As the circus that was this election year draws to a close, I cannot help but remark on the strange dichotomy that has riven this country. Donald Trump, as morally questionable character as you might ever meet, battled Hillary Clinton, arguably one of the most bought-and-paid-for politicians in recorded history. And this country became, essentially, bi-polar. A schism was rent in the fabric of our society, as the vocal and easily swayed aligned themselves behind one or the other candidate. Violent “protests” looking strangely like riots erupted as America became polarized behind ideological opposites,.
White middle-class America, tired of being branded latent racists, judged worthy of scorn because of the color of their skin (strangely enough, by other melanin-challenged individuals), and called “white supremacists” – a term once reserved for the skin-heads in a compound in North Idaho – rebelled against academia and the mass-media elites, and said, no more will we avert our gaze, no more will we quietly take your accusations of implicit racism. Or, to put it in a more colloquial verbiage, they said, essentially, “Screw You.”
This election became a referendum against the progressive agenda. The failed messiah Barack Obama, who promised so much and delivered so little (except some pretty decent turns on the back nine), became a sort of rallying cry for “flyover country.” As he sat quiescent while Black Live Matter protests smashed and burned their way through suburbia, strangely silent as ghost-funded busloads of professional protesters clamored against a Trump presidency in supposedly “spontaneous” outrage….complete with their pre-printed, laminated protest signs, working class America decided that they’d had enough.
So, while Donald Trump may not be the paragon of virtue most might hope for in a presidential candidate, he still became, in essence, “At least he’s not THAT!”
As middle-class moms and struggling entrepreneurs watch their insurance premiums double and triple under ObamaCare’s gentle ministrations, as they watch President Obama decry racism in the Republican’s approaches to immigration reform while he continues to quietly deport millions of brown-skinned “immigrants,” they’ve basically said enough is enough.
And so we are at a crossroads. A tilting point. Do we continue down the ultimately self-destructive road that the progressive’s messiah started us on, or do we cautiously hope that maybe, just maybe, we can stem the tide of enlightened self-immolation upon which the past administration has set us?
Donald Trump is far from a paladin of virtue, some noble knight in whom we might otherwise expect the noblest of intents. But. He is, at least, a tremulous hope to which we might cling, as we strive to halt this nations slip into irrelevant oblivion.
Time will tell if we have chosen well.