The End and the Beginning

Up front, let me just note that there is nothing really America First about keeping a Chinese surveillance app alive, particularly in defiance of American law. It is somewhat surreal that Joe Biden decided to declare the constitution amended on Twitter, and Donald Trump decided to ignore an American law passed by a bipartisan majority of Congress and upheld by a unanimous Supreme Court to placate China. “A republic if you can keep it,” Franklin declared.

Now that I have that off my chest, I have to note that we have a new day dawning in our republic. The 47th President of the United States will shake things up. He’s got experience now. He does not have to wait. In the first hours of his presidency, he will have over 200 executive orders waiting to be signed.

His ascent this second time is possible because of the army of Democrats who decided to protect Joe Biden in his mental decline. Democrats, saving themselves, are finally starting to leak. One of the more notable ones comes from Larry Sabato in this Guardian article.

In public, [Dean] Phillips was ridiculed. In private, others shared his concerns. Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, recalled receiving a call from a Democratic senator in late January or early February 2024.

“I said, ‘Is there any particular reason why you called me? I’d like to know.’ He said, ‘You do realise, off the record, that Joe Biden is not going to be our nominee?’ I was stunned. I said, ‘What, how, why?’ He said, ‘I just was at a meeting with him with several other senators and he couldn’t even function. We can’t run him.’”

Sabato added that the senator in question tried to raise the issue, which angered the White House. “He was punished, as several of them were. They gave him the cold shoulder for a while. The point is that a lot of people had figured it out but they didn’t care. I’m stunned that they got away with it and have produced term two for Trump and it’s going to be the longest four years of our life.”

It is remarkable that Larry Sabato, a regular talking head on television, said nothing to raise the issue about Biden and, if anything, defended Biden after being told about Biden’s decline.

Sabato was not alone. Much of the White House saw Biden’s decline up close and personal. Those immediately around him worked overtime to protect Biden and keep us from seeing him.

Their protection of Biden until they couldn’t protect him on that CNN stage played a role in what is happening today.

Members of the press and the President’s team worked together to shield Joe Biden and deny reality. They argued the GOP engaged in “cheap fakes” and selective edits. They pre-submitted questions for Joe Biden to answer. They muted their criticisms of his lack of availability. They excused his stupid statements as stuttering. They worked together.

But the American people were not fooled.

Today, Donald John Trump will be sworn in as the 47th President of the United States. For years, Democrats and much of the press have insisted he is a threat to democracy. But instead of trying to put a better candidate against him, they sacrificed their credibility and the truth to try to stop him. It did not work.

Donald Trump’s inauguration today will be because of the Democratic Party’s failures and Trump’s abilities and agility to capitalize on those failures. Often in American politics, a candidate who wins does not really win. It’s just that the other side loses.

In this case, Donald Trump well and truly won. He was able to turn on a dime to, for example, get in a garbage truck after Biden’s ‘garbage’ remark that the press tried to cover for. Trump could force conversations into the mix through many means, including hyperbole. It wound up being effective.

And through it all, Democrats and many in the press insisted Joe Biden was fine until they couldn’t and then insisted Kamala Harris was a great candidate after spending four years acknowledging she was not.

For all of Donald Trump’s sordid ways with truth and fact, the real winner of the 2024 election was the truth. And that truth, Joe Biden’s mental collapse and the related cover up, helped Donald Trump immensely.

Over the next four years, members of the press will demand Republicans stand up to Donald Trump. They will be demanding something of Republicans they never demanded of Democrats. The press will become increasingly irrelevant because it will be unable to recalibrate.

Today, Donad Trump will be President again. It is going to be a wild ride. All sides need to remember one fundamental thing. Events change things.