Gary Bauer: End Of Day - 11-6-24 - A Historic Victory, Trump's Grand New Party, The Blame Game

As I was thanking God last night watching the returns come in, I was also thanking Him for all you! Our work in defense of Faith, Family, and Freedom would not be possible without your prayers and sacrificial giving. Each and every one of you played a vital role in this victory. So, thank you and congratulations! Now, let's get to work making America great again!

A Historic Victory As you know, Donald Trump won a historic victory. His amazing political comeback makes him the first president in nearly 130 years to win two non-consecutive terms and only the second president in history to accomplish that rare feat. Trump not only prevailed, he also had coattails that swept a new Republican majority to power in the U.S. Senate. This critical victory means that Trump will be able to confirm more conservative judges to the courts. We're still pouring through all the results. It will likely take the rest of this week (and perhaps longer) to call every race and to analyze what the results mean for the future. But already there are some important lessons to be learned. Below are some observations.   Trump's Grand New Party Donald Trump's reelection is a victory for conservative populism. He has remade the Grand Old Party, and the old Republican establishment has been humiliated. Not only is the left reeling, but the hidebound GOP old guard is also reeling. Here's a depressing fact: There are seven living former Republican presidents, vice presidents, or GOP presidential and vice presidential nominees. Only one of them supported Donald Trump. That was Sarah Palin – the vice presidential candidate the GOP establishment despised. Bush, Romney, and Ryan were AWOL, while Dick and Liz were actively helping the left. To the Cheneys: Don't let the door hit you on your way out! When a coach makes a great trade -- getting a star player in exchange for a mediocre player -- we say, "This guy is brilliant!" Well, Donald Trump traded the Cheneys for Elon Musk, Joe Rogan, Tulsi Gabbard, and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. That's a great deal, in my opinion! Trump's Big Tent For years, the GOP establishment has prattled on endlessly about needing to be a "big tent" to attract more voters, especially minority voters. But their way of "expanding the tent" almost always involved sacrificing conservative values. Donald Trump expanded the GOP coalition without compromising conservative principles. The left has been doing a lot of horrible things to the country. But their strategy of identity politics -- dividing us into tribes (especially by race and gender) to keep us at each other's throats for their own political benefit -- is the worst. They put that strategy on steroids in this race against Donald Trump. Unlike every other Republican who ran from it, Trump didn't back down. Instead, he ran into the teeth of it. The left spent billions of dollars calling Trump a racist. He got 25% of the black male vote and flipped a heavily black county in North Carolina. The left spent billions of dollars calling Trump a xenophobe because he wants to secure the border. He won 54% of Hispanic men. He became the first Republican presidential candidate to win Florida's Miami-Dade County in 30 years. All the left's predictions of demography destroying the GOP were blown up last night. The left spent billions of dollars saying Donald Trump hates women. He did much better with female voters than anyone expected, while Harris struggled with a gender gap among men. How many times have you heard someone say, "Donald Trump is destroying the GOP's chances?" Under his leadership, Florida, Iowa, and Ohio – once brutal battleground states – are now deep Red. Moreover, he has demolished the "Blue Wall" twice. Trump is expanding the GOP's base in the Electoral College. Trump Wins Again   News broke this afternoon that the Biden/Harris Justice Department is conceding defeat in its years-long lawfare campaign against Donald Trump. Referring to Special Counsel Jack Smith's January 6th case and the classified documents case against Trump, top Justice officials reportedly "see no room to pursue either criminal case." That said, Jack Smith will be responsible for "unwinding the charges," and no one should expect him to do so responsibly or quietly. The Deep State is terrified right now. A Trump campaign spokesman responded to this news, saying: "It is now abundantly clear that Americans want an immediate end to the weaponization of our justice system, so we can, as President Trump said in his historic speech last night, unify our country and work together for the betterment of our nation."       The Blame Game Grab the popcorn and take a seat. There's going to be one heck of a fight in the Democrat Party over whose fault this is. Some are blaming Walz. Some blame Harris for not picking Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro as her running mate. Some say they never should have pushed Joe Biden out. Some say Democrats have gone too far left. Some say they aren't left enough. By the way, did anyone else notice the huge difference between Biden's vote in 2020 and Harris's vote last night? So far, she's got 67 million votes. We're told that Joe Biden got 81 million votes four years ago. If that's true, it seems that Democrats somehow misplaced 14 million voters! Where are they? If you find them, give me a call.

An Election Lesson In addition to all the political analysis, this election also had a lesson for Christians. Sometimes Christians fall into the trap of thinking, "I want nothing to do with politics. It's too worldly. I'm just going to sit in my church and pray." That is theologically ill-conceived. There is also a temptation to fall for the opposite mirage – that political engagement is everything and that all we have to do to save the country is register more people to vote. What we must understand is that it is both of those things. Unless we're ingrates, we need to be Christian citizens to save America. We also need to fervently pray. God helped David to defeat Goliath. But there still needed to be a David to go and fight the actual battle. Good News & Bad News We won big victories against crime in California. A ballot initiative overturning many of the state's soft-on-crime policies passed overwhelmingly. In addition, George Gascon, the Soros-funded district attorney in Los Angeles County, got crushed last night. Several states approved election integrity measures, including the battleground state of Nevada, which overwhelmingly approved a photo ID requirement to vote. And an amendment putting pot in the Florida constitution failed. Now the bad news. Thankfully, we defeated the pro-abortion candidate who spent billions of dollars thinking that her best chance to reach the pinnacle of American politics was by standing on a mountain of aborted babies. Unfortunately, we continue to lose ballot referenda on the abortion issue itself, and I don't have the answer yet. Of the ten states voting on abortion ballot measures yesterday, we lost seven and won just three. But we only won in Florida because the state requires a supermajority vote to amend the constitution. Keep Praying Many Americans were deeply worried about what could happen over the course of the past year. Two assassination attempts were certainly bad enough. But between now and January 20th, every tyrant in the world, from Ayatollah Khamenei to Kim Jong Un, Xi Jinping to Vladimir Putin, is wondering if they should make a move in the remaining 56 days of this weak administration before Donald Trump says, "So help me God." Keep praying, my friends!