The currently-running 2017 movie version of the World War II events surrounding Dunkirk did not address how Allied forces ended up surrounded by the Germans in late May 1940.
Here’s one explanation: Britain and France expected a static war with Germany patterned after World War I, but Germany’s army was mobile and flexible. Two different sets of war rules were at play.
The soldiers who were heroically, some would say miraculously, rescued from the beaches by small, civilian craft were the victims of outdated strategies and tactics.
There’s a parallel between the Battle of Dunkirk and the 2016 U.S. Presidential campaign.
The Democrat Party, the media, and many Republican politicians expected the 2016 campaign to be modeled after other, recent, “silly seasons.” Half the combatants – namely, the Democrats – and most of the Republican candidates, played the campaign battle as it had been done before.
Repeating their past behaviors was not an unrealistic strategy on their parts.
In the 2008 and 2012 campaigns, the Democrats, aided by their allies in the liberal media, attacked the GOP candidates – McCain and Romney – and McRomney offered little return fire.
The ’08 and ’12 GOP nominees hesitated to criticize the first African-American Presidential candidate (2008), who then became the first African-American Incumbent Candidate (2012).
It was reasonable for Democrats to expect the ’16 GOP nominee to not be too critical of the first female Presidential candidate of a major political party. Hard to imagine Jeb Bush saying, “Lock her up!”
The Democrat candidate’s money-machine, added to her supporters’ oft-publicized enthusiasm, plus the Democrat’s well-oiled campaign organization – the legendary “ground game” – convinced Democrats and the media that Hillary had a lock on a November victory. A near sure thing.
The holy trilogy of victory – money, enthusiasm, organization – was conventional political wisdom going back, at least, to 1972, when renowned historian and Georgetown University Professor Dr. Carroll Quigley (1910-1977) wrote an article entitled “The Mythology of American Democracy.” Quigley taught at Princeton University and Harvard before joining the faculty at Georgetown where he taught in the School of Foreign Service from 1941-1975.
In the context of providing “an {sic} historical view of the American democratic tradition with analytical overtones showing how democracy has changed over the course of our history,” he wrote:
“[T]he New Deal ran its course, and since about 1950 or so we have had plutocratic control…[T]hree things were necessary to win elections: money, enthusiasm, organization. The role of money has increased to the point where it’s more and more difficult to offset the lack of it with good organization and enthusiasm.
Organization must be super-efficient and enthusiasm has to be sustained and widespread. Because the costs of elections, what with TV airtime, air transportation, and all the rest of it, have climbed sky-high…[W]e now have a plutocratic system, and many politicians see it simply as a matter of buying elections.”
All the media masters of political punditry – including those on FOX – predicted a one-sided Clinton victory. Established conventional wisdom, pushed by on-air producers speaking through their ear buds, programmed them to say so.
So what did they all miss? Mostly, that the world had shifted while, and where, they weren’t looking.
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The power of the POTUS Gate-Keepers – the senior donors, movers-and-shakers of the UniParty, big media moguls, old newspaper publishers – lost their Mojo during the Obama regime, compromised by their support of Obama’s failures.
Social media, conservative talk radio, YouTube, Matt Drudge, and an expanding host of conservative websites, were now swimming full-stroke in the campaign stream.
The credibility – and entertainment appeal – of the old, three-letter-acronym news networks had been wheeled into the nation’s retirement villages.
TV campaign ads had diminished to the relevance-level of ad posters announcing last week’s concert on the side panels of NYC subway carriages.
The campaign value of newspaper editorial endorsements decreased to the impact of a paid-actor’s testimonial to the efficacy of an OTC, non-FDA approved, male-enhancement drug. (The Chicago Tribune endorsed Gary Johnson for President. He got 2.7% of the vote in Cook County.)
The Republican Party, with sour reluctance on the faces of many of its leading characters (e.g., hang-dog Gov. John Kasich boycotted the GOP convention held in his own state), nominated a candidate who was uninhibited by the patented Republican hesitancy to counterpunch when hit by Democrats and their media shills. Plus, this new species of nominee flew in his own big jet, with his own name writ large on the fuselage.
Meanwhile, liberal political correctness went, in the minds of many Americans, from being politely tolerated, to warranting ridicule, because much of it is just plain, old-fashioned stupid, regardless of your gender persuasion today.
And, to top it all off, the height of the money pile in campaign coffers mattered less than before. The GOP candidate didn’t have to buy media coverage. It flocked to him like Canadian geese wintering on southern shores, because the air was too cold around Hillary.
Will Democrats learn from theirs?
So…there they are today, lined up on the beach of defeat – the Democrat Party, their media allies, and more than a few professional Republicans.
Huddled together, surrounded by a strange and hostile political environment.
Shocked by complete surprise, with no small boats on the horizon, they chant “impeach him” to the gulls, while blaming the Russians.
Four years after Dunkirk, the Allied armies landed on the beaches at Normandy. They had learned from their Dunkirk.
Will Democrats learn from theirs?
The Allied Forces that landed on Normandy four years later had learned valuable lessons from Dunkirk, as well as Dieppe and North Africa.
Lee Cary——Bio and Archives
Since November 2007, Lee Cary has written hundreds of articles for several websites including the American Thinker, and Breitbart’s Big Journalism and Big Government (as “Archy Cary”). and the Canada Free Press. Cary’s work was quoted on national television (Sean Hannity) and on nationally syndicated radio (Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levin). His articles have posted on the aggregate sites Drudge Report, Whatfinger, Lucianne, Free Republic, and Real Clear Politics. He holds a Doctorate in Theology from Garrett Theological Seminary in Evanston, IL, is a veteran of the US Army Military Intelligence in Vietnam assigned to the [strong]Phoenix Program[/strong]. He lives in Texas.
