Today is the day Donald Trump sets his hand on the same Bible that Abraham Lincoln used and becomes commander-in-chief. Like Lincoln, he’ll follow a failed president and – we hope – bring America back toward a path of greatness.
The establishment media – and both parties’ leadership – will say the same thing of every one of his proposals: “He can’t do it.” But Trump has already beaten his opponents so many times… and he’s not even president yet.
- He ran for president. As Trump descended the golden elevator in Trump Tower to announce he was running for president, everyone in D.C. said they knew that he wasn’t serious. Trump’s campaign was “a long and calculated con job,” according to the liberals at Salon. It was inevitable that he would pull out before he even entered the race – just like he did in 1988, 1999, and 2012. But on June 16, 2015, the political novice jumped into the world of politics with both feet.
- He refused to apologize for telling the truth about illegal immigrants. In his very first campaign speech. Trump made waves with his bold call to build a wall, control illegal immigration, and make sure Mexico no longer sent drugs, criminals, and rapists north of the border. The media gasped; Trump had said the unthinkable about “undocumented workers” and DREAMers – the people the urban upper class pegged as future of our diverse, multicultural America. Then Kate Steinle was murdered by an illegal immigrant who had been deported five times, because San Francisco is a sanctuary city. Suddenly, Trump’s rhetoric didn’t seem like bigotry; it seemed like common sense. Then the polls showed that the billionaire was the one candidate bringing our message to the political elites.
- He beat the entire GOP Establishment. Jeb Bush had this nomination in the bag. He had the name, the money, the endorsements — everything you need to win any other year. But he couldn’t convince savvy voters. Jeb wasted $150 million of other people’s money with hardly a delegate to show for it. Not only did Trump rattle “low-energy” Jeb in the debates, but he beat back 15 other opponents who engaged in wild wishful thinking – from Ohio Gov. John Kasich saying he would win a brokered convention to Ted Cruz naming his vice president – to become the nominee. Even after he won the nomination, Republican Party hacks told ABC’s Jonathan Karl that Trump would “voluntarily” quit the race – and give the GOP kingmakers a chance to name his replacement. But Trump toughed it out. Now The Washington Post reports that those Republicans are worried they won’t get a job in the Trump White House. Cry me a river.
- He forced the party to take a loyalty oath…to him. At the very first debate, the moderators asked the question the Establishment demanded they ask: Will you vow to vote for the Republican presidential nominee and no one else? Donald Trump refused to take the bait. The party went ballistic and chided him by putting a written statement, which all candidates must sign – a loyalty oath to vote for the Republican presidential candidate. Trump eventually signed – and when he won, the same politicians who insisted he signed it broke the promise themselves, exposing themselves as the bankrupt pawns and liars they are. It was a thing of beauty; the hunter fell into the trap he lay himself. The GOP Establishment tried everything it could to box in Trump, not realizing that with every step, they were digging their own graves.
- He exposed the Clintons. Every one of The Horn readers knows the Clintons have been the most smarmy, corrupt, criminally negligent political dynasty in American history. But few people have been willing to take the gloves off the way Donald Trump did. He invited Bill Clinton’s rape victims to the second debate. He coined the phrase “Crooked Hillary.” He exposed Benghazi, the Clinton Foundation’s pay-to-play corruption, her homebrew and hack-prone e-mail server, and told Hillary Clinton she should “be in jail” to her face. He said what every one of us says to the TV set every time the Clintons are on. He had no fear.
- Trump insisted that everyone accept the results of the election. The Establishment just never learns. After an 11-year-old video of Trump making lewd comments leaked, everyone insisted the election was over. No one could recover from that. The question was whether Donald Trump would have the decency to shut the Hell up and get off-stage as quickly as possible after his blowout election loss – or would he say that an election where too many illegal immigrants voted was “rigged”? Like the GOP loyalty oath, the media started a firefight with Trump over whether he would accept the results of the election. President Obama even said it was impossible to hack an election. Now the Democrats are busy trying to pretend that Russia did just that. Again, they fell into the trap they set for someone else.
- He won. The mood just before the election was dire. Trump was supposed to lose in a yuge landslide – and Republicans would lose the Senate, maybe the House. Trump would be wiped out, losing Republican strongholds like Utah and maybe even Texas. Instead, he won states where no Republican had won in decades – blue collar states like Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.
- He beat the recount and Electoral College coup. Officially, it was Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein who asked for recounts in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin – but Hillary Clinton’s fingerprints were all over it. Trump’s votes actually increased – and the recount found massive voter fraud in suburban Detroit. Then the Democrats tried to sway members of the Electoral College to vote for Hillary instead of Trump. But come December 19 when the electors voted, Hillary actually lost more electoral votes than Trump: She lost five – including one to Faith Spotted Eagle – to his two.
- He told the Establishment press to shut up – and the country cheered. CNN and Buzzfeed leaked another phony story, this one about Russian intelligence allegedly blackmailing Donald Trump over strange practices he engaged in with prostitutes. The entire report was a lie – something confirmed by intelligence agencies and Vladimir Putin himself. At his press conference, Trump ignored CNN’s Jim Acosta, who tried to shout a question out over the rest of the crowd, telling him: “You are fake news.” After a string of e-mails showed CNN feeding Hillary Clinton’s campaign debate questions and journalists clearing their stories with the Clinton campaign before printing them, it’s about time someone called out their bias. Bravo!
- Trump’s already creating jobs and growing the economy. Obama has suffocated energy jobs and manufacturing – along with every other sector of the economy. Trump has promised massive tax cuts and cutting back deadly anti-business regulations – and the economy is already turning around. The stock market has climbed from around 18,000 just before the election to just under 20,000 today – a massive upswing for the global financial sphere. His tough talk on tariffs may have also convinced Carrier and U.S. car companies to keep some jobs in the U.S. General Motors is investing $1 billion and creating or keeping 7,000 jobs in the United States in the next few years. Ford will invest $1 billion and create 700 jobs in Michigan. Now, the Establishment press is saying Trump going to “inherit” a strong economy. Wrong! Thanks to lower taxes, less regulation, and his business know-how, we can hope that all Americans will enjoy a stronger economy in the next four to eight years.
At noon today, Barack Obama slinks out of office, and Donald Trump becomes president of the United States. That is itself a win for the country – but based on Trump’s record, it should be the first of many wins for the American people.
— The Horn editorial team