|
nChrist
|
 |
« on: November 16, 2016, 04:45:23 PM » |
|
________________________________________
The Patriot Post - Alexander's Column 11-16-2016
From The Federalist Patriot
Free Email Subscription
________________________________________
President-Elect Trump — The Week in Review
By Mark Alexander
Nov. 16, 2016
“There is a rank due to the United States, among nations, which will be withheld, if not absolutely lost, by the reputation of weakness. If we desire to avoid insult, we must be able to repel it; if we desire to secure peace, one of the most powerful instruments of our rising prosperity, it must be known that we are at all times ready for war.” —George Washington1 (1793)
This past week has been interesting. In some ways, it seems the surreal election results just came in. In other ways, it seems they arrived six months ago.
The day after the historic national elections and Donald Trump’s victory2, I offered punctuated commentary on the results above my Veterans Day edition, “Honoring Those Who Have Earned It3.” Two days later, I rebutted Barack Obama’s remarks about the election4. Your Patriot editorial team has done an outstanding job of keeping up with all the other developments in the last seven days — as they do every day.
Today, I’ll briefly focus on some topical observations regarding BO’s condescending welcome remarks5 about Trump, as well as BO’s “Denial Tour6.” I then have some observations about Trump’s first week and his transition team.
On Barack Obama’s exit…
Recall that in 2012, Obama chastised Republicans after his defeat of Mitt Romney7: “You don’t like a particular policy or a particular president? Go out there and win an election. But don’t break what our predecessors spent over two centuries building.”
He then continued breaking everything “our predecessors spent over two centuries building” for another four years.
In response to his “go out there and win an election” challenge, Republicans chalked up another round of historic wins in the 2014 Midterm Republican Wave8, and the GOP continued that winning streak in 2016.
This week, BO, who’s in a state of pathological denial about the wide and deep GOP gains across the country, offered this assessment: “I believe that we have better ideas. But I also believe that good ideas don’t matter if people don’t hear them.”
Actually, it wasn’t a hearing problem. It was an ear-splitting repudiation of the ideas Obama and his error-apparent, Hillary Clinton9, personified.
Since BO was elected, Democrat control of the nation’s 99 state legislative chambers has dropped from 62 to 30, and only five states now have a Democrat trifecta — control of the senate, house and governorship — while 25 states have Republican trifectas. Democrats have lost 13 governorships, leaving Republicans with 34 governors (depending on North Carolina’s results).
But the most notable trifecta was in Washington, DC, where Trump will have a Senate majority of 52 Republicans (after the Louisiana runoff) and at least a 238-to-193 House majority, with a few results still out. And I would argue that, contrary to the top-down assertion that Trump carried a lot of conservatives down ballot, this was in fact a bottom-up grassroots election that Trump won as an up-ballot result of state and local elections.
The Washington Post provided a remarkable set of visual charts referencing the Democrat Party decimation10 since BO was elected.
Obama offered additional condescending remarks5 about his successor before heading off on his global denial tour, ostensibly to reassure other nations11 that Trump was fit to lead, despite his previous assertions that Trump was unfit to lead.
This from a president with the most inept and dangerous foreign policy failures12 since James Earl Carter. Indeed, Obama’s tenure is marked by his retreat from Iraq13, resulting in the rise of the Islamic State13 and an epic humanitarian crisis14 in the Middle East.
As further evidence of Obama’s delusional state, he declared “those folks” who voted for President-Elect Trump “are better off than when I came into office.”
No, they are not — and neither is anyone else across the nation.
BO insists, “People seem to think I did a pretty good job. … Perhaps the view of the American people is that you just need to shake things up. I think I can make a pretty strong argument that the policies that we put forward were the right ones.”
Apparently not.
And in remarks from Greece this morning — a national model of the economic consequences when the socialist policies that Obama advocates are fully implemented — Obama had this assessment of the election results: “The more aggressively and effectively we deal with [people’s fears], the less those fears may channel themselves into counterproductive approaches that pit people against each other. And frankly, that’s been my agenda for the last eight years.”
Clearly, Obama’s agenda has been all about “pitting people against each other.”
In the end, Obama succeeded in one area — “fundamentally transforming the United States of America15,” though not exactly as he had in mind. Just prior to the election he declared it would be “a personal insult, an insult to my legacy” if Clinton was not elected. Indeed it was, is and always will be.
As Charles Krauthammer summed it up, “Historians are going to see [Obama] as a textbook definition of a guy who won on hope and change, who won with a wave of goodwill and who completely destroyed his presidency with liberal overreach. … This [election] is a rejection of his ideology.”
That being said, however, BO does not leave office for two months, and there is still plenty of damage he will do. Until then, we must remain vigilant.
On Donald Trump’s entrance…
Like many of you reading this column, last Tuesday I voted for the presidential candidate who vowed to appoint constitutional constructionists to the Supreme Court — appointments critical to the protection of our Republic and its foundational Rule of Law16. I also supported the candidate who I believed, as commander in chief, vowed to extend to all military personnel and veterans the due respect they have earned.
He won.
Since last Wednesday, I have asked many conservatives who didn’t make the transition from #NeverTrump to #NeverClinton17 this question: “You didn’t vote for Trump, but Wednesday morning were you relieved that Trump won?” To a person, they have all responded, “Yes.”
Moving forward, I hope Trump doesn’t forget who brought him to the dance — and follows through with his commitments to appoint conservative justices, to secure our nation’s borders and enforce immigration laws, to restructure taxes and dramatically cut regulations, to strike down Obama’s executive orders, and more. And I hope he’ll demonstrate the humility to make amends with fellow Republicans with whom he failed to forge unity.
But unlike what some of Trump’s most ardent supporters would like to believe, Trump is not going to be the next Ronald Reagan18, as some of his appointments and policies will soon demonstrate.
Will Trump seek to repeal or amend19 Obama’s signature, and inestimably misnamed, Affordable Care Act20? What will Trump’s border and his immigration strategy21 really look like?
It will not look like what he promised in the campaign, but at the same time, the “circular firing squads22” that have threatened both conservative unity and Liberty over this past year must cease and desist. |
