Shock and awe

By Tom Quiner

The Silent Majority is back.

The ‘haters (as the Left characterizes us),’ aka Catholics, white men, conservatives, gun owners, pro lifers, pro traditional marriage advocates, evangelical Christians, folks who stand for the Pledge and say it with tears in their eyes, Constitutionalists, and the rule of law horde have spoken.

Their message was simple: we want America back. Even more, we want to ‘make America great again.’

Donald Trump is president and the liberal establishment and their mainstream media acolytes are in shock. The rest of us are awed, none more than I.

I said President-elect Trump would be out of the race before Christmas last year. I didn’t like him, as I have articulated on this blog on many occasions.

Amongst friends, I have been heard to say that Donald Trump was the only Republican in America who could lose to Hillary Clinton. Well, he lost the popular vote by a smidge, but where it counts, the Electoral College, he won convincingly. (As a side note, fewer people voted for Trump than voted for either Mitt Romney or John McCain in the previous two election cycles.)

Amazingly, Republicans held on to the Senate and the House, where they only lost a few seats.

The storyline in the MSM this year has been all about how the Republican brand was in tatters, and that Donald Trump would burn what was left and scatter the remnants on the ash heap of history.

This was wishful thinking on their part. In fact, it is the Democratic brand that is in ruins, perversely propped up and yet gutted by Barack Obama.

Barack Obama is a unique figure in American politics. Black. Articulate. Cool. He remains popular despite his arguably woeful track record. He used political correctness like a club to cower his opposition, until Donald Trump came along.

The Obama legacy has been devastating for Democrats.

Republicans now control both houses of Congress and take over the White House in January.

They control 34 governorships.

Under Obama, they had last 900 seats in state legislatures across the country. On Tuesday, they lost even more. Here in Iowa, Republicans regained control of both houses of our legislatures.

Republicans now have a ‘trifecta,’ controlling the governorship and both houses of the legislatures, in 25 states compared to only four for Democrats.

The Republican brand, in fact, is strong, except when it comes to running for president. Coming into this election, Democrats had won four of the last six presidential elections, including the last two.

Identity politics and political correctness drive Democrats’ agenda. That’s about all they’ve got. When it comes to trying to pass the laws they want pass, they’re not very good at it. They crammed Obamacare down our throats when no one wanted it. They paid the price by losing control of Congress.

President Obama had to impose the rest of his agenda by executive fiat, all of which can be undone by President Trump with the stroke of the a pen. Once Obamacare is decommissioned and replaced with patient-friendly legislation, his legacy is shot.

He will be known as the first Black president, and not much more.

The Democratic brand is shot. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, speaking as leaders of the Democratic establishment, made it abundantly they loathe the Silent Majority.

They view us as bitter Christians who cling to our Bibles and guns out of shallowness, racism, misogyny, and homophobia. We are deplorable and irredeemable in their eyes.

We know all of this because they tell us so.

Donald Trump didn’t care. He stuffed political correctness down the elites’ throats.

Peggy Noonan characterized this wide swath of Trump supporters as the “unprotected class.” Trump stood up to the bullies on the left, and it resonated. We have a champion.

We’ll see if the man can govern. He has an incredible opportunity to right the American ship.

I am giving him the benefit of the doubt.

Let’s rally around President Trump and make America great again.