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Opinion | Morgan Liddick: What the Trump election was, and wasn’t

Okay everyone, step back from the edge. Last week’s election was not the end of Creation, Life-As-We-Know-It, or even the United States. It may be a further step toward the dissolution of the Republic, or finally, a step toward its renewal. Time and actions will prove which.

While we wait, let’s dispel some developing myths about what the election was; that will help us see more clearly as events unfold. So:

No, Mr. Van Jones. The election was not a “whitelash” – a reaction by white America to a nation “going brown.” Tuesday’s results were forged by normal Americans across the country who were sick and tired of being called racists by Progressive elitists, when in reality their only offense was to disagree with the Great Lurch Leftward presided over by Barack Obama.



No, Ms. Moodie-Mills, this election was not about “white supremacy’s last stand,” or fear of “the other.” What fear there was, was fear of losing what remains of the freedoms this country was founded to preserve. Born as a nation with a miniscule and limited central government but an abundance of possibilities, we have become a place where not a business is built, not an irrigation ditch dug nor dirt track scratched out save by the say-so of a government that wants to dictate what kind of a light bulb to use, how much water should come out of a shower head and what one must think about man-caused global warming. Tuesday last was a shout of “Enough” from citizens tired of far-off bureaucrats who think they know better about how one should live one’s life than the one living it.

No, Mr. Reid. This was not an explosion of “hate and bigotry in America.” It was an expression of indignation at an administration and a capital drunk with power and blind to the concerns of everyday Americans that your candidate thought so cowed that they would accept any insult and so stupid that they would swallow any lie. They weren’t and they didn’t.



No, Mrs. Clinton. This was not evidence that “more Americans than we thought” disagreed with you, although they did, and do. It was evidence that more Americans than anyone on the Left thought possible were fed up with the lies, the impossible promises, the misdirection and division that have become the stock-in-trade of politicians concerned with preservation of their sinecures, not the welfare of the nation. Oh, and corruption so pervasive it would turn a buzzard’s stomach.

No, it wasn’t about Russian interference, Director Comey’s letters, Wikileaks or any other excuse you offered to explain your loss. If you hadn’t exposed secret information on a server you demanded to keep your corruptions from the public, Russia would have had nothing to hack and Director Comey would have had no letters to write. If your staff hadn’t thought it was acceptable to talk about the going rate for a meeting or a reconstruction contract in Haiti; or to call Catholics medieval troglodytes, Hispanics “whiney” and “needy” and blacks any number of worse names, Wikileaks would have had nothing to reveal. If your campaign had offered any hope for the future, instead of a statist jackboot in the face forever, you might have won. This loss is on you; all you.

We are now in the post-election phase, when all of those so certain that they and they alone had all the answers; that the Americans who demurred were rustic bumpkins, rubes and idiots; that those who dared question the prevailing narrative of the left were vile racists or, at a minimum, capitalist stooges and wreckers have to face the reality that at least as many of their fellow Americans disagree with them as agree. And the hard truth that in real life as opposed to the progressive version, there are winners and losers. Progressives are the latter this time, and no amount of whining, no amount of calumny, will change that.

All Americans should think hard about what has happened, and think clearly about why it did. This election called for a new direction in policies; it was a rejection of the past eight years, at the very least. It also demanded a new approach to relations between citizens and their government. It would be wise to heed these messages; ignoring them or reviling the messengers will serve only to further inflame those whose indignation at being so belittled has brought us to our present point.

Yes, it’s uncomfortable facing defeat. But for many, it might be the beginning of wisdom. And that would be a good thing, indeed.

Morgan Liddick writes a weekly column for the Summit Daily.


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