Many of you are familiar with the warning “Beware of Greeks Bearing Gifts.” It is a reference to the Greek Trojan War. In Greek mythology, the Trojan War was waged against the city of Troy by the Achaeans (Greeks) after Paris of Troy took Helen from her husband. Menelaus, King of Sparta. The war is one of the most important events in Greek mythology and it has been narrated through many works of Greek literature, most notably Homer's Iliad.
The Encyclopedia Britannica (on-line) tells us the story of the Trojan Horse: The Trojan horse was a huge hollow wooden horse constructed by the Greeks to gain entrance into Troy during the Trojan War. The horse was built by Epeius, a master carpenter and pugilist. The Greeks, pretending to desert the war, sailed to the nearby island of Tenedos, leaving behind Sinon, who persuaded the Trojans that the horse was an offering to Athena (goddess of war) that would make Troy impregnable. Despite the warnings of Laocoön and Cassandra, the horse was taken inside the city gates. That night Greek warriors emerged from it and opened the gates to let in the returned Greek army.
The story is told at length in Book II of the Aeneid and is touched upon in the Odyssey. The term Trojan horse has come to refer to subversion introduced from the outside. Hence the phrase “Beware of Greeks Bearing Gifts.”
The title of this piece is “Beware of GEEKS Bearing Gifts.” So, what on earth can he mean? Well, I thank you for asking … I am referring to the constant barrage of political polls that we are confronted with in the runup to the 2024 election. You see, as a conservative, I am very interested in the GOP candidate race, which by all accounts seems to be a race for second place, because the polls … every day, there is a new one … show former President Donald Trump in the lead. He leads the Republican primary race by as much as 50 points in some states and as little as 15 points in other states.
The polls have predicted that Donald Trump will be the inevitable … dare I say, invincible … candidate who will be the Republican party’s nominee when the National Convention in Milwaukee is concluded. That is what the polls say. The polls tell us that Trump can beat Biden by 4 points – just outside the margin of error. Without going into a long narrative about the legal troubles Trump faces, should we believe what the GEEKS (i.e. the pollsters) are telling us?
Remember what the symbolism of the Trojan horse has come to mean: … subversion introduced from the outside. There is no bigger outsider than the national poll information gatherers. We know that they can skew the questions being asked to drive a desired outcome when the final analysis is conducted. We are never quite sure who they are polling and what their political biases might be. I am old enough to remember the election of 2016 – Clinton vs. Trump – and what the polls were portraying. The outcome was to be a Clinton landslide – no need for Republicans to vote – as it was a Clinton victory even before half the polls in America were to be closed.
But we all watched what happened … into the wee hours of the morning … remember? Was there anything sweeter than watching Rachel Maddow of MSNBC having an on-the-air meltdown or the shock waves that went through the CNN newsroom --- that was a really a great time … but I digress.
The subversion that was directed from the outside in those rock-solid polls predicted a Clinton landslide --- well it was not to be!
And so … in 2023, while Hillary Clinton still reads her acceptance speech to Columbia University students … who are gullible enough to pay to hear such drivel … we need to take up the challenge of understanding what is happening now. We need to understand the pollsters and the polls and their potential influence over all of us with regard to the Presidential election of 2024.
There can be little doubt that the pollsters are once again applying their formulas … working their algorithms and letting us know on a daily basis who is winning, who is losing, who we should get out the vote for … and who is a slam dunk, which translated means … so don’t bother casting a vote.
This will be an important election. We may, for the first time, face the problem of having to vote for a convicted felon. We may be confronted with a personality rather than a true Presidential candidate being put forward by the Democrats. We will experience high profile entertainers delving into the election process and driving people to vote … and as always, experience the challenges posed by the wide variations in how the election is conducted from state to state. With the low expectations of many Americans, we can expect that once again there will be doubt cast on the integrity of the election along the same lines as we all saw in 2020. With all of the things that need to be considered across the width and breadth of America … well, with all of this, I say: BEWARE OF GEEKS BEARING GIFTS! They were wrong before so don’t sit back and think “it’s in the bag”. Last thing we need to see in the wee hours of the morning is Rachal Maddow taking a victory lap.
If that happens, then that might very well be the last thing we ever see as a Republic. Don’t let that happen. Make sure that you vote whether by mail-in ballot, early voting, or on the day of the election! Vote like your country depended on it – because it does!