1) Alright, I've had a thread brewing, time to sit down and drop it out. Today's topic: strategery.
2) No, not Sun Tzu strategery, at least not specifically. You know what, no, not Sun Tzu at all. Fuck Sun Tzu. He gets quoted too much anyways.
3) Strategery is not about winning or losing. That is strategy. No, strategery is solely about making the other side lose.
4) Let's take an example: Reagan's Shining City upon a Hill.
5) You have to hold that shining city upon a hill in a conflict. Strategy and Strategery would dictate that first you lay out your objectives.
6) In strategy, the number one objective would be, 'Hold the Shining City Upon a Hill."
7) There's a problem with this though. The problem? This objective NEVER ENDS. You hold the city until you don't. You're winning until suddenly you're not. All your opponent has to do to win is to take the city in the first place, that's their objective.
8) That's just plain not fair. You're both using strategy, but your job is SO MUCH HARDER than that of your opponent's. Now think of the decades that have passed since Reagan. Republicans had one job: hold the Shining City Upon a Hill.
9) 3 decades later we got Obama. Hell, less than a decade after Reagan left the White House we got Bill Clinton. Republicans won until they lost. All Democrats had to do was keep attacking until they won.
10) With Strategery, when you're told to hold the Shining City Upon a Hill, here's how things are different. First, you identify the people who's goal is to take the city from you.
11) Your objective? Render them utterly incapable of taking the city from you. Render them incapable of winning. Make THAT your objective, because it is achievable and it has a defined end. Render them incapable of taking the city from you, you then by default hold the city.
12) Say what you will about them, Democrats under Obama had the right idea; they tried to destroy the Republican party. Making them complicit in corruption, destroying the Tea Party with the IRS, domestic spying, all kinds of underhanded illegal unconstitutional horrors.
13) Republicans survived though, after a fashion; Obama got lazy, and Democrats switched back from Strategery to Strategy. 'Destroy the Republican party' turned into 'Hold the White House.'
14) Trump, though, Trump KNOWS Strategery. Strategery is business. Strategery is adaptability, not marrying yourself to one specific plan of action.
15) The Trump campaign's objectives; First, leave Trump as the only viable GOP candidate. Second, render Hillary Clinton unable to win. Third, win the electoral college.
16) The methods for the first objective were easy enough to spot during the primaries, as Trump turned candidates on each other and emerged from the field as the clear winner by virtue of being the only one left standing. insider.foxnews.com/2016/02/09/chr…
17) As were the efforts to make Hillary Clinton unelectable, though to be fair she did her fair share of work in making that happen fortune.com/2016/04/18/tru…
18) All the while delegating to Jared Kushner the third and final objective: win the electoral college. A clear, decisive goal with a definite start and end. Strategery. forbes.com/sites/stevenbe…
19) Clinton's campaign, however, suffered from the problem of strategy. They assumed that Hillary Clinton had already won. So, their objective became to not lose, and they did everything they could to set up a scenario wherein Hillary could not lose. politico.com/magazine/story…
20) You see the problem here? Its the same as the strategic objective of 'Hold the Shining City upon a Hill.' When your goal is to not lose, you will eventually lose to the side whose goal is to win. Hillary's goal was to not lose. Trump's goal was to win.
21) Fast forward a year into Trump's presidency. What are his goals? What is the Strategery right now? He's not lazy like Obama, he is not going to just quit right in the middle of the race.
22) Render the Democrats incapable of winning in the midterms. Preemptively tarnish and destroy any potentially serious 2020 Democrat nominees. Fill the GOP with congressmen who will reliably work with him. Crush the Democrats as a viable political party.
23) Offense is the best defense. Making your opponent lose is the best way to win. Strategery. /end
