Why Trump Won

 From Daniel McCarthy at The New York Times:

Donald Trump is returning to the White House, and while this will not change what most critics think of him, it should compel them to take a close look in the mirror. They lost this election as much as Mr. Trump won it.

This was no ordinary contest between two candidates from rival parties: The real choice before voters was between Mr. Trump and everyone else — not only the Democratic nominee, Kamala Harris, and her party, but also Republicans like Liz Cheney, top military officers like Gen. Mark Milley and Gen. John Kelly (also a former chief of staff), outspoken members of the intelligence community and Nobel Prize-winning economists.

Framed this way, the presidential contest became an example of what’s known in economics as “creative destruction.” His opponents certainly fear that Mr. Trump will destroy American democracy itself.

To his supporters, however, a vote for Mr. Trump meant a vote to evict a failed leadership class from power and recreate the nation’s institutions under a new set of standards that would better serve American citizens. (Read more.)

 

 From Dana Loesch:

For the better part of ten years I traveled around the country helping to elect candidates, canvas, raise money, and organize. It was exhausting, but I was in my twenties going into my thirties so it didn’t matter. I think back and wonder how on earth I did it with little homeschooled kids in tow.

Ten-plus years later, it’s meaner out there than it was before. There is less room for error. Cancel culture hasn’t fully receded. Not every RINO is marked. The names they, the left, have called us haven’t changed: Bigot, sexist, racist, ist-ist, whatever. What infuriates me, though, is knowing that somewhere out there a young mom is looking over her grocery list, double-checking her budget, and wincing while removing items because inflation is terrible, everyone is broke, and she just wanted to vote for a way to improve it all. For this, she’s called a battered wife, a bigot, a racist. For simply wanting to improve her station in life from the economic status which Democrats have foisted upon her she must be morally deficient. It’s easier for Democrats to excuse their incompetency by blaming the imaginary moral failures of others instead of looking within themselves. This is beyond hurt-and-rescue, it’s hurt-and-shame. (Read more.)

 

From The Daily Wire:

Trump messaged throughout his campaign that Harris and the Democrats were pushing dangerous ideology that Americans didn’t want. He argued repeatedly that the far-left policies the Democratic Party embraced were “crazy.” His assertions were based on polling, both internal and external, as The Daily Wire previously reported, showing that Americans don’t want these radical transgender policies. 

These leftist activists and lawmakers, as Trump put it, are “crazy.” 

“The sickos who are pushing sexual content in kindergartens, or providing puberty blockers to young children who have no idea what a puberty blocker is,” he said in 2022, drawing laughs from the crowd. “Neither do I, by the way. Neither do most of the people in the audience, as you smile.” (Read more.)

From John Hawkins:

In a sense, Obama kind of created that roadmap for the Left. He told every lie under the sun to sell Obamacare, but once it was in place, the attitude was, “You suckers believed me and now it’s too late for you to do anything about it.” All politicians lie sometimes, but that was extremely dishonorable and there are consequences to doing that. If people know you’ll say anything today and just do what you want later, they won’t trust you. They shouldn’t trust you. So, the idea that the Democrats were offering up anything other than radical liberalism is silly. Everyone knew Kamala Harris way lying about much of what she wanted to do and would go way off to the Left, just as she promised Democrats she would during her 2020 presidential run, if she was elected.

Yet and still, getting beyond that, liberals have started to become engaged in another very circular form of thinking that goes like so, “Liberals are the good guys, and whatever we do is good by default. The only reason anyone could oppose us is because they’re bad people. If they oppose us, they must be racist, sexist, bigots, fascists, Nazis, evil people, or maybe all of those, otherwise, they wouldn’t oppose us. (Read more.)

 

From The Federalist:

Back in July after the first Trump assassination attempt, I wrote that there can be no national unity, no burying the hatchet or cooling the rhetoric with people who have been encouraging political violence and pushing assassination prep for years. You can’t smack someone in the face with a hammer and then insist everyone calm down.

Trump’s election victory doesn’t change that. Those in the news media who spent years calling Trump a fascist and comparing him to Hitler, claiming he represents a threat to democracy and that he’ll use his presidential powers to go after his enemies, should not be forgiven. Their lies and nonstop propaganda should not be forgotten. No one should ever take them seriously again. When they try to engage the public square, they should either be ignored entirely or met with a wall of mockery and derision. They are enemies of the American people, whom they openly despise, and there can be no real unity with them no matter what they might say in the future. (Read more.)

 

From The Transom:

Loser: the “we have nothing to offer but abortions, abortions, abortions” portion of the left. Fueled in part by their overperformance on the issue in 2022, there were many on the left who seemed only interested in hammering away on their demands for unlimited deaths for unborn infants, ignoring all other subjects along the way. The single issue abortion voter exists on both sides, but they’re only part of the coalition, and the failure of multiple ballot initiatives on the subject shows that it has lost some of its salience in the years since the shock of Dobbs. What’s more, the unwillingness on the Kamala campaign’s part to sound any moderate notes was a warning sign for religious believers. Harris plummeted in support among Catholics in part because of her insistence that Catholic hospitals, too, would be forced to perform abortions and her failure to have any note of compromise even for late-term abortions. For something that was supposed to be central to her appeal, abortion may well have cost her more than it benefited her in every swing state. (Read more.)

 

From The Georgia Record:

Biden-Harris, instead, governed from the far left:

Causing an invasion of illegal aliens;

Historic high food prices;

Infecting the whole of government with racist DEI policies;

Pushing radical transgendered ideology on children and reluctant parents;

Forcing working-class taxpayers to pay off others’ college loans;

International instability and war as far as the eye can see; and

All while gleefully spending higher and higher amounts of nonexistent money.

Biden-Harris slurred Americans who disagree with them as “Jim Crowe 2.0 racist” and “garbage.”

Disdain for white-Christian-workingclass-Southern-Chick-fil-A eating type of Americans permeates Democrat programs and thinking.

This is not what Biden-Harris promised in 2020.

“Trump is crazy” compared to what?

My Trump Derangement Syndrome is over. (Read more.)

And in Maryland, the trouble with Larry. From Jan Greenhawk at The Easton Gazette:

Larry [Hogan] made some BIG mistakes over the past four years that eroded his support so much that he lost a Senate race that he should have won.

First, there's 2020 and the Pandemic. Even if we give grace to Hogan for dealing with a situation no one had ever dealt with before, so many of the things he did were not done with an attitude of caring for, helping the, and keeping the people of Maryland safe. When he made his initial announcement of closing down everything for "two weeks to flatten the curve," Hogan was dismissive, distant and uncaring about the fact that his announcement was drastic and damaging to businesses, workers, and school students in the state. He didn't even give people time to prepare for the closure. Boom, it was done in ONE DAY.

Hogan followed that up with MONTHS of disastrous decisions, opening big box and liquor stores while keeping small businesses closed, mandating masks and six-foot distancing even when outside in state parks and public areas, and then mandating an unproven vaccine to state workers upon threat of losing their jobs. And, again, his attitude was tyrannical. Remember "Wear the damn mask" in one of his videos?

When people complained he shut them down rudely, even on his public Facebook page. That act got him in trouble.

Let's not forget that he proudly proclaimed he didn't vote for the Republican nominee, Trump, for President in 2020, claiming he wrote in "Ronald Reagan" instead. He never gave a reason. He just hated Trump.

He still could have run for Senate in 2022 and possibly won. Maryland Republicans begged him. Larry said "no." He wanted to run for President. Too many appearances with sycophants on CNN, MSNBC and all the mainstream legacy media gave him the idea that he should. That died quickly when the alleged "No Labels" party couldn't raise the money or support for him.

He demeaned the Republican candidate for Governor and his followers, calling them "fringe whackos." Meanwhile, he cozied up to Democrat Wes Moore taking Moore all over the state under the guise of "reaching across the aisle." Those "fringe whackos" felt betrayed, since they helped him get elected Governor, TWICE! Did we mention he didn't even support the Republican down ballot races? (Read more.)