Charles Hurt - Still Winning: Why America Went All In on Donald Trump—and Why We Must Do It Again

T his is the story of the unlikeliest of heroes emerging from the unlikeliest of places to take up the impossible cause of an almost forgotten people. They are people who love their country, trust their higher God, obey laws, and will do anything for their family and neighbors. Among them are farmers, factory workers, military veterans, police officers, small contractors, truck drivers, stay-at-home moms, and retirees. They believe in an America founded on bedrock principles aimed at guaranteeing freedom and justice for all. They understand that America is not perfect and never has been, but they believe those founding principles ensure we are always working toward an ideal of fairness, striving for equal justice under the law, and always humble before God. These Americans are not racist. They are not stupid. They are not backward. Some of them have not gone to college but are well-schooled in the basic American ways of hard work, duty, and compassion.

It is fair to say that these citizens are the moral as well as the lineal descendants the Founders dreamed of when they hatched the radical idea of replacing a despotic monarchy with self-governance. It would take a special people to grasp and hold this startling concept that mans rights come directly from Godnot from a king, not from a government, and certainly not from the corrupt kleptocracy that our government has become. These are the very people the Founders believed could be trusted to make all the decisions about who should lead a free and just governmenta government strictly limited in both power and reach.

Who are these people? No characteristic defines them more than this: They are people who work. They work for a living. They work to eat. They work to support their families. They work two jobs, three jobs, maybe four jobswhatever it takes. They work when they get off work to make life better for themselves and their families. To improve their homes. To improve their land and property. They work to help a friend who is trying to start a small business. Many work so long and hard that they start their own small businesses, and then they hire other people who work. They are people who volunteer. They are people who are the first to open their wallets and pocketbooks when a catastrophe strikes. And if the trouble is close enough, they are the first to show up with their pickup trucks or their boats or their chain saws or whatever they have that might help a neighbor in need.

It is a given among these people that America is exceptional in its compassion as well as its power. They understand that military might is the key to protecting our constitution and our freedoms against the cesspools of barbarians throughout the world. They are cheered by those posters showing a warship teeming with fighter jets, with the words 100,000 Tons of Diplomacy. They believe in borders because they love America and want to live in America. Not Canada. And not Mexico. They believe America is smiled upon by God, in return for our commitment to freedom, fairness, and equality.

This is also the story of a Leviathan governmentthe most powerful force in the history of mankindthat has become dangerously unmoored from the people it represents. From the people for whom that government is supposed to work. It is the story of how elites and the politically comfortable who control both parties in Washington seem to be in another world, insulated from reality. In their smug arrogance and hostile indifference, these leaders dont even realize how much the people they are supposed to represent despise this uncontrollable monster they have spawned along the Potomac.

So, after more than a generation of relentless despair over the mess in Washington, where could faithful Americans turn? Betrayed at every juncture by all breeds of political swamp rats, was it all hopeless? Or was there a promising glimmer just over the horizon? Or could there be, as my dear mother would ask, reaching for the book of Esther, a leader for just such a time as this?

When Donald Trump descended the glass escalator of Trump Tower on June 16, 2015, much of America was amused that this sultan of brashness and pomposity would have the gall to offer himself as a viable candidate for the presidency. Most of the American political establishmentalong with their handmaidens in the mediatreated the prospect as an aberration perhaps worthy of a footnote in the annals of political history. But the Donald made good copy, often irresistible copy, as it slowly became clear that this flamboyant and deeply narcissistic businessman and entertainer was deadly serious. But that did not breed respect among many; it only served to stoke an irrational hatred of the man and a determination to stomp out the little fires of loyalty that were starting to pop up.

An almost visceral contempt set in among the media as well as virtually every established politician. They harshly denounced Trump for his message about illegal immigration, unfair trade with China, radical Islamic terrorism, and coddling enemies like Iran. He was branded as a racist, a xenophobe, an isolationist, and as a dangerous, violence-inciting war-monger. Never in modern political history has the media establishment, across the entire political spectrum, fallen into such unquestioning, total lockstep agreement. Left wing, right wing, all around town, almost every media mouth denounced Donald Trump as a reckless demagogue hell-bent on shredding the Constitution and becoming some kind of dictator.