It happened 100 years ago on June 2, but it mostly flew under the media radar. Still, on that day in 1925, Wally Pipp told New York Yankees manager Miller Huggins that he had a nagging, annoying headache, and asked if he could sit out the next game.
Wally needed a breather.
Huggins replaced him at first base with a 21-year-old, no-name backup named Lou Gehrig.
Pipp’s headache went away, but so did his starting job: Lou Gehrig didn’t leave the starting lineup for 2,130 straight games.
And in the process, Wally Pipp’s name became a verb: WALLY PIPP (verb): To lose one’s job and be replaced by someone new and better.
I’ll use it in a sentence: On Sept. 23, 2001, Tom Brady Wally Pipp’d Drew Bledsoe as the starting quarterback for the New England Patriots. Drew Bledsoe later became a Dallas Cowboy, where he was Wally Pipp’d by Tony Romo — who was later Wally Pipp’d by Dak Prescott.
The sports examples are legion, but it’s far more often in business: An executive is doing a really great job, but he overestimates his value to the company. So, he demands more money than they’re willing to pay, and they replace him with someone younger and cheaper.
Most of the time, the company marches forward without missing a beat.
Very few people are truly indispensable; everyone else is a replaceable cog in a much-larger machine. Doesn’t matter if you worked every weekend and forfeited your vacation time. Doesn’t matter if you skipped your kids’ birthdays to attend “important” business meetings. Doesn’t matter how special and talented you think you are.
The truth is, everyone’s expendable… except the owner.
Sometimes, the younger, cheaper replacement is so significantly better, you feel embarrassed for the ex-executive. I’ve seen countless CEOs inadvertently hire their own replacements as underlings, veeps or executive assistants: When the going got tough, ownership decided “good enough” was better than the status quo, and fired the CEO. As long as the next guy seemed borderline competent, they happily rolled the dice.
Like the saying goes, the squeaky wheel either gets the grease — or it gets replaced. In the eyes of ownership, either outcome is perfectly fine, as long as the annoying, irritating squeaking sound goes away.
And this brings us to the Schumer Shutdown, the #Resistence Democrats, and the ghost of Wally Pipp.
Apparently, all it took for peace to break out in the Middle East was for Congress to stop interfering. Because, in the middle of the ongoing government shutdown, Donald Trump just accomplished his greatest diplomatic achievement: the long-awaited ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, and a chance for genuine peace in the Holy Land.
Addition by subtraction is a very real thing. Just ask Wally Pipp.
The Democrats are walking a very fine line: Their base wants scorched Earth and #Resistance at all costs. The way the liberals see it, Washington, D.C., is home to “literally Hitler,” and you’d be an idiot to negotiate with “literally Hitler.”
But that’s not what the American people want. Opinion poll after opinion poll shows that most of the electorate wants our elected officials to get back to work and do their stinkin’ jobs.
The PR objective for the GOP is to reframe the shutdown not as normal negotiations or politics-as-usual, but as the #Resistance #redux: #Ruination, #Ransacking, and #Razing, #reducing D.C. to #rubble.
It’s sabotage by the angry liberal minority.
This isn’t merely a #Resistance. This is #Ragnarok — an extinction-level, apocalyptic attempt to derail the federal government, because the Democrats were voted out of power in 2024, and they don’t like it one bit.
If they can’t run D.C., then nobody can.
They’ve gone from tax-and-spend to rage-and-burn; from Camelot to Portland. And on social issues, they’ve gone from JFK to LGBTQ.
These ain’t your daddy’s Democrats, folks!
Strategically, all the different PR storylines currently circulating in the public’s mind — political violence, social chaos, partisan extremism, and peace in the Middle East — must be fused together and become part of the “Schumer Shutdown” messaging.
Right now, the public understands that the government has been halted. And they also understand that Donald Trump and the GOP won the last election.
Which is why, in their minds, it makes more sense to blame the Republicans. After all, they’re the ones in charge, right?
It’s the GOP’s responsibility to explain to the American people that the “Schumer Shutdown” is just the latest example of the Democratic Party’s 10+ year-old #Resistance campaign. This is the tyranny of the liberal minority — the latest attempt by the Democrats to upset the applecart and grind the country to a halt.
That’s because the two parties have two very different priorities.
According to the Democrats, if illegals can’t get free healthcare, then nobody else should. And if they’ve gotta tear down the entire government to protect illegal aliens, then that’s what they’re gonna do.
The Republicans are the party of going back to work and getting things done: We’re here for the American people.
Look, if Donald Trump can bring peace to the Middle East when the Dems FINALLY get out of his way, imagine what our country could accomplish if we actually worked together. So let’s reopen the government, pay our employees what they’re owed, and do the job we were elected to do.
We’re asking the Democrats to join us — as partners — because we’re all in this together. But at a frickin’ minimum, they need to STOP SABOTAGING their fellow Americans!
At long last: ENOUGH! Go back to work and do your freaking jobs!
‘Cause this isn’t a normal, run-of-the-mill #Resistance. This is #Rage, hate, and violence, and the American people deserve better than this.
And if you won’t get back to work, we’ll find someone who will.
One hundred years later, the ghost of Wally Pipp still looms large.
PRedictions: The Donald Trump victory lap in the Middle East will be epic! If there’s one thing President Trump understands, it’s optics and media theater: He knows how to put on a show.
He’ll be traveling to Israel and addressing their Knesset. (Where he’s far more popular than Israel’s prime minister.) Then he’ll be in Egypt for another peace celebration.
Who knows where he’ll go next.
Think of the visuals: The hostages being released and FINALLY being embraced by their loved ones. The Palestinians dancing in the street, praising Trump for ending the bombing. The dawning of a new era in the Holy Land.
Remember when Barack Obama shoehorned his Affordable Care Act across the finish line, and Vice President Biden (loudly) whispered in his ear, “This is a big f***ing deal!”
Not compared to this it wasn’t!
This is the high-water mark of American foreign policy in at least a generation. Maybe more. Old ghosts were excised; new dreams were born.
And it’ll be a helluva TV show!
PRojections: Could Republicans really, truly pull off upset victories in Virginia and New Jersey? According to the latest opinion polls, the Democrats are still in the driver’s seat, but the race is now either a dead-heat — or the Republicans are in striking distance.
I’m not going to tell you it WILL happen. But it absolutely could.
And even if there’s a split, it would destroy the Dems' talking points about how angry everyone is at that dastardly, no-good Donald Trump. The Democrats have talked themselves into a corner: Anything less than a clear victory will show that, for all their hysteria, shutdowns, and teeth-gnashing, the public doesn’t think the Republicans are so terrible after all.
In fact, they kind of like ‘em!
Losing New Jersey would be embarrassing as hell, because everyone knows it’s a liberal stronghold. And in Virginia, where there’s three bites at the apple (separate elections for governor, lieutenant governor, and attorney general), it’s unlikely the GOP will be shut out of all three spots.
Not after “Grand Theft” Jones and his threatening text messages. At a minimum, the Republicans are now favored to win the attorney general race, and the ripple effect might also elevate the lieutenant governor and governor races, too.
Which would make it the first election in recent memory where Jason Miyares — the low man on the ticket — had “coattails” that carried the top two.
PRaise: To one of the lesser-appreciated consequences of Donald Trump’s peace deal: It made it slightly harder for Zohran Mamdani to become mayor of New York City.
As with the Dems in Virginia and New Joisey, Mamdani is still the betting favorite. More likely than not, he’ll still win at the end.
But it’ll be a little bit harder now.
Mamdani is running a fantasy campaign — a Marxist dream of every leftwing grievance, trope, and solution imaginable. And these sorts of campaigns rely on emotions.
Reality is their enemy.
Furthermore, the kinds of voters who rally behind these candidates are almost always younger people. Lots of overlap amongst the Mamdani lovers in New York and the pro-Hamas marchers who accuse Israel of “genocide.”
Well, without an ongoing war to protest, one of their most salient emotional issues was suddenly taken away. And that’s not good, ‘cause these are also the voters who are most likely not to vote!
Keep an eye on this: It could provide an opening for Cuomo.
PRedators: Congrats to the tone-deaf “No Kings” movement, who’re planning their next national temper tantrum on Oct. 18: A day of protests against “King” Donald Trump.
During a shutdown, where the minority party has canceled the entire federal government!
I’m not an expert on the monarchy, but don’t REAL kings have more power than that? The minority party just CLOSED the whole government! Like, what’s the point in being king if some yutz like Schumer can shutdown your entire kingdom?
What kind of pathetic monarchy is this?!
“No Kings”? Methinks they’ll have a messaging problem.
