Here in New York we have become accustomed to being treated like two year olds by our Governor, Andrew Cuomo. The most recent example of this is the following quote from him regarding the mixed results from his Covid protocols:

“So the restrictions work, and just to make it very simple: If you socially distanced, and you wore a mask, and you were smart, none of this would be a problem. It’s all self imposed. It’s all self imposed… If you didn’t eat the cheesecake, you wouldn’t have a weight problem.”

This is outrageous on more than one level. Of course, if President Trump had said it, the media would have immediately labeled the claim as “baseless” and “divisive”; Twitter and FaceBook would add a fact check disclaimer to clarify that not all cheesecake eaters have weight problems, and late night “comedians” would have “joked” about his obesity; but Cuomo gets an Emmy for leadership. Did anyone else not know that there was such a thing? The opening words of the quote really point to part of the problem, “…just to make it very simple…”. For all the talk about “following the science”, people want it to be simple science, like third grade science, and despite their inability to understand anything much more complex, Science is seldom that simple. Many weight problems can’t be boiled down to “put down the spoon fatty”, and the science of all that Covid is doing to our society isn’t resolved by some thuggish governor saying “Just wear da’ mask!”. Please, oh please, understand this, when someone asks you to have faith in Science; having faith in Science is an oxymoron. Skepticism is rather an integral part of good science, and trusting scientists is not exactly the same as following the science, but most people are too lazy to actually follow the science, much less challenge it. Today’s science is a snapshot of what we understand today, and constantly changing in response to new research, and the challenges of skeptics who are sometimes the ones who are beckoning science onward by their very challenges. If you want to “follow the science”, don’t get comfortable, or dogmatic (dogma has no place in science). I had seven children, all 18 months to two years apart, and was amazed how infant care science changed with each new arrival, in a matter of months. Science is not a stagnant pond, but a rushing river; more so in this time, it’s far from simple.

Of course people like Governor Cuomo have little interest in Science except Political Science, and how the rest of science can be used in that pursuit. His willingness to call out the obviously stupid people (he as much as called them that in the comparison to the “smart” people), and the “cheesecake eaters”, demonstrates a disturbing trend on the political and societal landscapes; shaming. Shaming has become the tactic of choice in the manipulation of others to your will. It began with the concept of political correctness, and has only been exacerbated with the permeation of social networking and the 24 hour news cycle. Others are excoriated for expressing a contrary opinion, or for supporting a different political figure, or even for just being wrong… they are not by this tactic intended to be corrected, engaged, or debated; they are intended to be silenced and cancelled, but not enough to just cancel them, they must be debased and humiliated, because in so doing the shamer exalts themselves as superior… “I’m thin because I resist cheesecake… I’m smart because I wear a mask… I’m better than most people…” Only after fulfilling the lust for superiority are they content to have people change to mimic their superiority. The manipulation of shaming is of course effective in a superficial bullying way, that’s peer pressure; but it effects no essential change in people; instead it builds resentment, resistance, and rebellion.

Maybe it seems obvious to me because I raised those seven children, seven toddlers, seven teenagers, seven young adults; but let me tell you, shaming works well until about the age of three or four, after that it has diminishing returns, and by the time they’re teenagers and young adults shaming only encourages the behavior you wish to discourage, and in the end alienation. In shaming, you make yourself the accuser, the condemner… the Enemy. The Enemy can only succeed by breaking and conquering… is that who you want to be? Governor Cuomo has cast himself in the role of the parent who annoyingly asks, “Why can’t you be more like your brother?”. Instead, try being a friend, a supporter, a counselor… a true leader.

It is often the fallacy of parents and politicians to suppose that all problems can be boiled down to simple solutions, but that is seldom the case with children, and never the case with society. It is annoying when reality intrudes on the magnificence of our supposed solutions. In parenthood this annoyance often expresses itself in criticism, shouting, and anger. The same is true in politics. Shaming is a destructive tool used to bend people to your will, and is by it’s very nature contrary to Liberty, and un-American. When manipulation is the goal, rather than essential change, the end result is increasing coercion and eventual despotism, when shaming is not enough. I want to think we are better than that.

Their quest for power has become the lust for blood. They see demons in every shadow, monsters in every closet. Children, they deem witches; the aged, sympathizers; common men they accuse of wicked motives and heinous crimes. They have come to believe their own hyperbole. They impugn guilt to the innocent, and damnation to the guilty. They are the New Inquisition. They tilt at windmills, and we have become their mortal enemy. They fight an imaginary war, but with very real weapons; and so we are all in jeopardy.

There is always a degree of animosity in any election, as there is in any contest (go to a sporting event in Boston if you don’t believe me!). This election cycle though, that animosity was beyond the pale, and was the culmination of 4 years of simmering rage, failed strategies, and an in-your-face style of a man who did not behave like a politician. Added to this was the daily reporting of just how truly “horrible” this man was, and without any redeeming characteristics or positive accomplishments whatsoever; and how despite this, so many people seemed to support him; the Nobel Prize nominations, the massive rallies, the social media, the Trump election signs. The contest became more than an election, it became Judgement Day for Trump. Like over the top sports fans, not just desiring to win the game, but cheering for an injury to the opponents’ star player, it was not enough to simply win an election, Trump needed to be humiliated, punished, and cancelled. Republican Presidents have always been ridiculed and despised by the left, always with hyperbolic rants about fascism, stupidity, and Hitler analogies… they really need some new material. In my lifetime, though, I’ve not seen this level of hatred against any President, where criticism was without pause, ridicule was without decency, and assassination was regularly suggested and even cheered. It was hatred unfiltered, and that without civility or the moderation of polite society. So overwhelming was the hatred, that it extended beyond Trump, to his wife, his children (even Baron), political supporters, companies whose owners spoke well of him, and yes, even the simple men and women who were pleased with his policies, economy, and initiatives. They have become the mean girls in school, “If you like her, you can’t sit at our table!”. One might have thought with the apparent success of the election, that this hatred might have been assuaged, but alas, hatred is like cancer; and no cancer ever says “It is enough.” It metastasizes and attacks the entire body. Lists are being compiled, sympathizers must be held accountable, Trump voters must be re-educated and absorbed, resistance is futile.

Insults to Trump supporters continue from all quarters of the left. Much has been said about how unseemly it is to be a sore loser, but might I contend, even more unseemly is the sore winner. Those who cannot win with grace, those who cannot sheath their weapons once the war is done, only prove that their victory was unmerited. It is a conundrum to me, and I speak concerning the normal folks I know, the losers seem content and hopeful, and the winners still seem angry. In the words of one of my most faithful readers,

“As Christians we should be acquainted with the poorly understood truth that what looks like defeat can be the prelude to victory. The disciples were stronger after the crucifixion than before it. May we learn greater patience and perseverance from recent events, and may they serve to strengthen us.”

This is maddening to the haters. As we shrug our shoulders at the election, return to our families, our faith, and our jobs, they derive no satisfaction from our apparent refusal to lose our minds, to lose our heart, to lose our peace, to lose our faith. If hatred knows no satisfaction even in victory, faith and hope know only contentment, even in defeat.

To my friends on the left, and yes, to a few on the right, guard your friendships, guard your relationships, and guard your souls. Political leaders are fair game, they participate in a violent sport, and can usually recognize it as sport, as Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have in their reconciliation, or as Trump and Cruz did in theirs. But believe not every voice that steers you toward hatred, rather search things out for yourselves. No longer do we have arbiters of the truth. The mainstream media and social platforms have chosen a side, but so have the alternate media. If you must be angry, then be angry… but be focused, and for God’s sake be informed. Forgive liberally, and be quick to walk away from your anger, do not become addicted to it. People can be wrong without being evil. Those who see demons in shadows have never seen actual demons. Those who think there are monsters everywhere, have not known monsters. They who cast children as villains and citizens as devils have not experienced the presence of evil. Darkness and hatred filter down from above, but goodness and decency, civility and kindness, will not be found in some royal figure from Camelot. These things come from the bottom up, these things are found in the hearts of the humble and the small. Thus, we ultimately are less concerned with who sits in the oval office, than the conditions of the hearts of our family, our friends, and our neighbors. In this we do have a concern. The violence and level of hatred we see in our youth is indeed disturbing, because they represent the future. The fact that it is being demonstrated both on the streets of our inner-cities, and on the grounds of our college campuses as well, points the finger not only at the disintegration of the family structure, but at the hollowness of the structure even where it remains intact. But if some have failed to convey to their children the Spirit of America, others have clearly succeeded, and nothing is more pleasing to an aging soul than to see the young stepping up to the eternal challenge, and that there is hope for America in the courage and valor of a remnant of our youth.

I leave you with the words of the most hated modern day President, that is, before Trump, Ronald Reagan. Upon his primary defeat to Gerald Ford in 1976 he wrote this to a supporter:

“Going on with what God has given us, confident there is a destiny, somehow seems to bring a reward we wouldn’t exchange for any other.”

“The spirit of resistance to governments is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to always be kept alive.”

Thomas Jefferson

Not that I am not a believer in miracles, but it would take a miracle, and a genuine one with a capital “M” for President Trump to serve a consecutive second term. With the possible exception of Abraham Lincoln, there has likely never been a President both so beloved by some, and so hated by others, and in nearly equal numbers. Throughout his presidency, and even before he was inaugurated, there was the ballyhoo of those who labeled themselves as “The Resistance”, championed by the likes of Nancy Pelosi, Maxine Waters, and Chuck Schumer, these are they who devoted their entire political existence to the cancellation of the Trump presidency. Not content to wait for the next election, they sought to undo what the voters had ordained… by hook, or by crook. They were unsuccessful, and as resistances go, they were an abject failure; the Trump presidency became one of the most monumentally significant terms of office of any modern U.S. president, as the years ahead will certainly show. In an otherwise dismal chain of failures, I will not begrudge the Democrats their moment of glory in a victory at last, and their avoidance of four more years of humiliation. That said, it’s a bit like shutting the barn door after the horse has bolted; too little, too late; and as a resistance, they get an A for effort, but have failed the course. It has been said, as it always is, that this election was the most important election of our lifetime, but I expect history will show that for substance over symbolism, it is the last election that will prove the more significant. For this we rejoice. But as we embark on this next segment of the adventure we call The United States of America, we need to remember some of the few words Joe Biden was permitted to speak during his “run” for office, we are headed for a “dark winter”. Remember, Spring and the life it brings always follows even the darkest Winter. An opportunity has been missed, but all is not lost. We live, we are still strong, we have been blessed and are galvanized… and for now, we are the resistance.

There is something to be said about those who change the rules when they can’t win the game. Politics has always been a dirty business and a violent sport, but there were rules, customary practices. When hatred becomes one’s focus, civility and customary cordialities go out the window… things get ugly. In a boxing match, one boxer cannot observe the Marquess of Queensberry rules while the other resorts to street fighting. There will be retaliation. And while Biden has made the obligatory plagiarism of there not being blue states and red states, but just the United States; it’s a meaningless platitude, and we all know better… we are a house divided, and the only thing keeping us from civil war is the fact that we are not divided by states, but by county and city, and ideology. It is not as simple as North and South, or division would already be in the works. And so we exist as a divided nation, and as the last two presidential elections have shown, it is a remarkably even division. So we are consigned to survival of the fittest; it is a sad state of affairs. The rules have been changed, and now, within the various limitations of our consciences or lack thereof, we, the resistance, will play by the new rules. As Mitch McConnell warned Harry Reid about using the nuclear option to change the rules of the Senate,

“You’ll regret this, and you may regret this a lot sooner than you think.”

Welcome to the Supreme Court, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh… Amy Coney Barrett.

So now it is our turn to become the resistance, we shall, and that in accordance with the “new rules”. You will forgive us if at least some of us cannot lower ourselves entirely to the example set by our liberal enemies, (and it is you that have made yourselves enemies.) We will not be screaming in the streets, looting our local Wal-Mart, or burning down our cities (and certainly not our own farms and businesses!). Our own self-respect will prevent us from becoming the lunatic fringe as you did. Oh, there may be a few crazies among us, but don’t expect us to keep them accountable… new rules, that’s your problem, call the police you want to defund. We will, however, be unaccepting of your overtures of unity… been there, done that… it’s like an adulterous husband wanting us to just forgive, forget, and move forward. A trust has been broken, the rules have been changed, what’s good for the goose is good for the gander, and now it’s our turn. Our resistance will not be from Hollywood stars, overpaid journalists, or ignorant sport stars; nor will it be from the spineless politicians in Washington as much a part of the swamp as Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. It will be from the many common men and women who will pledge their lives to keep America as a light to the nations. It has always been these who have preserved the light, and so it shall ever be. Hate may win a battle, but never will it win the war.

The rules have been changed. Knowing Donald Trump, He might have changed them himself had the Democrats not done so for him. There will be legal challenges to the election, not because they will likely yield desired results, just to resist, just to be A-holes… new rules.

“You think he’s gone? He’s never gone!”

“What About Bob”

As is the continuous failing of liberal thought, they neglect to see things in three dimensions, ever neglecting to look beyond their two dimensional wishful thinking. In keeping with Obama’s failure to follow the convention of staying out of the business of subsequent administrations, Trump is going nowhere, and might even be up for a redux in 2024, though I think that unlikely. He will remain the obsession of the media, and has the money to become his own media. Oh, He will tweet! I doubt Joe Biden has the energy to steal the camera from The Donald, and if Joe has been the invisible candidate, he might now be the invisible president. Of course, with the Democrat losses in the House, the stage is set for the Hunter and Joe corruption impeachment to commence in two to three years… new rules, hope you’re up for it Joe!

There are things we should learn from this, and some of them are things we should have learned years ago. Pollsters cannot be trusted. They are paid to deliver the desired results. For all the plaudits devoted to “science”, this is simple statistics, and if your poll falls outside the margin of error, you did it wrong… you are either incompetent or dishonest, and either way you should be out of business. I’ve lived long enough to see that the polls always err in the same direction; they walk things back slightly just before the election as though there are vast numbers of voters changing their minds (to Trump?) just before the election so they can not look quite so far off. Like so much of society, we have come to accept incompetence, or possibly dishonesty, with pollsters, and blame such glaring errors on excuses like “the shy Trump voter”. Have you met a Trump voter? They are not that shy!

Next, the media is no longer independent from political parties. No honest observer can say that the mainstream media was balanced in their coverage of President Trump. Presidents have regularly been antagonistic toward the press, but never have we before seen the press so reciprocate that animosity with such zealous attention to every opportunity to do so, while at the same time being completely derelict in their pursuit of the truth for what might be politically disadvantageous to the president’s rivals. As a result, the overwhelming success of Fox News debuted years ago (albeit the subsequent schizoid pandering of the network) has spawned a cottage industry of conservative networks verging on becoming mainstream, and threatening the income streams of the corrupted major networks and even Fox… we need to continue to hold them accountable, and embarrass them when they are derelict or in their duty, or fake news. If Trump was to just go away, one wonders what the news would be?

So now, we are the resistance. And I for one find it a more comfortable place to be. Trump says and does things that are difficult at times to defend, despite the results he attained for the nation, the conservative movement, and the world. Now we are the resistance. And in accordance with the new rules, I have no remorse in resisting in complete honesty. Joe is an empty suit that the Democrats used to present a generic candidate to allow hate and disdain to rule the day. No one voted FOR Joe Biden, they voted against Donald Trump… and that was the sad calculation. They have gotten rid of Trump (or so they believe); all that is left is for them to determine is how to get rid of Joe. He’s never been the sharpest knife in the drawer, and now he’s more like a spoon; and unless the Dems have use of a spoon in the White House, I expect we’ll see him resign before his term expires. Don’t suppose the Dems have less leverage on him and his family than the GOP does. As always, he will do as he is told. The swamp is back, right Joe?, but even after 48 years, the swamp is not above eating its own. If he were a better man, I would almost pity him.

I have heard a few so discouraged by the results that they are swearing off politics and devoting themselves to the rest of the beautiful things of their lives far away from this current ugliness. This is understandable, and I suppose we could all use a break. Politics is not, nor should it ever be, the entirety of our lives, and unlike so many on the left who were left only with despair when their whole existence seemed to melt down with Trump’s election, loss reminds us that there is so much more to life than political pursuits, and that there is a higher plane that should always be our first focus. Acknowledging that politics is not the sum total of our existence, it is just the same an important part of our lives, and to give up on it over one razor thin defeat, diminishes us as an individual, and it diminishes us as an army fighting the good fight. It is not the time to abandon hope. It is time to shine a light. For all the rhetoric now coming from the Democrats about unity, a unity they only seek when they are victorious, unity comes from two sources: success and disaster. Assuming a mandate where only disdain for Trump exists is a poor substitute for success, and disasters are fickle uniters. Four years will pass quickly, two years even quicker! It has ever been our contention that liberal policies do not illicit success, and let us not allow a disaster to be created without the blame being squarely and truthfully placed. Because of the Democrats singular mission to destroy Trump, they have won a Pyrrhic victory. They are left with a president and vice president only able to win an election when they do not speak, and where Trump is the opponent, and that by the narrowest of margins. Their failures in the house, their failures down ballot from Trump, and the cracks in the walls of their stranglehold on minority voters do not bode well going forward. Trump may continue to be a factor, but we have no human saviors enshrined in our endeavor for the preservation of the idea of America. Rather we depend upon the idea itself, and the Author of that idea. We depend upon those who have walked before us to preserve the idea, those who shed their blood to preserve it. And we depend upon ourselves, heirs to the mission; we, the bruised, but unbroken… we, the resistance… we, the people.