Reflection on Trump's victory

I did not vote for Donald Trump and I did not expect him to win.  I fully expected Hillary Clinton to win last night. My greatest hope for the evening was that Republicans could hold the Senate. That is what had me anxiously watching the election returns   I thought a weakened Clinton as president with a Republican Congress was the best possible outcome. Four years of obstruction and gridlock with a weakened Hillary Clinton on the ropes was, I thought, the best possible outcome.

I had and still have reservations about Trump, especially on trade policy and government spending and Trump's temperament. However, I am pleased that Obamacare will be repealed and replaced and that a Conservative Justice will fill the vacancy on the Supreme Court. 

Despite not voting for Trump, I could not help myself but get excited as I saw the vote tallies come in. It may just be tribal identity and team loyalty, but I was cheering for a Trump win. My head still thinks he may be a danger and is a big-spending liberal, but my gut was cheering for a Trump win. 

Now that he has won, I hope Republicans will regain their values and stop Trump's  proposed massive new spending programs and new entitlements and a trade war. I hope Trump surrounds himself with good advisers and is really more open to listening to expert advice than he appears and I hope his ego is not as big as it appears. 

Despite not voting for Trump, I am relieved that Clinton did not win. Someone with her recklessness and ethics should not be in the White House. Although I did not vote for Trump, I am pleased with the outcome. May God give him wisdom and give Republicans in Congress some backbone to stand up to him when he is wrong. 

Below are comments gleaned from Facebook from people whose opinions I respect.

From Gene Wisdom:

I was clearly wrong in my judgment that someone of Trump's lack of judgment, temperament, character, and integrity could not win the election (assuming it goes the way it is currently headed). I'll leave aside what that speaks of the American electorate. But I may have been wrong on another consideration: I have long worried, since Trump won the nomination, that his nomination would mean the dissolution of the conservative movement and the Republican Party.

What if I read that wrong (and, of course, here is a huge dash of hope)? Perhaps the anger exemplified in this election is an OPPORTUNITY that the Republican Party should not piss away as they have so often in the past. Now that the GOP may now gain all three political branches (President, House, and Senate), will they now:

--scrap Obamacare and strengthen free-market principles in healthcare?
--seize the opportunity to unshackle the economy from burdensome regulations?
--strengthen the American energy market and finally give some "ooomph" to domestic fossil fuel production and reverse the Obama attempt to destroy the coal industry?
--restore America's military and scrap the social laboratory Obama was turning it into? Will they rebuild American military presence around the world as a deterrent to those eager to displace American leadership in the world?
--continue to chip away at the baby-killing industry of America's abortion "clinics"?
--capitalize on the opportunities to restore common sense and a faithful adherence to the Constitution by the selection and Senate consent to originalist jurists on the High Court, in the mold of Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, and Samuel Alito?
--turn back the educariat's domination of our schools and get back to local control? --cut back on our punitive tax code, especially capital gains that chase American industry overseas? Is America no longer naturally an industrial giant? Was it inevitable that we evolve away from that industrial backbone? Perhaps. But let's let a dose of freedom and incentive have a shot at it. --turn loose the economy, as Reagan did, and bring back actual strong economic growth, not the 1-2% malaise we've been stumbling along with?
--work to preserve and restore religious liberty even while the assault on the family continues apace.

There is anger in this election tonight, for sure. Congress may have to work to channel that anger away from Trump's protectionist predilections, an impulse that could very easily lead us, as my friend Rod Williams has reminded us, into trade wars and even worse economic malaise. We would be foolish to ignore the role of high tariffs in bringing about the Great Depression.

There is a reason that Republicans control the majority of state legislatures, of governorships, and of both houses of Congress: Republican principles of economic growth and a firm grasp of traditional values work. Strong and stable intact traditional families provide a foundation which means boys aren't as likely to wind up in prison and girls aren't as likely to become single mothers.

Is Trump's election a cure-all for all our ills? Gosh no. If it was I would have supported his candidacy. Given his appalling personal qualities, he is not the ideal person to guide us in the direction of the policies above. His election now simply increases the CHANCE that the Congress will steer HIM in these directions.

God be with us.

From Daniel Turklay:

Elections have consequences.

I am not a Trump supporter, but America dodged a giant bullet tonight in avoiding Hillary. Everybody knows it.

I have not had Trump's back in this election and I will be watching him like a hawk along with every other bonafide Constitutional Conservative in this country waiting for him to expose his New York liberal roots, But, what I can say for Trump that I never could say for Hillary is that at least I can root for the man to succeed. The man DOES love this country and he will not be giving any speeches about fundamentally transforming her. I'm rooting for him, but I'm not going to be shocked at all if he's a giant letdown. Trump is fully primed to be the first sitting President to face a serious primary challenge, and I know exactly who will be waiting to do it.

Elections have consequences.

To all of the absolutist political pundits who claim over and over that X can't happen and Y has no chance....your analysis means nothing.

To Obama, your legacy is nothing but a severely crippled national health care system. Your executive orders are about to meet a shredder. Your fundamental transformation of America is a colossal failure. You outkicked your coverage for 8 years and this is what happens. I'm sure you'll spend the next 2.5 months trying to stuff the White House toilets with paper towels and issuing pardons to all of your friends and arming America's enemies.....but I suppose all of that is your parting gift for 8 years that add up to nothing. Good for you. Take your pen and phone with you.

Elections. Have. Consequences. And they start now.

God Bless the United States of America: a Republic, if we can keep it.

Richard Upchurch

Many good people I know are expressing their pain, shock and perplexity. I share some of this with them. Why was the electorate so angry this time? Why have they chosen such an unlikely, inept and unready champion? Perhaps radical and extremist policy has indeed provoked a commensurate reaction. Perhaps the present administration's policies of effective disdain for what is most fundamental in human society has stirred up not reactionary revolution but a dull, inarticulate gesture of uncertain and reluctant insurrection. The voters cast ballots as though believing that in our public life something is deeply amiss but as though they recognize not yet, at this juncture, what they want or need or where they want to go.

Top Stories