The Art Of The Ruse (or how to bring down the entire Republican Party after watching one movie)
Gambit — noun — (in chess) an opening in which a player makes a sacrifice, typically of a pawn, for the sake of some compensating advantage.
• a device, action, or opening remark, typically one entailing a degree of risk, that is calculated to gain an advantage.
Ruse — noun — an action intended to deceive someone; a trick.
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Unless you’ve been sleeping in a cave in Idaho for the last year you might not be unaware that the 2016 general election has taken weird to a whole new level. Many believe that there is a candidate running for President that is so unqualified that even George W. Bush would look pretty good about now.
Both major political parties have a dilemma. They have run out of ideas to sucker the public with on election day. But don’t despair. The slow clicking of the roller-coaster car you’re on hasn’t made it to the top yet. So, put on an oxygen mask because it’s a long ride up. And even a longer ride down.
Anything political in America is an easy target. No matter what the issue. No matter how good. No how well intentioned. No matter that future generations of children will benefit, you can bet big money that someone is going to be against it. It’s one of those great American pastimes, that is, having an opinion about something you have no fucking idea about what’s really going on. People will tell you they know. People pretend they know. They parrot loud mouths from TV, Internet bloggers, Facebook memes, their favorite celebrity, favorite Instagram follower, their Uncle Travis, the banker who just got out of federal prison for selling junk bonds to gullible investors (OK, the last one’s a stretch… no banker has even gone to jail…but I digress…).
Meredith Wilson, the song master behind, The Music Man could not have put it better:
“Well, you got trouble, my friend, right here.
I say, trouble right here in River City.”
Something’s got-to-give and it has.
Let’s pick on the Republican Party. Why do you ask? Because they are pickable. You can make up your own jokes about the Democratic Party. They’ve too have had their moments. But lately, the Republicans have jumped the shark for pure unadulterated ridiculousness. No use going into those details here. Everyone’s heard the stories even if they don’t exactly agree on the specifics.
Suppose, for example, there was a plan to annihilate the Republican Party to such great extent it could never ever recover. Exactly, how would you do that? The party of Lincoln has been around for a century and a half. Not so easy a task to destroy it from the outside. BUT, what if you sent in a Trojan Horse and destroyed it from within?
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Juan Pujol wasn’t a spy. He was an ex-chicken farmer and hotel manager who was, in the spring of 1941, stuck in a one-star dump in Madrid. He had no training in espionage. He had no contacts in the espionage world. He was living in a Fascist-controlled country that was infiltrated by thousands of Nazi agents and informers. He had about as much chance of becoming a world-class intelligence operative as you or I have of winning the gold in the Olympic steeplechase.
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Remember the movie, The Sting, about how a couple of con men go about conning another con man. And lest we forget, this 1974 Best Picture was, at its core, a revenge story about an associate of Johnny Hooker (Robert Redford) who was murdered by sinister forces led by one Doyle Lonnegan (Robert Shaw). Johnny enlists con man extraordinaire, Henry Gondola (Paul Newman) for some clever payback.
CUT TO:
2016
Enter into the presidential arena an unlikely garden-variety-everyman-billionaire-hero-type. — “What?” you say? Stay with me. This is where it gets interesting.
Blame it on the economy, the NRA, ISIS, Fox News, Congressional dysfunction, flightless birds or the Kardashians, the fickle finger of fate points at everything and everyone except the voters who put in place a pathetic group of people to represent all voting Americans in Washington, D.C. (of which only a small percentage vote anyway). Rightwing conservative hate proponents from Rush Limbaugh to rightwing religious zealots such as Ted Cruz have found a highly motivated-dysfunctional audience that yearns for autocratic or political authoritarian leadership. The American mass audience is just too lazy to figure out the nation’s problems themselves so they are willing to abandon their Constitutional freedoms to the loudest voice in the land for a case of beer, a basement full of guns, and a year’s supply of condoms. BOOYAH!!!
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One year later, Pujol had transformed himself into something almost unprecedented in the long history of intelligence. He was on his way to becoming a completely self-made master spy. By that time, Pujol was a rising star in MI5’s stable of double agents. The Germans trusted him implicitly. He conducted missions that involved global assets and caused the Nazis to send fighter planes and destroyers to attack convoys that didn’t even exist. The Allies were so in awe of his powers of confabulation that they’d given him the code name “Garbo,” because he was the greatest actor they’d ever seen.
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Phineas Taylor Barnum was an American politician, showman, and businessman remembered for promoting celebrated hoaxes and for founding the Barnum & Bailey Circus. Sadly, P. T. Barnum is no longer among the living. Donald John Trump is.
For all of the adjectives that have been used in describing Mr.Trump, Hero is not usually one of these words (one must discount his legion of followers for the moment). Arrogant. Blowhard. Idiot. Crazy. Loud. Joke. Pompous. Bombastic. Egomaniac. And…”showman”. More about this later.
Now, clear your head of all the noise. All the rhetoric. All the magniloquence. Everything you think you know but don’t.
Much has been made of the language that Mr. Trump has used during his presidential campaign bid. Most of it incendiary. Other politicians, academics and the man/woman on the street have all speculated about Mr. Trump’s volatile antics. On-the-other-hand, it’s great for ratings! The profit loving corporate media loves it. And admit it, you can’t take your eyes off this car wreck either.
What if it’s all a ruse? Consider the possibility of political prestidigitation. Can you say, misdirection?
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When the Allies began planning D-Day, it was Pujol who was chosen to lead the deception effort. He would be the point of the spear in convincing Hitler that the Normandy landings, the greatest invasion in human history, was, in fact, a fake, and that a million-man army was about to attack him along another length of the French coast. Pujol was going to be the lead actor in the most complex wartime deception ever conceived.
When it came time to concoct a scheme to “cover” D-Day, Pujol was given the job of convincing Hitler that the Allies would attack Calais and not Normandy. Few believed he would succeed, but Garbo and a handful of other double agents began by creating an imaginary million-man-strong army. George S. Patton was assigned as commander. Made-up Morse code and stacks of Garbo’s eyewitness reports was bolstered by physical trickery: gargantuan fake oil depots, sham tanks, and airfields. One British soldier even imitated the British General Montgomery, to trick the Germans into believing that the sham invasion was real.
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Mr. Trump struck a nerve with many voters over Cruz, Bush, Rubio, Carson, Christie, Kasich. Also, a great number of people who had been in hiding their prejudices and bigotry had finally found their man. What Mr. trump did was turn over a rock and all the ugly, foulmouth, knuckle-dragging, homophobic and assorted hate groups you can think of all crawled to the surface. Believe it not, this is not a bad thing. The jig is up. We know who they are now. There is no hiding in a world of transparency that is Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat. Well, played, Mr. Trump.
Meanwhile, in River City, Mrs. Clinton fights the good fight. She’s a political warrior, after all, like no other of her generation. She can take on Batman and Superman and not mess up a single strand of hair on her head. That said, no one could have predicted — except the architects of this ruse — was the “Feel The Bern” effect. Sorry, Bennie supporters, but every great story has to sacrifice a good and beloved character for the narrative to be credible. Whether you have read Charles Dickens or Shakespeare, this drama-comedy-tragedy have been skillfully updated and translated by contemporary political authors. However, add a little théâtre de l’Absurde and it’s as if Samuel Beckett himself could have written about Donald Trump.
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When the invasion came, the plot to deceive Hitler was a tremendous success. Months later, the Führer was still holding back some of his best panzer divisions, still believing that Garbo’s million-man army would appear at Calais. One message that Garbo sent on June 9th was seen by the Führer and became the key factor in keeping some of the best German divisions away from Normandy.
Garbo emerged from D-Day as the greatest double-agent of the war, perhaps of all time.
At the beginning of World War II, a brilliant young Spaniard wanted to “start a personal war with Hitler,” and espionage was his chosen method of doing it. He was willing to risk his life — and that of his gorgeous wife, Araceli — to have a great adventure and perhaps save the world in the process.
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How will this end? A great magician wows their audience with one final mesmerizing trick. Usually, it’s a disappearing act that leaves all dumbfounded. Mr. Trump will not disappoint. He will disappear. Literally (OK…figuratively).
Between now, the beginning of August 2016 and the end of October 2016, Mr. Trump will exit the Republican presidential race. He will not cite the exact reason as he will save it all for his memoir.
A book deal will be quickly negotiated by a top Hollywood agent who will have assembled a co-op of TV networks, movie studios, Internet companies for the shared rights of the memoir to the tune of $500 million dollars. Not a bad payday for Mr. Trump who invested less than a year’s worth of real work. Mr. Trump will hold the mother of all press conferences and announce that he will abandon the public life of the foreseeable future to write his book (the mounting assassination attempts from former Trump supports is another lesser reason). And yes, it was all a trick to destroy the Republican Party. “You will read about every detail in the book,” Trump will say, “It’ll be huggge!”
The Republican Party will scramble to fortify an another candidate. Cruz, Bush, Rubio, Carson, Christie, Kasich will all embarrass themselves a final time while killing themselves in a stamped to fill the political void left by the Trump exit. The Republican leadership — what’s left of it — will default to left-at-the political-altar, Mike Pence. It doesn’t work out very well.
On November 7th, 2016, Hillary Rodham Clinton will become the 45 President of the United States.
On November 8th, “a state of war” will be declared by many state Republican-led legislatures against the United States. This insurrection will be immediately quelled by a three-hour TV special featuring magician Chris Angel (everyone loves Chris Angel). And everything returns back to normal a few days later in time for Monday Night Football.
On November 9th, 2016, President Obama signs an Executive Order that immediately gives every man, woman and child in the United States a case of beer, a basement full of guns, and a year’s supply of condoms.
In June 2020, Donald Trump’s long-awaited book, The Art of the Ruse (in 47 languages), is finally released to critical praise. The books contents will also have a profound effect on that year’s presidential race.
Meanwhile, the old G.O.P has been replaced with another political camp calling itself “The Sorting Hat Party” whose presidential candidate is Scott Baio. That doesn’t work out very well either.
In November 2020, Hillary Rodham Clinton — at age 73 — is elected to another term of office by the largest voter turnout in modern history — 83%. Thirty days after her Inaugural address, President Clinton announces that former President Barack Hussein Obama has been chosen to be the 18th Chief Justice of the United States. Clinton having already replaced Clarence Thomas, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Anthony Kennedy and John Roberts who retired or died while serving the United States Supreme Court.
The Art of the Ruse will be such a runaway bestseller that it is picked up by the Texas Board of Education to be used as a textbook on modern U.S. History.
Think. About. It.
This is a cautionary tale after all. Or is it? Could Donald Trump end up being an unlikely hero for left leaning progressives? A Trojan Horse for the Democrats? A slick showman who has a gift for the absurd the likes of P. T. Barnum? — Now, what if I told you that an ex-chicken farmer won the Second World War?
Most interestingly, it will be found that there is only one name in one sentence in the entire 944 page Art of the Ruse dedicated to the primary person who engineered the greatest chess gambit in U.S. political history… William Jefferson “Bill” Clinton.
You really should watch, The Sting.
Italics by Stephan Talty, author of The Spy Who Tricked Hitler: The Story of Double Agent Juan Pujol and D-Day
