As a child, my mother warned me not to put my hand on the electric stove when the heating ring glowed orange. Even at that early age, an innate anti-authoritarian, I dismissed her advice, and once her back was turned, I placed my hand on the stove. While the pain has receded in memory, as I wailed about the blackened, serpentine scar seared onto my palm, I distinctly recall my mother calmly saying, “I told you not to do that.”
Well, it is time to pay it forward: do not grab onto the post-2024 presidential election “hot takes” served up by sundry pundits trolling for clicks and ratings. Doing so may not immediately char your palm, but it will eventually give you heartburn and immense, though avoidable, amounts of pain. So, let us disabuse ourselves of a handful (no pun intended) of the most red-hot, election post-mortem nonsense simmering in the political ether.
First, this election was not the ultimate triumph of MAGA and populist-Republicans.
Impressive as it was, the victory was but the second of Mr. Trump’s and the movement’s. But like all populist movements, it must now deliver the restoration of sanity, liberty, prosperity, and security it promised the electorate. If and as it does, the movement will be sustained and strengthened; grow in stature and esteem in the public’s mind; and, thereby, facilitate not only future electoral wins but, more importantly, lay the foundations for an abiding American exceptionalism.
Second, regrettably, this is not the end of progressivism.
True, the majority of Americans loathe identity politics, cancel culture, political correctness, and other societal symptoms of the left’s cerebral disease of cultural Marxism. Due to its radical socialist ideology, progressives, who largely cannot produce wealth, must rely upon the money of others—their favorite of subsidization being the taxpayers and corporate largesse. Indeed, the fact that in 2023, American companies alone spent 8 billion dollars on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs is a testament to the left’s ability to monetize its survival and success. Sure, in the wake of their 2024 presidential defeat, some Democrats have called for a jettisoning of progressivism, or at least parts of its agenda. But the left cannot and will not voluntarily close this cornucopia of other people’s money, and, bluntly, the base of the Democrat Party is no longer center-left. It is hard left. And it is going nowhere but further left, because that is the ideological core of its pillars of power: academia, the media, Big Tech, and the administrative state.
Finally, this is not a political realignment for the MAGA or the GOP. In time, it could lead to one, but it is too early for such a conclusion.
In many ways, Mr. Trump’s victory was a personal one. He is a unique figure in recent American politics—indeed, one may need to go back to Andrew Jackson for a similarly beloved and reviled figure. His recent victory bordered on a landslide, and, while it did abet slim GOP majorities in the House and Senate (the “trifecta”), the gains were nowhere near those of other similar presidential wins.
Thus, the conundrum: Did the GOP candidates who ran behind the top of the ticket and lost do so because they were not sufficiently MAGA and populist-Republican, thereby losing the support of many of Mr. Trump’s base voters? Or was the issue that these defeated candidates were identified as too aligned with Mr. Trump, turning off independent voters who split their tickets so a Democrat Congress would serve as a check upon Mr. Trump? After all, most independents and many new Trump voters were not all that happy with the options the two major parties presented them. They voted based on their personal, practical experience that they were better off under the first Trump administration than under the subsequent Biden administration; nonetheless, this clearly did not necessarily translate into voting GOP down the ballot.
Whether it be these or other yet unidentified reasons that led to the reduced coattails of Mr. Trump’s triumph, the Republican populists will have to divine them to consolidate and expand their majorities in future elections. Executive Orders can only do so much. (Ask Mr. Biden how his student loan forgiveness E.O.s worked out.) Because hard as it is to pass important legislation with slim majorities in Congress, it is damn near impossible if the Democrats control one or both.
In the grand scheme of things, campaigning is easy; governing is hard. Ultimately, then, winning an election is not an end but an opportunity—one that, if squandered, creates an opportunity for one’s adversaries. For despite all the elation or dejection in the wake of victory or defeat, nothing in politics is written in stone, and one forgets this age-old political truism at their own peril.
For those who disagree and stubbornly decide to slam your hand on the political hot stove, I suggest you consult all the Democrats who pronounced (now) president-elect Trump and the MAGA/populist Republican movement dead on November 4, 2020.
Better still, just glance at their charred palm.
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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.
First and foremost is what burns in the hearts and minds of every MAGA Patriot. That is the lack of Justice as a result of the misuse of the law.
Somewhere in the list of Hague like prosecutions, that this election result must spawn, the name Andrew Weissmann has to appear. He should be right up there at the top along with many treasonous others from the DOJ. He has applied every totalitarian technique employed and enjoyed by the FBI, turned Mafioso, to indite, prosecute, fine and incarcerate innocent people since the Enron Trial and, despite being overturned, still walks around strutting like a “Rooster Cock on the Walk”. He makes the smiling and arrogant Peter Strzok seem like an innocent Putz. Behind the wrongly and misapplied “shedding documents law” (18 USC 1512(c)(2)), the name of the original prosecutor has to come to mind and that name cannot be any other than “Heir Weissmann”. Without him there would never have been such an egregious Enron Case, now known for misapplying the law, and, therefore, there would never have emerged such a law that allows prosecutors to overreach (which they always do) to improperly apply what should have never been created in the first place. Weissmann is not the only one. Jack Smith, Beryl Howell, Amit Mehta, Tim Kelly. and many others come to mind. So do the Ricco Statutes.
An appointment such as pit bull Matt Gaetz, to head the DOJ, who aptly described J6 as a “fedsurrection” has to happen. And Senators such a Cornyn and McConnell have to get out of the way or suffer consequences.
I think that Mr. McCotter failed to understand a couple of the reasons the election results looked the way they did.
First, Trump is probably the only candidate that genuinely tried to keep his campaign promises once elected, regardless of what it cost in political capital, of my lifetime. He waged those battles endlessly, despite being hamstrung by his own party & advisors, the administrative state, the Dems and the constant yammering of the apparatchik mainstream media. This is a quality unique to Pres. Trump; having an “R” behind your name on the ballot doesn’t not require or guarantee the same indefatigable dedication to first principles. But, in a time when it feels like everything is falling apart and the very fabric of our nation is under assault, it is hard to put your faith in anyone that does not radiate a sense that they passionately support those principals and will fight to the bitter end to defend them.
Second, there was a fair amount of gatekeeping going on in this election. McConnell wields a huge amount of power, not only because of his long-held position in the Senate but because he plays a huge role in determining who gets the additional funding for their campaigns. I realize that there are limitations to funds available but I suspect that any candidate that is likely to upset the status quo is also going to get cut off from that funding source.
The Heritage Foundation is supposed to have a detailed to-do list for Trump and has trained four (or is it six?) thousand replacement bureaucrats ready to begin its implementation. If four thousand of the top most senior bureaucrats (all Democrats) are cut out, he’s halfway to returning the country to sanity and prosperity. Then, once the well-documented horrors of how the regime has used taxpayer money come out, it will cement that transformation. There has to be a reason for Democrats’ crisis-level expressions of panic.
If we here know and understand - and appreciate that the truth of what you said is beyond question - then certainly the likes of Matt Gaetz and Trump are just as aware.
The question is - and its out of our hands of course - is are they going to follow through and be willing to truly go after and destroy the likes of Weissmann, Jack Smith and nail their treasonous asses to the barn door with railroad spikes - as they so richly deserve - metaphorically speaking of course - it will hurt them far more to be dragged down and then installed in the closest thing we have to The Black Hole of Calcutta - ensconced with men of similar, pathological, criminal characters.
There are literally, I am quite certain - thousands of similar scum who deserve such a fate - but unless the worse transgressors are actually held accountable and even more so - their taskmasters at the top - are taken out with them - it will just be a matter of time till we are right back where we started from.
Time for Trump and his people to go into battle mode and realize that just as the enemy - whom we have temporarily routed would have no compunction perpetrating any manner of heinous crimes - do and did against innocents, that now it is our turn not for vengeance but rather to mete out righteous justice.
I am thinking of that old question, “Does the man make the clothes or do the clothes make the man?” might be perhaps somewhat apropos.
The situation we have been in was - as far as I am aware - the worse, closest to total disaster America has ever been in and so - a man - who normally wouldn’t have bothered to enter politics but who had had the all the advantages America had to offer but didn’t take them for granted - saw the danger and realized now was no time to say, “Well, somebody else will do it.”
And, didn’t ignore the situation but took it upon himself to “just do it”.
I think I am safe in saying that there are few of us here who haven’t had similar occasions - do or die - all hope will be lost for us or someone we love situations - where we haven’t risen to the occasion - albeit not on a national scale but within the smaller context of our own lives.
My observation and experience from my own travails of when I stood up to be counted and didn’t run away - are I am sure are similar to all of us here and we because we did measure up - we became better men and women because of it - for exhibiting “true grit”.
PBD told a story in one of his YouTube shorts about Barron Trump at the celebration party at Mar-a-Lago.
When Patrick Bet Davis and his family were leaving Barron said, “Let me walk you to your car.” and when they got there Barron said, “Whatever I do, whatever my brothers and family do, no matter how much money we may make NOTHING we do will ever equal what my father has done.”
To which, Patrick’s comment on the video was,"There is he, 6’ 8 or whatever, a son of a billionaire, and he walks us out to our car and has the humility and maturity at 18 (19?) to say that - “What a stud!”
Baron and the Trumps got our support and will keep our support because they - like all of us here and the millions others who voted to turn the tide against the Red Tide of Tyranny - love America and will not let it die because?
Failure is not an option.
and here - I was going to make that short - see themadgardener - what you made me do! LOL