Op-ed by Brian Cates
It's been a great week for Donald Trump. First, he delivered a powerful State of the Union address to the Congress on Tuesday night that even many of his usual critics admit featured many dramatic and memorable moments.
He followed it up the next day, with the long-expected acquittal in the Senate trial as both articles of impeachment sent up from the Democrat-controlled House were dismissed by the Republican-controlled Senate.
Out of all the Republicans in Congress, only Senator Mitt Romney of Utah voted with the Democrats to convict Trump on the article regarding abuse of power. More on Mitt in a minute.
First, I want to focus on the fact that Trump is coming out of this months-long impeachment farce stronger than ever.
For going on five years now, the Democrats and the DNC Media Complex [but I repeat myself!] have thrown everything including the kitchen sink at Trump and he's still coming right at them with a smile.
Democrats In Utter Disarray
The Democratic party's primary season kicked off with an absolute fiasco in Iowa, where it quickly became clear that shenanigans were afoot as the wait for the poll results dragged on indefinitely. Then, after releasing partial results that only added to the confusion, DNC Chair Tom Perez called for a “Recanvass”, which means all the Iowa Democrats would be starting all over again. It remains unclear to me whether Perez is asking the Iowa Democratic Party to repeat the same confused process it was following on Tuesday, or if they will make changes to how the voting is done and how the votes are counted.
As predicted in my last column here at UncoverDC, the DNC is once again blatantly rigging the results to steer the nomination away from Bernie Sanders. Despite all the bluster, the radicals in charge of the party know what happens if this process ends up pitting The Crazy Commie Marxist against The Most Successful Capitalist President in History.
Not that anything that happened in Iowa or New Hampshire next week matters all that much, because none of these candidates in this pathetic field stand a chance against Trump in November.
Hillary Clinton Had Every Advantage In 2016 – And Trump Beat Her Anyway
As a President with a record of stunning first term successes behind him, Donald Trump now has every advantage that he did not have in 2016 when he was running against the combined might of the Obama/Clinton Machine.
Hillary Clinton was the designated successor to Barack Obama; she was the one to continue all of his policies from the Oval Office.
Although he had freely circulated among the politically powerful for decades, Trump himself had never run for or held a public office of any kind. He had no track record of political leadership and he was running for the top executive job in the country.
In stark contrast, Hillary Clinton had been a charter member of the Washington exclusive elite club since the early 1990’s, as First Lady for two terms in the White House and then as a Senator in Congress before becoming Obama’s Secretary of State.
Clinton had the backing of every single living former President in the race against Trump. She had the full endorsement of academia, of Hollywood, of the DNC Media Complex…and she still lost.
Heading into this next election, Trump is not just some TV celebrity with a playboy past and a slick delivery uttering promises about what he, as an unproven political leader, will do if voters put him in the Oval Office. He has an actual record of achievements to point to.
The Roots of The Left's Overwhelming Hatred of Trump
The Progressive Left thought it had won the culture war and the fight for the American future by the time the 2016 election arrived. Especially after Obama was re-elected in 2012, the Left had starry visions of a “Permanent Democratic Majority” dancing in their eyes.
Even after incessantly lying to the American public about health care reform among other issues, Obama easily defeated challenger Mitt Romney.
If the voters demonstrated they would re-elect someone who lied to them so flagrantly on such an important topic, that meant the Democrats at last had a voting base that was unassailable. The Republican Party, the Progressive thought leaders assured themselves, was headed for obsolescence and the scrap heap of history! Obama would flawlessly pass the baton to Hillary, and the band would march on to Utopia!
And then a miracle happened!
The band not only didn’t march on; it’s been forced to retreat, and ‘Utopia’ is receding further and further from sight every month Trump remains in office.
This explains what the rest of the American public has been observing since that surprising election night in November of 2016: a long sustained and very loud tantrum on the part of the Progressive Left.
And it's not just the Left that is upset about Trump's continued winning. The ever-shrinking Never Trump movement makes up for its diminished size with increased volume.
Now let's deal with Mitt Romney.
Trump Is Now Leading A Revamped Republican Party
Another huge advantage that Trump has that few political commentators have remarked on, this is now a completely different GOP in Congress than it was when Trump assumed office in early 2017.
Gone are Paul Ryan, Jeff Flake and many of the Never Trump wing of the GOP. Mitt Romney is now essentially isolated on an island all by himself, especially after this vote to convict Trump on a clearly bogus impeachment charge.
Never Trump pundit Jonah Goldberg attempted to sell an absolutely comical take that Mitt is the incredibly brave public spokesperson for a real and vibrant underground GOP wing in Congress that is soon to emerge & join Romney in fighting Trump but Mollie Hemingway wasn't buying any of it.
When Goldberg insisted Mitt is the leader of a viable group of GOP Senators who fully supported removing Trump from office for abusing his presidential powers, Hemingway said:
There are some 250 Republicans elected in Congress and Mitt Romney was the only person to vote this way. Mitt Romney does not have a lot of ideas he's consistent on over the years. He does not have a lot of signature issues. He came to the Senate after a lot of vocal opposition to President Trump. He gave a big speech in Utah during the 2016 election, he's written a lot of op-eds. By voting to remove President Trump, he's achieved his special purpose.
When Goldberg shot back that Trump too has been inconsistent with some of his ideas, Hemingway really got to the heart of the matter:
He reminded people how we lost that 2012 election against Barack Obama, an easily winnable election. He reminded people why Republican voters chose people like Donald Trump and why they are so pleased with him and it reminds people why they are -- he reminds Republicans why they are rejecting that sort of failed leadership of the past, that adopted media messaging that kowtow to Democratic messaging in favor of President Trump.
Goldberg naturally rejected the idea that Mitt represents GOP failure that the Republican base no longer identifies with by saying:
I disagree with that entirely.
Well of course he does. To admit that Romney has now impotently isolated himself would be to admit that this is the exact same situation the Never Trump movement itself now faces. Goldberg can't admit Trump's enemies on the Right are increasingly impotent & losing what little influence they still had.
And so, he is forced to pretend that both Romney – and he – are something they are not: people with growing influence instead of declining relevance.
Brian Cates entered the political arena in March 2012, following the death of Andrew Breitbart. He is currently a political columnist for The Epoch Times and UncoverDC. Brian is based in South Texas and is the author of: “Nobody Asked For My Opinion … But Here It Is Anyway!”
Twitter: @drawandstrike
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