The Trump Effect: A sleeping giant awakens
During the eight years of the Obama presidency and the four years we suffered under pResident (not a typo) Biden, some of us wondered how bad things would have to get in order for people to wake up.
The difference between what the Left was telling us and our lived reality was incandescently obvious. Conservatives wondered why, for example someone would prefer paying $3.49/gallon for gasoline rather than $2.19.
The abysmal failures of the Left at local, state and federal levels seemed never-ending.
During the COVID lockdowns we learned that many of our public schools were embedding transgender ideologies and distorted histories into academic subjects.
We were stunned to see our military leave our Bagram airbase and vehicles, hardware and weapons worth billions of dollars in the hands of the Taliban.
We watched as our Transportation Secretary took extended paternity leave during a supply chain crisis.
We saw Congress and Biden dither while Americans were left homeless after two hurricanes tore through six states just in time for winter.
We were horrified to see wildfires destroy much of Lahaina and roar through Los Angeles while our elected representatives shifted blame.
Locally, New York City Mayor Eric Adams is under investigation for corruption, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass is under scrutiny for her abysmal failures related to the wildfires, her deputy is on leave for calling in a bomb threat, and Brandon Johnson in Chicago is being confronted in public meetings for his failure to stem rising crime.
All of these catastrophes occurred against a backdrop of an invasion across our borders, skyrocketing inflation, conservatives being censored and de-banked and citizens being targeted by weaponized bureaucracies.
Meanwhile the Democrat Media Industrial Complex told us everything was going along swimmingly, except the climate, of course, which would kill us all unless we stopped burning fossil fuels and started eating bugs.
As a matter of fact, the Democrat party still informs us on their platform that President Trump left an enormous mess for Biden/Harris to clean up.
According to them they created over 16 million jobs, cleaned up the environment, tackled climate change and, if you can believe pResident (not a typo) Biden they even beat Medicare.
Then Nov. 5 happened. Donald Trump won the election, the popular vote, and all seven swing states while Republicans took the House and the Senate. It looks like people are finally waking up. And it's not just here. Moderates and conservatives are making inroads elsewhere as well.
In Argentina, pro-free market Javier Milei ended 2024 with an approval rating of 51.8 percent making him the most popular president in South America. Argentinians must still deal with austerity measures before their economy fully recovers but the citizens seem optimistic. He recently confronted the World Economic Forum, telling them that socialism "condemns people to poverty."
Voters in Germany and France are turning against leftist policies as evidenced in the European Union Parliamentary elections last June.
"Firstly, the elections were a political earthquake in Europe," said Dr. Nile Gardiner, a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation. "They were a massive rejection of open borders, mass migration, the far left, green agenda that is being pushed by many European governments. It was also a statement against a growing centralization also of the European Union. And it was an emphatic, Euro-skeptic vote in many, many European countries. And so, voters across Europe rejected the ruling socialist or progressive liberal elites from Germany to France to Spain … to Belgium, to the Netherlands. And so this was one of the most significant electoral outcomes in recent European history."
In Italy, conservative leader Giorgia Meloni has overseen a 64% plunge in illegal immigration by cracking down on smuggling and enforcing border policies. Her popularity continues to rise as she takes a common-sense approach to solving the problems her country faces.
Marine Le Pen in France is similarly gaining ground. Mathieu Gallard, a pollster at Ipsos explained her growing popularity this way:
“A normalised Rassemblement National party means a party with plenty of local barons on the ground, and that means alternative power bases to the national leadership,” Gallard observed.”
Meanwhile, in Canada, Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre, has nearly three times the support of committed voters (47% compared to 18% for the Liberals) in this year’s general election.
These seismic shifts are being reflected in our news consumption. "Since November 5, Fox News has drawn 72% of the primetime cable news audience, with MSNBC averaging 576,000 viewers, down 57% from the period of 2024 up to Election Day, and CNN averaging 378,000, down 49%." The Washington Post had 22.5 million daily visitors in January of 2021. Now it’s drawing only 2.5 million to 3 million daily visitors and has lost $100 million last year.”
A grassroots effort called the Rino Removal Project has begun. This group vows to hold Republicans such as McConnell, Murkowski, Collins and Crenshaw who align themselves with the Democrats accountable by threatening to vote them out of office.
Will these movements persevere? Will those who’ve recently awakened remain alert, or will they become complacent and fall back asleep?
Only time will tell.
Image: Official portrait // public domain