President-elect Donald J. Trump, with Barron and Meliania

Whether one loves him or hates him, or neither loves nor hates him, no one can deny that former president, and now once again president-elect, Donald J. Trump has managed to achieve one of, if not the, greatest political comebacks in American political history – greater, in my mind, than that of Grover Cleveland in 1892 or of Richard Nixon in 1968.

The Democrats, to be honest, made it easier for Trump to succeed. Biden’s administration has been a dumpster fire. His domestice and foreign policies have been nothing to cheer about, and his decline in mental acuity became so obvious to so many for so long that people didn’t appreciate the Democrat’s efforts to cover it up. In fact, I think that was one reason the Dems lost so badly – the American people didn’t trust them. When Biden was unceremoniously tossed aside and Harris raised up without so much as one person voting for her as the Democrat nominee, this, too, was a huge negative for their party. They shouted and screeched so much about the threat to democracy that Donald Trump is, it seemed that they had forgotten that they hadn’t bothered to democratically elect their own nominee . Instead, Kamala Harris was crowned the nominee, put forward by Biden in such a way that no one was expected to question her as the chosen one.

Then, when Harris chose, for some bizarre reason, to hide herself from the press for weeks before and after the nomination, people started wondering what she had to hide. When she finally emerged, people learned exactly what she had to hide – nothing! Nothing, as in no plan for her administration. Her answers to questions were so vague and empty of content that people began to conclude that she was empty of content. When she was asked what she would have done differently from Biden over the last four years, she said she couldn’t think of a single thing. Not a single thing. As such, people very reasonably concluded that a Harris administration would be a continuation of the dumpster fire that had been the Biden administration, in spite of her efforts to flip-flop on many issues upper-most in people’s minds, such as the border crisis (where she now claimed to was in favor of a wall!), and fracking (which she now claimed to not oppose, in spite of years of opposition). The bottom line is: people didn’t believe her. And her position on abortion was not enough to carry her because most Americans don’t believe that abortion ought to be available, no questions asked, up until the day of birth. Finally, her positions on transgenderism, including taxpayer dollars going toward sex-change operations for the incarcerated, and her support for men competing in women’s sports, was enough to kill any chance she had of attracting a majority of men voting for her. Harris lost the male vote, not because men are sexist and they don’t want a woman president, but because lots of men have daughters, and they don’t want their daughters sharing pools, fields, courts, or locker rooms with men. Period. This should not be controversial. In fact, why are we even entertaining the idea? The fact that Harris not only entertained the idea, but insisted on it, is a big reason she lost the male vote.

As for Trump, what can I say? He does seem to have calmed down a bit from his raving lunatic days of 2016 and 2020. His talk is less braggadocious and his victory speech was actually conciliatory. He says he wants to be a president for all Americans (of course, every victorious candidate says he wants to be a president – or senator, or governor, etc… – for all). As far as the dictator quotes from the man who will soon be the most powerful person in the free world, most voters seemed to take it in stride, not taking Trump seriously in his threat to use the government as a weapon against his enemies. Besides, they’ve had four years of Joe Biden doing that, so what’s to change? I wouldn’t doubt if many of Trump’s supporters hope he does use the reigns of power against his enemies.

Perhaps one of the best things Trump could do in the opening days of his presidency is pardon Hunter Biden. No, he doesn’t deserve it. But too much of the visceral partisanship in this country has been spent on the matter of Hunter Biden’s exploits. We need to move beyond it. In the same vein, I think those prosecutors who have cases against Trump ought to drop them now. We don’t need this. As a country, we need to do our best to come together, and the on-going Hunter Biden affair and the on-going lawfare against Trump is going to contribute nothing toward that goal and everything toward keeping people divided. Does Trump deserve to go to jail? Maybe. Does Hunter Biden deserve to go to jail. Yeah, he does. But neither will do us any good as a country. Let’s move on.

As for Catholics, 58% favored Trump, against 40% for Harris. That’s the largest gap among Catholic voters in decades, even more than the 15-point gap between Biden and Trump in 2020. What does that mean? It means that Catholics no longer, if they ever did, vote according to concerns of the faith. Catholics vote the same way everyone else does – according to their wallets and what politicians call “kitchen table issues.” Personally, I don’t think that’s a good thing. But most Catholics, like most Americans, let their politics shape their faith, rather than letting their faith shape their politics. Too bad. I don’t think Jesus would want it that way.

So, get ready for another four years of President Donald Trump. Truthfully, while I didn’t vote for Trump or Harris (I voted for Peter Sonski, the candidate for the American Solidarity Party, a party that is very close to Catholic teaching in its policies), I do pray that Trump does well. God bless America, please!

Be Christ for all. Bring Christ to all. See Christ in all.