Donald Trump’s re-election as President of the United States, including an immense electoral college and popular vote victories, was the American people’s call for sanity and prosperity. For the incoming Trump administration, there is no time to waste in honoring the public’s mandate for change from the Obama and Biden administrations’ radical, dangerous, extreme, and disastrous policies. The first step is to lower the country’s political temperature. It won’t be easy.
On the prevailing side, Mr. Trump’s supporters were elated by his victory and felt a palpable sense of relief at the reprieve it provided from the left’s ideological assault upon everything these God-fearing, patriotic Americans cherish. Yet, even as the election night celebrations continued, the calls began in earnest for the incoming administration to implement the most sweeping policies anyone to the right-of-center could conceive; and, yes, for “accountability” of bad actors, be it through political firings and impeachments, social ostracisms and “cancellations,” and criminal investigations that were expected to lead to indictments and prison sentences.
This is not unique in the annals of victorious presidential campaigns. Indeed, though one would be loath to acknowledge the irony, such demands were made by Democrats when Mr. Biden captured the White House in 2020. While Mr. Biden and his handlers and Congressional abettors indulged their leftist base with radical legislation, executive orders, and partisan political persecutions, it would behoove Mr. Trump and his supporters to recognize precisely how the American people viewed such unexpected surprises from “Lunch Bucket Joe from Scranton.” And, should they forget, all they need do is look at Vice President Kamala Harris’s electoral map.
This is not as easy as it sounds, for looking across the political aisle is an embittered and embarrassed Democrat Party. Lashing out at everyone but themselves for the abject failure of their fetid ideologies in matters of peace and prosperity, the left is not in a kumbaya mood—any more than are Mr. Trump’s supporters, who bear the scars of the Democrats’ systematic sedition against the first Trump administration; their despicable lawfare against him personally; and their pervasive slanders, smears, and attacks against his voters.
Already, under the guise of “offering olive branches,” the Democrats have sought to buy time to regroup, craft a narrative that they are the peacemakers, and wait for the first opportunity to rebrand Mr. Trump as an unstable, wannabe dictator who must be “resisted” by any means because it is justified by his being an existential threat to “our democracy.” It is a repeat of 2016, except in this instance, the size of Mr. Trump’s win has stunned and staggered the left, which necessitates their crafting breathing room to coordinate their counterattack.
Those blind to the Democrats’ stratagem will foolishly implore Mr. Trump to water down his rhetoric and goals to court the Democrats’ goodwill. The GOP and, yes, Mr. Trump have gone down this dead end before and have learned a hard, valuable lesson not to repeat this mistake.
But this is not about enfeebling, but rather enabling the Republican-Populist agenda and movement. Instead, as is his wont, Mr. Trump must grab the bulls**tters by the horns and offer the terms of political comity that will lower the country’s political temperature for the Democrats’ consideration.
The first and defining measure? Announce that upon assuming office you will pardon Hunter, Jim, and Joe Biden for any crime they committed or may have committed. Saying it and doing it will cement in the public’s mind that Mr. Trump is not only refraining from doing unto his political enemies what was done unto him but showing the magnanimity in victory of which his Democrat opponents have proven incapable. Armed with the moral high ground and the political insulation this beneficent act would provide, Mr. Trump will have significantly increased his already immense political capital that will be required to pursue and implement the significant policy reforms that he articulated throughout the campaign.
Of course, there will be pushback within his base by those who don’t accept that. If Republicans do unto the Democrats what the latter did unto them, the public will view the GOP as hypocrites, declare a pox on both houses, and recoup the political capital Mr. Trump needs to achieve his agenda. Nothing would more hearten despondent Democrats.
Mr. Trump well understands this, and, nothing if not a leader, has the abundance of courage to empathize with his defeated opponents, for he has experienced the same feeling—in fact, exponentially more so, as he was the defeated candidate—and an incumbent president to boot. Equipped with this personal experience and acumen, he has the insight to recognize this singular chance to advance his agenda—one containing the very policies that, when implemented, will provide the very sanity and prosperity the voters emphatically demanded when returning him to the Oval Office.
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An American Greatness contributor, the Hon. Thaddeus G. McCotter (M.C., Ret.) served Michigan’s 11th Congressional district from 2003-2012 and served as Chair of the Republican House Policy Committee. Not a lobbyist, he is a frequent public speaker and moderator for public policy seminars and a Monday co-host of the “John Batchelor Radio Show,” among sundry media appearances.
America was calling for a return to constitutional order and justice. The distinction between prosecuting Trump, an innocent man being prosecuted only because of his political beliefs, and Joe Biden and his entire family, who are guilty of despicable corruption and selling out the country for money to its chief enemy, China, is obvious to any true conservative.
It may be difficult for current and former Washington, D.C. office holders to understand exactly what Americans want and need, but the clear voice on election day was also a call to punish those guilty of targeting Americans for merely exercising their constitutional rights. Democrats started this, and Republicans ought to finish it, or rather finish them off or they will certainly be deemed guilty of holding membership in the Uniparty. When those who hold offices of public trust abuse them, justice demands they be prosecuted to the fullest extend of the law and suffer the slings and arrows of public punishment.
The only pardons Trump voters want are those victims of Democrat witch hunts and lies regarding January 6, 2021.
The author’s suggested course of action is a familiar one to those of us who have followed politics closely for any length of time – or who have seen the interactions between Charlie Brown & Lucy in the old Peanuts cartoons.
It is a slight variation on the theme of “the moral highground” argument, which holds that it is okay if right-of-center candidates, policies and ideas don’t come out on top in the election or legislative process because they kept the moral highground & therefore can bear their defeat with stoic dignity. Screw that!
What this country in general and conservatives in specific have borne over the last decade or so has been nothing sort of treason. Turning a blind eye to corruption has only led to more blatant corruption. While a few of us may urge retaliation, the vast majority just want to see, for once, justice done. If, just once, we could see the consequences of abusing our political and legal systems fall on those that have attempted to weaponize them, it will have an immediate bolstering effect on all who still believe that justice should be blind and instill a sense of hesitancy in those who seek to bend or break the system to their own ends.
Thaddeus. Usually I find your perspectives spot on and enlightening BUT?
Have you strayed by chance deeply, of late, into Alice in Wonderland or Kumbaya, lala land?
…" The first and defining measure? Announce that upon assuming office you will pardon Hunter, Jim, and Joe Biden for any crime they committed or may have committed."
So - Trump, America should just turn a blind eye to the most corrupt, treasonous, dangerous, murderous collection, cabal of communist minded miscreants since Genghis Khan or Hitler and let them off?
No - that would be encouraging them to continue on knowing that Trump and America had gone soft in the head, become dumber than dumb and had no spine for doing the right thing.
Fine - don’t go after the little fish and squander resources - just out them publically in a way that anyone who might one day be tempted to do anything with them - besides turn their back on them and tell them to go to hell - can easily find out about them.
BUT - the big fish - no, no, no. They must be made examples of; it must be made clear to the leaders of this treasonous attempt to destroy - as completely as possible - America and with it the best hope for the world to someday come to embrace freedom that?
There is no more Mr. Nice Guy - willing to be stupid enough to think you can extend a hand to a mortal enemy, with backstabbing as their sole modus operandi - just waiting to employ.
Like he did the first time. No, time is short - we have four years maybe not more to bring them down, lay them low and burn the SOBS to the ground.
Now, is not the time for forgive and forget, seek comity, apply Marquess of Queensberry rules nor turn the other cheek while reaching across the aisle.
Your opinion this time round, Thaddeus?
Is oh so, terribly, so, woefully wanting in rhyme and reason and?
Just another example of a way to snatch defeat for the enemy from the jaws of the victors and the righteous that will, not may, will be back again, inevitably - and gleefully, with vicious, avaricious delight and abandon pickup where they just left off and which,
only, by the grace of God - and the fact a bullet didn’t end up inside President Trump’s head - we have barely escaped.
You don’t kill a snake by cutting of its tail.
Exactly. Would Thaddeus suggest turning the other cheek to a rattlesnake as well that had just sunk its fang into one of one’s cheeks too? Please see my comment I just posited and posted.
As I see it, unity flows naturally from good policies. But I digress. The people who voted for Trump are more interested in leaving Democrats in the dust and getting on with the job of fixing the mess these people made of everything. He could pardon Biden and Hunter, for all its worth, as a gesture of conciliation. But it stands to reason that the people who did this much wonton damage to the country over the last four years (at least) would be any more grateful for that than a wild animal let out of a trap.