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by Justin Soutar
Fourteen years ago, in the middle of
President Barack Obama’s first term, I wrote and published a series of essays
on this blog entitled “ElectionWatch 2010” about that year’s senatorial, congressional,
and gubernatorial elections here in the United States. In 2009, the Tea Party
movement had emerged within the Republican Party as a national popular reaction
to the big-government corruption of the Obama administration and Democratic
politicians controlling the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, as well
as to their establishment Republican accomplices. This grassroots movement
sought to peacefully overthrow the immoral, pork-barrel, debt-ridden, bureaucratic
monstrosity of the wayward federal government; to return political authority to
the people to whom it rightfully belonged; and to restore legitimate government
in accordance with the Constitution of the United States based on the nation’s Judeo-Christian
founding principles of individual liberty, respect for human life, marriage,
and family, small government, low taxes, a balanced budget, a free market
economy, patriotic education, secure borders, and a strong national defense.
With massive public support, dozens of Tea Party Republican candidates across
the nation easily won election to the House, taking majority control of that
chamber, and several were elected to the Senate that year as well. The ElectionWatch
series concluded with “America’s Pro-Life Elect—2010,” an accurate and comprehensive
list of pro-life candidates and incumbents elected and re-elected.
I ran another, more extensive
ElectionWatch series in the middle of Obama’s second term in 2014, which saw an
even more spectacular Tea Party wave election in which Republicans further expanded
their House majority and took over the Senate. Finally, I wrote and published
one ElectionWatch essay each in 2012 (when Obama fraudulently won a second
term), in 2018 (when Democrats narrowly won majority control of the House), and
in 2022 (when Republicans narrowly regained a House majority). Now, the popular
essay series is back for 2024 with Election Watch as two words and a brand new logo.
Unfortunately, while the Tea Party
movement’s strength has grown to the point that it is now the dominant force
within the Republican Party, it has enjoyed very minimal success in achieving
its goals. This is partly because many Tea Party candidates, after serving just
a few months in public office, began to gradually compromise their ideals and principles,
becoming part of the corrupt establishment they had initially set out to reform
and replace, and partly because increasingly radical Democratic politicians
have perfected the arts of intimidation, slander, bribery, blackmail, and vote
fraud to maintain the big-government status quo and retain their grip on power.
Having conspicuously failed to knock down the corrupt, unconstitutional
bureaucracy and replace it with sound constitutional
government, faithful Tea
Party Republicans have been limited to realizing an occasional minor victory
for human life or religious liberty here or fiscal responsibility or national security
there; restricting the damage being done to the country by self-serving
establishment (mainly Democratic) politicians; and striving to hold these politicians
accountable for their outrageous corruption and seemingly endless abuses of
power.
The Tea Party movement secured a
major victory in 2016 when wealthy New York businessman and political outsider Donald
Trump was elected president, defeating Hillary Clinton in the Electoral College
while narrowly losing the national popular vote. With his character flaws and apparent
lack of conservative credentials, he was an unlikely Tea Party leader, and many
observers and voters, including this one, did not trust him to fulfill his
campaign promises. (I wrote Ben Carson in that year.) Thankfully, we were
proven wrong. Although Trump did not fully succeed in draining the Washington,
D.C. swamp and restoring federal sovereignty to the people in accordance with
the Constitution and our traditional Judeo-Christian values, he made some
significant progress in that direction during his four years in the White
House, establishing his credibility as a conservative by implementing 67
percent of the recommendations of the Heritage Foundation. Thus Trump earned
the support and trust of the American people, who took notice of the many
positive changes in their country from the Obama era and prepared to re-elect
him handily. In retaliation, corrupt Democratic (and some Republican)
politicians and their Big Government, Big Media and Big Tech allies
relentlessly attacked him, banned him from Twitter, and employed massive voter
fraud in the 2020 presidential election to evict him from the White House and
replace him with their puppet, former Senator Joe Biden, in direct violation of
the will of the voting majority. (Trump won Ohio by eight points in 2020, and the
Buckeye State is generally representative of the nation as a whole, so I
suspect that in the absence of fraud in Democratic-controlled states, Trump
would have won the national popular vote by a similar margin, resulting in an
electoral landslide in his favor.)
Illegitimate President Joe Biden and
his establishment cronies have wreaked far more havoc on the United States in
three and a half years than Barack Obama did in eight: greatly accelerating
expansion of the federal bureaucracy, spending, and the national debt,
contributing to record high inflation; weakening our economy with excessive
social welfare programs and dependence on the Middle East and Communist China;
abusing the FBI to spy on and harass traditional Catholics, God-fearing
parents, and political dissidents as “domestic terrorists”; abusing the FDA to
approve chemical abortion pills for sale in big pharmacy chains in all fifty
states; encouraging the proliferation of radically secularist gender ideology, Black
Lives Matter, and Critical Race Theory propaganda in public and private schools
alike; promoting dangerous gender transition surgeries for minors; approving
enormous amounts of taxpayer funding for Planned Parenthood; attempting to
cancel college student loan debt by executive order; attempting to abolish
state election laws and the Electoral College, further increasing the existing
potential for vote fraud; seeking to destroy the reputation, financial assets,
and electability of his leading political opponent while evading accountability
for his own corruption; underfunding our police and military, resulting in
soaring crime rates in major cities and lack of preparedness for war; allowing
Communist China to spy on us and continue stealing our intellectual property; opening
our borders to a flood of illegal immigrants, including dangerous criminals and
drugs; and unfortunately, the list goes on. This national nightmare would have
been totally unthinkable just twenty years ago. Thankfully, the American people
have awakened to the grim reality that the D.C. establishment has set their
country on a path to certain destruction: Sleepy Joe now has the lowest
approval rating of any first-term president in recent memory.
This brings us to 2024, a
presidential election year like none other. At this time in previous years, at
least a dozen different candidates would be vying for the nomination of the
political party out of power. This year, the Republicans have only one viable
candidate for president: Donald J. Trump, our rightful president in exile. In
fact, Trump is now unquestionably the leading political figure in the United
States. There are three primary reasons for this unique state of affairs. The
first is the unprecedented nightmare situation of our country as partially
described in the above paragraph. The second is Trump’s proven leadership
record during his four years in the White House, which speaks for itself. And
the third is that Trump was busily laying the groundwork for his presidential
comeback long before any of the other contenders had even begun to organize a
sound campaign strategy.
For many months now, Trump’s
arrogant and hate-filled establishment enemies have been desperately trying to
eliminate him as a 2024 presidential candidate at any cost. They’ve used
psychological warfare, incessantly promoting their own establishment-friendly
candidates and negatively portraying Trump and his chances through Big Media;
used the FBI to raid his home at Mar-a-Lago; arrested him, taken his mugshot,
jailed him, dragged him into court on fake charges, and convicted him of crimes
he did not commit; and attempted to remove him from the ballot in multiple
states. So far, all of these efforts have failed miserably, and many of them
have backfired spectacularly: Trump is now the presumptive Republican nominee
for president, is raising more money than ever before for his presidential
campaign, and is clearly leading Biden in nearly all of the key battleground states
that will decide the election. Even more surprisingly, this month, Trump and
Biden were tied in several voter polls in Virginia and Trump was one point
ahead of Biden in a poll in Maine—both states previously deemed to be securely
in Biden’s column. Furthermore, polls now indicate that a plurality of Hispanic
voters and about 30 percent of black voters nationwide side with Trump against
Biden, both significant increases from four years ago.
Trump’s remarkable staying power and
political success thus far, despite having the deck overtly stacked against
him, have not been merely accidental or the result of chance. His unwavering
focus, courage, determination, and persistence, as well as the steady support
and prayers of tens of millions of Americans, have contributed significantly to
his resilience. In addition, history teaches us that in times of social chaos,
economic uncertainty, and moral decline, a nation’s people will unite behind a
strong leader who offers clear solutions to their problems. In the America of
2024, which is a nation in grave crisis, Donald Trump is that strong leader
with a clear vision of how to rescue the country from annihilation and restore some
measure of her former greatness. This largely explains his enduring and growing
appeal. Voters are flocking to Trump’s camp because they understand that he
represents them, not the D.C. swamp, and because they know that he will keep
his campaign promises a second time.
The other crucial and often overlooked
factor in Trump’s political return has been his campaign strategy. As explained
in detail in Karl Rove’s autobiography, Courage
and Consequence, the elements of a successful political campaign include
early fundraising and communication with voters at the grassroots level; clear and consistent stances
on the handful of issues most important to voters; and targeting specific
groups of voters that will be essential to victory on election night. Trump has
been hard at work doing all of this and more since he was thrust into the
political wilderness in January 2021, giving him a tremendous advantage over
his challengers for the Republican presidential nomination. Tens of millions of
Americans of all ages, races, and education levels have attended his MAGA
rallies, heard and cheered his speeches in person and on TV, and donated to his
campaign. Trump’s business savvy has certainly served him well in this regard.
Finally, we cannot ignore the fundamental
role of Divine Providence in Trump’s comeback. He has taken center stage in
American politics because God, who “governs in the affairs of men” (Benjamin
Franklin), has thus far delivered him from the evil conspiracies of his—and our—enemies
and exalted him for His own purposes. History offers innumerable examples of
how God can use a flawed human being to accomplish his designs. In his wisdom
and love for us, God is unwilling to simply abandon our profoundly troubled nation
to ruin. He wants to rescue us from evil and give us another chance to return
to our founding principles. Many signs indicate that restoring Donald J. Trump to
the White House is an essential part of that plan. May God continue to guide
and protect him in his noble quest to defeat Crooked Joe and the other traitors to our country, and may the Blessed Virgin Mary intercede for him and help him
to stay the course in the difficult weeks and months ahead.
Copyright © 2024 Justin D. Soutar.
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