Impossible they cried! You are being deceived! He can’t win the election!
Over the last days and weeks, we read the MSM and Republican leadership’s criticism of Donald Trump. From Erick Erickson’s declaration that no one who supports Trump is a Republican or conservative and will lack any credibility in the future, to the pundits all indicating that the Trump supporters are xenophobic, islamophobic or simply racists. All of this while polling continues to show strength for Trump by those same supporters.
Now, I have no divining rod or special skill to determine the future, but as I read much of this criticism, I think that all of these talking heads miss an important point. Donald Trump isn’t a Republican, he’s not a conservative and he’s not a politician. No, Donald Trump is none of those things. He is however a revolutionary!
Read the following quotes from some of our Founding Fathers. Ask yourself what party they belonged to, whether they were conservatives or liberals, politicians or establishment types and reflect upon these words in context of our current political environment:
The situation in which I now stand for the last time, in the midst of the representatives of the people of the United States, naturally recalls the period when the administration of the present form of government commenced, and I cannot omit the occasion to congratulate you and my country on the success of the experiment, nor to repeat my fervent supplications to the Supreme Ruler of the Universe and Sovereign Arbiter of Nations that His providential care may still be extended to the United States, that the virtue and happiness of the people may be preserved, and that the Government which they have instituted for the protection of their liberties may be perpetual.
Washington’s final annual message to congress – December 7, 1796
Freedom is no longer free, it is a constant struggle…
Posterity, you will never know how much it cost the present generation to preserve your freedom. I hope you will make good use of it. If you do not, I shall repent in heaven that ever I took half the pains to preserve it.
John Adams
Some things are worth fighting for
The battle, Sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave. Besides, Sir, we have no election. If we were base enough to desire it, it is now too late to retire from the contest. There is no retreat but in submission and slavery! Our chains are forged! Their clanking may be heard on the plains of Boston! The war is inevitable; and let it come! I repeat, Sir, let it come!
Patrick Henry
As I considered the phenomenon that is Donald Trump, I am struck by how few in the political class understand what is really going on. We are experiencing a new American Revolution. On the one side is Trump as the quintessential outsider. On the other side are those who would lord over us, the entrenched and all too politically correct, the establishment. But it is Donald Trump, through his wealth and celebrity that has lit the fire of rebellion amongst the voters in this country.
While the first American Revolution was fought with armies and bullets, this revolution is fought with voters and social media. When those early revolutionaries fought the British, they did so in unconventional ways. They fought from behind trees, used guerilla tactics and killed many of the British redcoats who stood to fight in the traditional terms of that great empire! Donald Trump, while no George Washington, is giving voice to the same revolutionaries, who like the declaration of Patrick Henry, are willing to fight for their freedom and their liberty.
The pundits state unequivocally that Trump is hitting down, unfocused and unrepentant. We are told that his campaign team is tired of trying to reign him in and make him seem more presidential. Others, including the MSM, decry his daily criticisms of those bought and sold by the establishment and the Clintons. This includes his latest criticism of Khizr Khan, whose law firm and whose Sharia sympathies are anything but focused on the Constitution!
However, we the people are being crushed by a government that spends our children and grandchildren into an impossible burden, restricts opportunity through the weight of unbridled regulation and limits opportunity by defining “success” through the prism of equal outcome.
Those who were to fight for us are much like the Loyalists in the first American Revolution, prefer the status quo, the reasoned outcome and the dominance of the existing system. However, the current revolutionaries will have none of it. We are told to open our borders to all matter of illegal and dangerous immigration, denounced for our own American children’s desire to “dream” about their opportunities, divided amongst race, creed and sexual orientation and remanded to the whims of the state through the coercive nature of that bureaucracy.
Trump has been called erratic and undisciplined, but that belies what I believe is his strategy. Keep them talking about him while he keeps the MSM, the Democrats and the establishment on their heels. Trump has given voice to a new revolution. And unlike the violence of the first American Revolution, we are using the tools of social media, the new media and of course our own organizing principles to upend the status quo. The existing regimes of both left and right have been more interested in their own perquisites and status than governing in a fair and just manner.
During the Revolutionary War, only three percent of the people actually fought against Great Britain.
Only ten percent of the citizens actively supported that three percent.
Approximately twenty percent considered themselves to be on the side of the Revolution, but they did not actively participate.
Towards the climatic end of the war, approximately thirty percent actually fought on the side of the British.
The rest of the citizens had no disposition either way. They didn’t care. They didn’t want anything to do with what they deemed to simply be a political issue. And we might just be seeing that in the Democrat base who is anything but enthusiastic about Hillary!
Throughout the month of July, Trump beat Hillary in all but one poll. He has spent little money and yet even with her convention bounce, Trump is within striking distance. Can Trump and his revolutionaries change the political history of America? It remains to be seen. And while it is clear that without the French, America would likely still be part of the British Crown, today’s revolutionaries no longer require the blockades. They are using the tactics of celebrity, media and their own networking abilities. Perhaps we can call upon one last historical figure, John Paul Jones, when he was asked to surrender. His response, “I have not yet begun to fight!”
Mark A. Skoda is a founding member of the Reagan Lincoln movement within A Shining City On A Hill. The organization is made up of self-described conservatives, Tea Party activists, Independents, Libertarians, disillusioned Democrats, and even traditional Establishment Republicans who are truly oriented in the tradition of Ronald Reagan and Abraham Lincoln. In addition, he is active in politics on the local and national level advocating for fiscal responsibility and improved government. He has spoken at numerous trade and political events, and provided commentary while appearing on television and radio. Mark has been featured in print nationally and has appeared on CNN, FOX Business, Glenn Beck, CBS, MSNBC, ABC, Associated Press, LA Times; internationally on BBC Radio and TV, NHK Japan, Dutch National TV, Germany, Italy, Spain, Japan, France and Australia.