roman army that significantly outnumbered his own. Rather than meeting force with force, Hannibal deliberately weakened the center of his battle line and allowed it to slowly retreat as the Romans advanced. Believing they were breaking through and on the verge of victory, the Romans pressed deeper into the bulging Carthaginian formation.

That apparent success was exactly what Hannibal intended. As the Roman army pushed forward, Carthaginian infantry on both flanks pivoted inward while Hannibal’s cavalry defeated the Roman horsemen and attacked from the rear. The Romans suddenly found themselves surrounded on all sides in one of history’s most famous double envelopments. Trapped and unable to maneuver, tens of thousands of Roman soldiers were killed in a single day. Cannae remains one of the most studied battles in military history because Hannibal turned the enemy’s confidence and aggression into the very weapons that destroyed them.

So, here’s how that works on the political battlefield.

World history proves communism doesn’t work because it destroys every incentive to improve anything and every attempt at it has failed miserably, resulting in poverty, hardship and death. That’s no secret—and something else that is not a secret is that this bunch of “comrades” in the Democrat camp are some of the least qualified, least philosophically grounded and most intellectually deficient people to ever try to collectivize an entire socioeconomic system in history. This is the dumb being led by the dumber.

While they appear to be succeeding, populist communism is a complete dead end, but it could be useful in the long run as long as it is used as a feint to pull Republicans farther to the left, as Hannibal did the Roman troops, and once I drew them in far enough, I would expunge the idiot radicals from the Democrat Party in a grand purge and declare that the Democrat Party is the true home of free market conservatism, muscular foreign policy, and constitutional protections. I would claim that Democrats are the true America Firsters.

That would be my enveloping action, to make the Democrat myth that the parties changed places a reality. I would make my weakness my strength and my enemy’s strength their weakness.

It would be w replay of Cannae with results just as disastrous.

I know that is one hell of a heel turn, but we know the path the Democrats have been on since Obama is untenable and leads to the end of their party. It is inevitable the will go the way of the Whigs if they stay on this course. They know it, too.

Will it happen?

No idea.

But that’s what I would do.