The Progressive media and its minions have been having a meltdown because of the “surprise” 2016 Trump victory, which delivered not only a presidential win, but Republican dominance in the Senate and the House. In the aftermath of the election, Progressives have demonized nearly half the electorate—and nearly half the American population if we count the extended families that encompass Trump voters—as evil, racist, and all around bad people.
That Progressive response, evident in the anger and rage exhibited in recent public demonstrations throughout the country, reflects the erroneous belief by Democrats that the victory was stolen from them. While acknowledging the real pain felt in their loss, nevertheless, this temper tantrum was founded on the mistaken notion that Progressive authoritarianism could retain power seemingly ad infinitum and that the media could and should spin truth out of a web of lies to ensure perpetual victory, rather than admit that the Democratic defeat was the outcome of a failed agenda.
Progressives need to acknowledge the painful truth: President Obama blew his opportunity to ensure Hillary Clinton’s victory and, by extension, secure his legacy. Had he focused on economic growth, rather than his highly partisan agenda of fostering global social justice at the expense of domestic prosperity, Americans, who are pragmatists at heart, would have embraced continued Democratic governance. But as economist Larry Mishel acknowledged in an article published in The New Yorker, incomes and economic opportunity never recovered from the post-2008 financial meltdown. Today, household incomes are less than those in 2007 when we factor in inflation. Still worse, the average household income in 2015 remains comparable to that of 1998.
Republicans have for years been seeking a strategy to win the allegiance of the working-class white voter potentially sympathetic to conservative values. Thus in 2002 when Tim Pawlenty was running for Governor of Minnesota, he emphasized that the Republican Party was “the party of Sam’s Club, not the country club.” That perspective gained traction for a while as Republicans tried to develop this political base. Nevertheless, characterizing conservative-leaning white working-class voters as “Sam’s Club” members—shoppers seeking consumer bargains—minimized their concerns, their beliefs, and their values. It took Donald Trump to tap into their hearts and minds and bring the Movement’s message home.
Bottom line: Many Americans felt that their country had abandoned them for a global agenda antithetical not just to their interests, but American interests as well. The Trump movement became a crie de coeur to renew skilled manufacturing jobs, as well as bring home corporate capital parked offshore and with it renewed economic opportunity.
For the Movement to succeed Trump must revitalize the economy so that hard-working Americans and their families can, once again, win. Trump must deliver health care that is affordable and provides quality care. He must reassert national borders and strong defense while ensuring that all American citizens—all ethnicities and all social classes—have access to economic opportunities that foster prosperity. Illegal immigrants with talent, skills, and drive should have a pathway to citizenship. Education should be about excellence and choice. If Trump succeeds, he will shift the boundaries of allegiance, bringing increasing numbers of Hispanic and African-Americans into the Republican fold so that the new Republican Party, in effect, becomes the political multicultural force of the 21st century.
If Trump fails, the Republican Party threatens to slide into insignificance. Worse still, it could become the party that Progressives wish it to be—a party of disaffected white Americans increasingly diminished, increasingly angry, increasingly irrelevant and susceptible to violent outbursts steeped in hate and racial bias.
But that Cassandra prognostication fails to state the obvious. To will Trump’s defeat is, in all probability, to will America’s defeat. Trump must succeed in reinvigorating the Republican Party to become the economic powerhouse of the 21st century. That would create job opportunities that would foster social integration in America. That renewed prosperity would be culturally and ethnically inclusive, encompassing Hispanics and Blacks, Asians and Native Americans, and members of the white working class, not to mention Generations X, Y (Millennials), and Z. In short, a Trump economic revival would encourage enterprising Americans to recommit themselves to the prospect of opportunity and the business of success.
If the Movement fails, it won’t just represent a Republican failure. In all likelihood it will represent America’s defeat as a great nation. Then, all the social justice in the world won’t restore Humpty Dumpty, a.k.a. Uncle Sam.
Dr. Diana E. Sheets is a Research Scholar at the University of Illinois. She writes literary criticism, political commentary, and fiction. Much of it can be read on her website, www.LiteraryGulag.com. Her latest book, The Doubling: Those Influential Writers That Shape Our Contemporary Perceptions of Identity and Consciousness in the New Millennium, published by Nova Science Publishers, will be available in December.