Donald Trump overcame the margin of cheating and an electoral stacked deck to win a clear mandate for change in federal policy. With Mr. Trump at the top of the ticket, the Republican Party saw gains in Texas and across the country including a federal Senate majority and a slight, but razor thin, majority in the House of Representatives. There may have been debate after the first Trump term and re-elect loss but there is no debate now, the Grand Old Party is defined by Mr. Trump and his policy preferences.
For only the second time in my lifetime, a reforming movement of the Republican Party has earned a nationwide mandate for a new direction. That mandate can empower better conservative and Republican policy for over a generation, but only if elected Republicans have the discipline to keep it.
American voters, many of whom have not been historically disposed to vote for Republicans, handed indefatigable Donald Trump and his Republican Party this relatively rare mandate. And in my opinion, the mandate is for the federal apparatus, including Congress, to govern differently than have Democrats, as well as many Republicans too, in the D.C. swamp. Yes this includes policy, but mostly it is about governing in a manner that clearly respects the American people and works to address their mainstream common needs as opposed to catering to ultra narrow interests that are mostly self-serving, insider, and often culturally radical in nature.
There may have been debate after the first Trump term and re-elect loss but there is no debate now, the Grand Old Party is defined by Mr. Trump and his policy preferences.
Republicans did not have the discipline to keep such a mandate the last time around, earned in Ronald Reagan’s 1984 re-election landslide, and the blame lands at the feet of my fellow Texan, George H. W. Bush and his less conservative cohort of the Grand Old Party.
Today’s mandate is similar to that earned by the Reagan movement as it is as much about how one governs as much as it is about specific policies, a reality with which many of our policy eggheads and process insiders will continue to struggle.
What is called Trump’s “populism,” his pro-everyman plain speaking and even pedestrian vulgar approach to what insiders foolishly think of as the Temple of Government, is similar to that of Ronald Reagan sans the overstatement and vulgarity.
Both Trump and Reagan spoke to Americans, the people who actually make the country work, with a sense of pride in the lives, work, and religion of the people they sought to govern. Both loved the people they ran for office to lead. That’s why Trump’s observation that “You can’t lead America if you don’t love Americans” is so powerful. Today’s Democrat Leftist opposition is so openly disdainful of most of the traditional values held by Americans of all races, creeds, and religions that people cannot help but notice even when remaining generally ignorant of politics.
People will accept policy differences and some failures as long as they sense such come with goodwill and from a sober position of working to improve the country as a whole.
Trump also joins Reagan in speaking with deep distrust and dislike of the secular D.C. governing classes who think themselves the betters of the nation’s people as well as believe themselves to have some progressivist right to plan and control the lives of the nation’s people through their so-called “experts.” Or, in the case of the old blue blood Republicans like George H. W. Bush, because of their supposed superior breeding, education, and social manners.
If open opposition to those governing and social traits defines today’s populism, what is wrong with such in a Republic in which the citizen is the sovereign?
Today’s mandate to govern differently, with the good of the regular citizen front and center, grants to Republicans great power to reshape the federal leviathan from an unwieldy self-serving apparatus into a trimmed back machine more focused on serving the people as opposed to dominating them.
Sadly, the ambitious nature of people in politics makes it very hard to keep and nurture a mandate of the people. Keeping and growing such a political mandate requires strong leadership with fidelity to the ideals behind the mandate by its top leaders. People will accept policy differences and some failures as long as they sense such come with goodwill and from a sober position of working to improve the country as a whole.
People prefer beneficial results over claims of bipartisanship and compromise despite what members of the media and self-anointed wise grandees of politics often tell us.
George H. W. Bush, for all his many strengths, went from extreme popularity to the leader who destroyed the Reagan Republican mandate and delivered Bill Clinton into the White House. This happened because he betrayed his explicit promise to the American people of “no new taxes” and chose the path of a D.C. swamp swimmer by putting insider deal making with powerful Democrat political enemies above upholding the principles of what was known as the Reagan Revolution.
Bush killed off the the mandate, setting the course for where we find ourselves at the end of the disastrous Biden term. People prefer beneficial results over claims of bipartisanship and compromise despite what members of the media and self-anointed wise grandees of politics often tell us.
Now it is up to Donald Trump, and at present J. D. Vance, to remain strong and ensure that the mandate earned in 2024 is nurtured and grown to last a generation or more.
I took an immediate liking to the description of the moment given by John Solomon of Just the News when, the day after the election, he wrote: “…Trump engineered a once-in-a-generation political realignment, one more deep and pervasive than his 2016 shocker as he peeled away long-rooted constituencies from the Democrat Party. The electoral movement may soon be known as D-Exit, the American equivalent of Great Britain’s Brexit departure from the European Union…”
Solomon immediately began to think about the endurance of the mandate. He summed up his column with thoughts that were in my mind as well, writing: “How long D-Exit lasts will depend on how Trump and GOP govern with the mandate voters gave them Tuesday. And that means the hard work begins next week.”
…that which Messrs. Trump and Vance must not stray from… is governing with the needs of the American people always above the needs and desires of the political classes and the Washington money, power, and influence machine.
It will not be easy and there will be necessary policy shifts critics, especially critics from within the movement, will use to denounce them as turncoats to the cause. But that which Messrs. Trump and Vance must not stray from, keeping faith with the millions of voters who crossed traditional boundaries to support them, is governing with the needs of the American people always above the needs and desires of the political classes and the Washington money, power, and influence machine.
Ronald Reagan is beloved because he truly and openly loved America and Americans. Donald Trump is respected by many for similar reasons but such is a respect easy to lose the moment it becomes clear that insider political horse trading becomes more important than the lives of those people who cast votes in elections.
The moment the people feel you are not working for them but for other interests, the mandate is over.
Trump’s victory: A mandate, if you can keep it.
For only the second time in my lifetime, a reforming movement of the Republican Party has earned a nationwide mandate for a new direction. That mandate can empower better conservative and Republican policy for over a generation, but only if elected Republicans have the discipline to keep it.
American voters, many of whom have not been historically disposed to vote for Republicans, handed indefatigable Donald Trump and his Republican Party this relatively rare mandate. And in my opinion, the mandate is for the federal apparatus, including Congress, to govern differently than have Democrats, as well as many Republicans too, in the D.C. swamp. Yes this includes policy, but mostly it is about governing in a manner that clearly respects the American people and works to address their mainstream common needs as opposed to catering to ultra narrow interests that are mostly self-serving, insider, and often culturally radical in nature.
There may have been debate after the first Trump term and re-elect loss but there is no debate now, the Grand Old Party is defined by Mr. Trump and his policy preferences.
Republicans did not have the discipline to keep such a mandate the last time around, earned in Ronald Reagan’s 1984 re-election landslide, and the blame lands at the feet of my fellow Texan, George H. W. Bush and his less conservative cohort of the Grand Old Party.
Today’s mandate is similar to that earned by the Reagan movement as it is as much about how one governs as much as it is about specific policies, a reality with which many of our policy eggheads and process insiders will continue to struggle.
What is called Trump’s “populism,” his pro-everyman plain speaking and even pedestrian vulgar approach to what insiders foolishly think of as the Temple of Government, is similar to that of Ronald Reagan sans the overstatement and vulgarity.
Both Trump and Reagan spoke to Americans, the people who actually make the country work, with a sense of pride in the lives, work, and religion of the people they sought to govern. Both loved the people they ran for office to lead. That’s why Trump’s observation that “You can’t lead America if you don’t love Americans” is so powerful. Today’s Democrat Leftist opposition is so openly disdainful of most of the traditional values held by Americans of all races, creeds, and religions that people cannot help but notice even when remaining generally ignorant of politics.
People will accept policy differences and some failures as long as they sense such come with goodwill and from a sober position of working to improve the country as a whole.
Trump also joins Reagan in speaking with deep distrust and dislike of the secular D.C. governing classes who think themselves the betters of the nation’s people as well as believe themselves to have some progressivist right to plan and control the lives of the nation’s people through their so-called “experts.” Or, in the case of the old blue blood Republicans like George H. W. Bush, because of their supposed superior breeding, education, and social manners.
If open opposition to those governing and social traits defines today’s populism, what is wrong with such in a Republic in which the citizen is the sovereign?
Today’s mandate to govern differently, with the good of the regular citizen front and center, grants to Republicans great power to reshape the federal leviathan from an unwieldy self-serving apparatus into a trimmed back machine more focused on serving the people as opposed to dominating them.
Sadly, the ambitious nature of people in politics makes it very hard to keep and nurture a mandate of the people. Keeping and growing such a political mandate requires strong leadership with fidelity to the ideals behind the mandate by its top leaders. People will accept policy differences and some failures as long as they sense such come with goodwill and from a sober position of working to improve the country as a whole.
People prefer beneficial results over claims of bipartisanship and compromise despite what members of the media and self-anointed wise grandees of politics often tell us.
George H. W. Bush, for all his many strengths, went from extreme popularity to the leader who destroyed the Reagan Republican mandate and delivered Bill Clinton into the White House. This happened because he betrayed his explicit promise to the American people of “no new taxes” and chose the path of a D.C. swamp swimmer by putting insider deal making with powerful Democrat political enemies above upholding the principles of what was known as the Reagan Revolution.
Bush killed off the the mandate, setting the course for where we find ourselves at the end of the disastrous Biden term. People prefer beneficial results over claims of bipartisanship and compromise despite what members of the media and self-anointed wise grandees of politics often tell us.
Now it is up to Donald Trump, and at present J. D. Vance, to remain strong and ensure that the mandate earned in 2024 is nurtured and grown to last a generation or more.
I took an immediate liking to the description of the moment given by John Solomon of Just the News when, the day after the election, he wrote: “…Trump engineered a once-in-a-generation political realignment, one more deep and pervasive than his 2016 shocker as he peeled away long-rooted constituencies from the Democrat Party. The electoral movement may soon be known as D-Exit, the American equivalent of Great Britain’s Brexit departure from the European Union…”
Solomon immediately began to think about the endurance of the mandate. He summed up his column with thoughts that were in my mind as well, writing: “How long D-Exit lasts will depend on how Trump and GOP govern with the mandate voters gave them Tuesday. And that means the hard work begins next week.”
…that which Messrs. Trump and Vance must not stray from… is governing with the needs of the American people always above the needs and desires of the political classes and the Washington money, power, and influence machine.
It will not be easy and there will be necessary policy shifts critics, especially critics from within the movement, will use to denounce them as turncoats to the cause. But that which Messrs. Trump and Vance must not stray from, keeping faith with the millions of voters who crossed traditional boundaries to support them, is governing with the needs of the American people always above the needs and desires of the political classes and the Washington money, power, and influence machine.
Ronald Reagan is beloved because he truly and openly loved America and Americans. Donald Trump is respected by many for similar reasons but such is a respect easy to lose the moment it becomes clear that insider political horse trading becomes more important than the lives of those people who cast votes in elections.
The moment the people feel you are not working for them but for other interests, the mandate is over.