If President Gerald R. Ford were alive today, he could once again announce to the nation, as he did a half-century earlier, "Our long national nightmare is over."
Most pollsters got the now-two-week-old election wrong and predicted a squeaker.
Instead we got a rout, with Trump taking home 312 electoral votes for the win, made possible by more than 76 million voters — more than any GOP candidate in history.
We began hearing the phrase "silent majority" again, which was first coined by Richard Nixon in a 1969 speech.
But they were silent no more after this year’s election.
They came out of the closet and celebrated, according to Robert Cahaly, a pollster and strategist at the Trafalgar Group.
"All of these undercover Trump people are out," he told Axios.
"People that would have hidden a week or so ago aren’t hiding anymore."
Cahaly, along with pollster and political analyst Matt Towery, were about the only pros who predicted a Trump landslide.
Both are conservative-leaning pollsters and factored the "shy conservative voter" — the “silent majority” — into their predictions.
Nixon wasn’t the only president to use the phrase “silent majority.” Ronald Reagan used it in campaign speeches during the 1970s and early 1980s.
He won his first presidential election in 1980, easily defeating ineffective Democratic incumbent Jimmy Carter, but his second successful campaign in 1984, like Trump’s, was the real blowout.
Reagan won every state except Minnesota — the home state of his Democratic rival Walter Mondale. Mondale was also Carter’s vice president — just as Kamala Harris was Joe Biden’s vice president.
But the real similarity between Trump and Reagan was the sense of relief most Americans felt after the elections — a belief that the adults were back in charge.
It also brought to mind another phrase this one coined by Reagan himself and adopted by Trump: "Peace through strength."
Reagan kept the United States and the world at peace through his show of strength, as did Trump. When Biden took the reins from Trump in 2021, all that changed.
He allowed the Taliban to direct the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan — to disastrous results.
Then he approved the Pentagon’s introduction of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) into its recruiting practices — to make sure the "correct" quota of ethnic, sex, and sexual orientation groups were admitted.
In 2022, the Defense Department asked for $66 million for DEI programs, $86 million in 2023, and $114 million in 2024.
The Pentagon is also twisting and torturing the language, referring to a father, for example, as a "non-birthing parent" and a mother as a "birthing parent."
As a result, recruiting in the armed services plummeted.
But now there’s an understanding deep in our gut that all that is about to change.
"It’s similar to when Reagan won. Everything went from fear and sadness to pride and happiness — overnight," a Twitter/X user said.
"Plus, now we have a measure of humor and fun which has been missing for some time. Even my Democrat friends feel it. They’re not happy but they still feel it."
Said another: "Old enough that I can confirm — feels like Reagan’s morning in America — and it feels damn good!"
But many Americans weren’t so sure in the beginning.
Chaos seemed to follow Donald Trump everywhere, from the moment he and future first lady Melania went down the escalator at Manhattan’s Trump Tower, to announce his first run for the White House.
Chaos appeared to continue throughout that first campaign, his presidency, and his two succeeding campaigns, the last of which was interrupted by a rash of state and federal indictments and lawsuits, prompting the birth of a new word, "Lawfare," and with it, more chaos.
But the voting public discovered they didn’t really know what chaos was until a professional politician named Joe Biden entered the White House.
And now that chaos is gone, and replaced by a new chaos — a more joyful chaos, one in which even pro football players perform the iconic Trump-YMCA dance after making a big play.
An uplifting 1984 Reagan campaign ad proclaimed that "It’s morning again in America," and that "America is prouder, and stronger, and better" as a result.
And today it’s morning once again in America — and it feels good!
"Our long national nightmare is over."
Michael Dorstewitz is a retired lawyer and has been a frequent contributor to Newsmax. He is also a former U.S. Merchant Marine officer and a Second Amendment supporter. Read Michael Dorstewitz's Reports — More Here.
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