Voting for change assures only one thing – something diffrent.
Voting for “something different” is almost never a guarantee the “something” will be a significant change or even a change for the better. Democrats and “Independents” who suffered from a terminal case of white guilt or were simply tuned into the virtue signal of voting for the Second Black President (according to Toni Morrison, Bill Clinton was our first), voted for Obama to bring “Hope and Change” and got neither – at least in a positive sense. They hoped Obama would usher in the long-awaited change to the Gilded Age of the Progressive Utopia and instead got a horrendous socialist policy mess that nationally has cost them over 1,000 seats at the state and federal level.
Now the pendulum has swung like a pendulum do (with apologies to late, great Roger Miller) populist Republicans, NeverHillary folks and disaffected blue-collar Democrats voted for their version of change and got Donald J. Trump.
The notorious DJT has done some good things for his sponsoring party but seems destined to leave a similar trail of missed opportunities and political wreckage as did his Democrat predecessor. It is early, that much is true, but given he treated as somewhat of a curiosity by actual conservatives (sort of like the way a child looks at a new, exotic zoo animal), is brutally opposed by the Democrats, their media enablers, the NeverTrumpers and somewhat less brutally by the GOP Dem-Lite establishment, the route to success is somewhat unclear at this point.
Will President Trump’s term (terms?) end in similar losses for the GOP?
I doubt it.
America has had its flirtation with the promised Progressive Utopia, coming as close as it has since FDR to going the Full Marxist Monty, and it scared the hell out of the very people Marxism is supposed to benefit. Instead of Utopia, America saw Dante’s descent into Hell.
Most Americans don’t admit to being ideological but they do know when they are being sold a bill of goods – working people of all descriptions intuitively know that there is no such thing as a free lunch and while they may not take to the streets, Nixon’s Silent Majority lives and does not buy into the idea of Christians being forced by government to bake the damn cake for gay weddings, that men are men and women are women (and not just in the Wild, Wild, West) and that America is not overtly or institutionally racist, bigoted, Islamophobic or homophobic (even if it hates radical assholes of all colors, shapes and sizes).
America stared into the Abyss and saw the Abyss looking back.
The progressives know how close they came to success in pulling the wool over America’s eyes. That they got so close and got the cigar the way Bill gave it to Monica induced rage and madness. Trump wounded the beast and a wounded beast fights most fiercely when its life is in the balance. That’s why the Proglodytes are hell bent to rend the fabric of the Constitution on their way to a Pyrrhic victory. They would rather be chairmen of the central committee of a smoldering pile of rubble than accept the fact that they were weighed, measured, and found wanting in the court of public opinion. That America elected a white, rich, short fingered vulgarian to replace a community organizing affirmative action Lightbringer was just rubbing salt into a sucking chest wound.
Where will we go from here?
I’m just not sure. I do think that the nomination and confirmation of conservative jurists to the various benches is emblematic of a recognition that judicial battles will continue apace as the progressive judiciary tries to keep the progressive train on the tracks through judicial activism (whether you are for or against Trump’s travel ban EO, you can’t deny that there are progressive judges who will fight any such regulations with tooth and nail). If President Trump has no legislative successes whatsoever, at least these judges can serve to hold the line.
I remain optimistic that the GOP will hold Congress in the 2018 mid-terms and in 2020. I don’t know if Trump will run in 2020, a lot depends on how hard the next three years are and what the outcome of the 2018 elections yields. Perhaps 2020 will provide an opportunity for conservativism to finally find solid footing in a committed Congress and President.
I do believe, contrary to all the loud wailing of its media fanbois, fangurls and transfans, progressivism took a shot in 2016. Methinks it protests too much. It has been sorely wounded.
Whether the wound is mortal, only time will tell.
The Rio Norte Line 
Excellent post! My crystal ball is usually full of broken glass but I remain convinced that evil that is socialism must be entirely eradicated and until it is the “abyss” is still there waiting for the lemmings to charge into it. In the meantime, we the people can and should impose term limits at the ballot box. For certain, the Congress will never do it for us.
I wonder if Trump will run again in 2020 also. How much of the B.S. he is getting from the Democrats and Fake Republicans can he take? Also last week it was aired that he has lost over half a billion in personal monetary value since he took office……….. there has to be a number that is too much.
McConnell and the Flake/ McCain GOP are holding up the nomination and confirmation of all those Conservative jurists.
They are the enemy at this point.