Trumpistas, get over it.  Your man lost.  I voted for him, reluctantly, because the alternative was worse, but in the end, senile old Joe is fairly in, and Trump is fairly out, and we shall see who is the happier, to paraphrase George Washington.

The way I see it, 4 years ago Trump was a sharp stick in the eye of a Washington establishment that richly deserved it.  For all his manifest faults, he was just the messenger to deliver the thrashing and wake-up call they needed.  But 4 years of Trump proved to be more than enough message for most people.  The country is still deeply divided (disturbingly and dangerously so) and the problems that Trump highlighted haven’t magically disappeared; the results down-ballot, where the Republicans prevailed across the board, prove that in spades.  But it’s sheer fantasy to think that the American people are going to endorse another revolution or start another civil war.  Been there, done that, the results were a mixed, sorrow-filled bag, and we’re still repairing the damage.  Whatever happens is going to be done through the system by reform, not by burning it to the ground and starting over.

And that goes for the Democrats, too, even more so.  Their playing footsie with the radical left, which also wants to burn it to the ground, proved to be – oh, let’s be nice – a serious strategic mistake.  But more importantly, it was a profound substantive mistake.  The American people are not about to endorse a Marxist utopia, which, as anyone with half a brain and a lick of sense knows, has failed everywhere with murderous, poverty-inducing consequences.  The lessons they should take from this election are that (1) Trump the deeply-flawed man lost, but (2) the policies he championed won, and (3) the far left lost big-time.  Feeble old Joe and over-ambitious, under-qualified President-in-waiting Kamala just happened to be in the right place at the right time, not that most of the electorate is happy about it.  The radicals are a cancer eating the Democratic Party, and if they are not excised, and soon, they will destroy it.

The election was, for all the insane apocalyptic rhetoric spewing from both sides, a demand by the electorate for moderation: America first, but without slighting our allies and friends; decoupling from China, which is not our friend (or anyone else’s), while avoiding a hot war; common sense on climate change rather than senseless, counter-productive rejection of carbon-based fuels; a firm rejection of the hate-filled, counterfactual, every-white-person-is-a-racist mantra of the left, without pretending that all is hunky-dory between the races; and on down the line. 

Perhaps the Biden (soon-to-be Harris) Administration will have the good sense to build on Trump’s successes, such as the beginning of the end of the Israeli-Arab standoff, to learn the lessons of Obama’s failures, such as the Iran nuclear deal, and to tell the radicals to buzz off.  Or maybe not.  Were I a betting man, I’d bet on the latter, what with so many Obama retreads joining the team. 

Which just means that the Republicans are going to have a golden opportunity in 2 years to take the House and cement their control of the Senate, and in 4 years to take the White House – if they can find the right candidates. No more bomb-throwers need apply; we’ve had enough of them for a long while to come.  It’s a good thing the American republic is resilient enough and rich enough to withstand 4 years of almost anything.

• Kenneth D. Gough © 2020