Saturday Politics : 2017 Is not a Year for Predictions, It Is a Year for Deeds

Saturday Politics is sometimes about predictions. • Every January, I give predictions for the coming year, together with an analysis of how good my last year's predictions were. Here are my 2016 predictions, posted on December 31, 2016. They toe the line of what happened in 2016 very well : (1). The US Congress will figure out how to use its independent sanctions authority against Iran to slow down the Obama nuclear deal and more effectively prevent the uncontrolled Iranian ICBM / nuclear warhead program, and Iran will demand UN Security Council action to rein in Congress, threatening to pull out of the deal. • All this is true except that the Congress never found its voice. (2). Taliban advances in Afghanistan will threaten a collapse of the Kabul government, forcing President Obama to raise the US troop level there to double its current 9,800 and to re-deploy them into combat situations. • This is what happened, except that Obama refused more troops, preferring to sacrifice Special Operations troops instead. (3). The inability of ISIS to hold onto major Iraq cities will lead Iran, seeing its opportunity to consolidate its shiite crescent from Teheran to Damascus, to take a more public role in both the Iraq al-Abadi government and beside Russia in Syria's al-Assad regime. This will leave President Obama with a double Iran problem -- seeming to be soft on Iran's shiite terrorist activities and its nuclear deal, while America and Congress demand action to tamp down Ayatollah / Qum agression. • I nailed this one. (4). Oil will slide down to US$ 30/barrel, giving Saudi Arabia such serious budget deficit problems that it will finally agree with OPEC to begin to reduce petroleum supplies. This will allow the US to fully recommence its shale oil program and it will help Russia's economy -- neither of which is favorable to OPEC or the Saudis. Thus, 2016 will see a new instability in world oil supplies and prices and will prove that OPEC can no longer totally dictate oil supply and pricing. • Got that one right, too. Then, I said, "There is really only one prediction that matters in 2016 -- who will be elected US President on November 8? So, let me give you my very early bird prediction. (5). On the Democrat side, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders will fight to a dead heat in the primaries. This will lead to the 2,000+ super delegates -- chosen because of their Party positions -- becoming king makers. They will choose a compromise ticket of Joe Biden as President and Elizabeth Warren as VP, breaking the jugular grip of the Clintons on the Democratic Party. • I blew this one, but I bet the Democrats wish they had taken my advice ! (6). The Republican primaries will settle on a candidate by April. It will be Donald Trump. After much hand wringing, the GOP pro's will acquiesce, and negotiations will focus on making Trump choose a suitably establishment Vice President running mate. True to his independent style, Trump will resist by choosing another outsider as his running mate - Ted Cruz. • I missed the Cruz pick, but in retrospect, Trump was right in choosing Mike Pence, but then, Trump is usually right in retrospect, and that is why we should trust him going forward. (7). And, on November 8, 2016, America will elect Donald Trump as President. • I was one of the first to predict a Trump win. My friends thought I was nuts. But, we can all be grateful that Trump was elected. • • • WHAT ABOUT 2017? I have been trying to make a list of predictions for two weeks. But, I cannot come up with one. Why? Because the list is so negative that it makes me ill. • First, let me be very clear -- Donald Trump is going to be a very good, maybe even an outstanding, President. My negativity has nothing to do with Trump. But, it does have a lot to do with the Progressive Democrat evil that is sometimes called "error" and it has a lot to do with the latent compulsions lurking in the Republican Party elites to destroy everything that could prevent them from preserving their 'elite' privileges. So, this year, dear readers, there will be no list, but a discussion. As Phyllis Diller used to say, "Let's talk." • • • THE TRUMP ERA IN GOP POLITICS. The one reason I have for optimism as 2017 begins is my bedrock of belief in the principles and voters of the Republican Party. That Republicans could cut through the lies and fake news and elect Donald Trump is the latest reason for my optimism. I've spent 18 months browbeating the GOP elties. They deserve more beating that I could ever give them alone, but social media has provided ample support. They were the incarnation of the impulse to save yourself -- the French say it so well, "Sauve qui peut" -- every person for himself, save yourself. That was the GOP elite leadership, running as fast as they could away from Donald Trump because they were sure his massive defeat would take them down, too. They were wrong, and many of them saw that after the convention and came around. I still marvel at the almost-selfless practicality of RNC Chair Reince Priebus, who must have said to himself, "I have a party to save and that means supporting Trump." It is ironic that in saving his party, Priebus saved himself. • But, there were those who, unwilling to quietly steer clear of Trump, broadcast their contempt for the non-politician who actually represented real GOP voters. Mitt Romney epitomizes that bunch of traitors and while I can try to forgive him, I will never forget his spewed-out venom or his fawning post-election switch to 'Trump the Winner.' Never, Never, Never should Romney be given a seat or a kind word at a GOP gathering. Ditto the smug duo of George Will and Bill Kristol, as well as Governor John Kasich. Senator Lindsey Graham is rapidly approaching that spot in my sensibilities. Watching his need to attack Trump everyday on mainstream media is watching pure self-destruction at work. Remember this : Elephants do not forget. • What was most distasteful about these GOP traitors, was their waving the"conservative" flag as they deliberately set about to destroy the last chance conservatives would ever have to save the Republic. They never explained how Hillary Clinton's Supreme Court would do that, or how the never-ending multiple allegations of corruption and illegal conduct that sullied Hillary Clinton and her tight-knit group of devoted hacks would do that. • Save the Republic. Just as in 1860, conservative Americans knew that Lincoln was their only hope to save the Union, in 2016, conservative Americans answered 'present' once again. Save the Republic from the elites, both Republican and Democrat, who will have America's back only when it is professionally and personally to their advantage. Save the Republic. From those are happy to accept the support of real voters as long as they know they won't actually be held accountable when they disregard our concerns and wishes. Save the Republic. • So, for 2017, I ask all of us who are on this mission to Make America Great Again to beware. Beware of the media, any media, or any politician or writer, even those we used to trust, who suggests compromise, or who tries to tell us that Trump is foolish, dumb, unsophisitcated in the ways of governing, or just plain wrong. They are wrong! Do not let them put doubts into our minds. We have a mission to accomplish -- Trump said as much when he reminded us often during the campaign that he is our voice and that he will never desert us -- and it it true that only President Trump can make our mission succeed. • • • THE DEMOCRAT MELTDOWN. I've spent the better part of the last 8 years trying to figure out if Barack Obama is the evil genius sent as the Manchurian Candidate to destroy the traditional, constitutional America, or if he is just one more rather ordinary, not too smart cannon-fodder victim of the Progressive globalists, chosen because he is neither white nor black, neither American nor foreign, neither a warrior nor a pacifist, neither a politician nor an intellectual. In fact, Obama is a nothing. But, whatever Barack Obama was, he presided over the collapse of the Progressive plan to corrupt American values and convert Americans into a statist mob of unthinking, ammoral blobs. • Obama was simply the latest, and last, of the Progressive intruders. He and the Democrat activists focused on distracting us : the Black Lives Matter movement that became an out-of-control Soros-funded attack by underclass blacks on American society; the rights of transgender Americans that pitted millions of parents and school districts against a handful of transgenders cynically used by Obama to try to destroy American family values; the fetishism toward pop culture used to teach violence and race hatred; and, the use of American war weariness to cede territory and strategic advantage to the West's antagonists determined to bring it down. Meanwhile, real Americans faced real problems : addiction to Meth and opioids that destroyed small towns; "medical" marijuana that hyped up Americans in despair to make them forget the real problems facing them and their country; decades of unchecked illegal immigration that undercut the dynamics of the normal US workforce; endless promises of education that never produced anything but more and more illiterate and uneducated graduates; the dead American Dream of a steady, well-paying job, a home, marriage and children; and the impression that carefully picked photo ops and words were aimed at creating the false impression that police were the real problem, not the professional thugs and petty hoodlums they were trying to control. Millions of Americans who used to vote for Democrats felt abandoned, mocked, and belittled. The Democrats didn’t just have a bad year. Whether they can ever bring themselves to admit it or not, Democrats had a bad 2016, a bad Obama presidency and a bad 50 years before that. • • • THE END AND THE BEGINNING. As I consider the Republicans whom I can never really forgive for treating the principles of the GOP like so many Fortune Cookie slips of paper, there is a special place in the "never forgive and never forget" corner of my memory for all Democrat leaders who were seduced by FDR, LBJ and every Democrat Progressive who came after them. • • • David Prentice, in American Thinker, wrote : "It's safe to say Americans on the right are sickened by the same old tired playbook of the left...using the race card, the gender card, the "stupid" card, the insensitive card, the tax cuts for the rich card, and the "green" card has worked for them. They have had more than a compliant media; they have had a collusive media that has agreed with the Democrat elites every day for decades, helping them form these nasty narratives about half of the country's population. It's one of the reasons we ended up with a shell-shocked Republican Party that became ashamed of its own beliefs and its own supporters. They became Stockholm syndrome Republicans, incapable of putting up a good fight against these lying, conniving, greedy leftists who stopped long ago caring about whether what they did legislatively, with the courts, or with regulation from the control of Washington bureaucracies actually had a good effect on America. They weren't helping to make a better country. The Democratic Party became power-hungry, caring only if they stayed in power, not whether they were doing the right thing. Unfortunately, too many in the GOP succumbed to this siren song and joined them." • That is all true, but the key for the future is that the Trump revolution broke this chain, with Trump out-foxing them and winning against all odds in a massive upset. Prentice says : "The left, rather than learn something about themselves, devolved into full petulant toddlers, moaning, whining, shrieking, needing therapy -- all the things we've watched since they lost. They have been pitiful....their adult voters have failed to step forward to stop their leaders from making total fools of themselves....their leaders, including their failed President, are running around making silly excuses for their loss, each of which has been shown to be preposterous. The latest : the Russians "hacked" the election. That carefully crafted way of phrasing this peculiar (and preposterous) talking point should say it all....Their narratives have been busted. Their media were beaten. Their corruption was exposed. Their solutions and programs have been rejected by a large majority of the US electorate -- a far greater rejection than their election loss, according to good polls. The Democrats are lucky to have anything left in the way of power....it's beyond hope for them in the next two years. The only way the conservative agenda will fail is by people on the right not uniting. Observing the left's ability to unite around the political and cultural perversion and corruption of the Clinton-Obama clans should show us the way. If they can unite, circling the wagons around corruption and perversion, surely, we can unite to jump-start the Trump agenda -- which, make no mistake, is a great agenda, an agenda that will be good for America and all its citizenry." • • • OBAMA's FAILURES. The damage the Democrats under Obama have done is enormous : the worst economic recovery since World War II; the US economic engine braked to full stop; massive unemployment; a job market that gives no hope to Americans for the future; ruined alliances and support for America's enemies under a stupid, feckless President and two Secretaries of State; ISIS becoming a power that Obama was useless in dealing with; the destruction of US borders because Progressives believe borders are racist; the introduction of Obamacare to destroy US healthcare so that a Progressive nationalized government control of doctors, insurance companies, and patients could replace it. Do not believe anyone who tells you that Obamacare is a success on any level. Obamacare is a failure. The Democrat Congress and Obama lied to get it passed, lied to keep it, and are lying about how good it is now. But, the wisdom of most Americans saw the ruse. They knew they were sold a sack of garbage so expensive that they can't use it. The Democrats under Obama were particularly good at corrupting the federal bureaucracy, destroying the faith American citizens had in their government. In short, they ruined everything they touched. Prentice suggests using the Alinsky rules for radicals against the Democrat-media complex -- follow Trump's advisors, who do it well -- ridicule the left, because they are absurd; pressure them to live up to their own "rules"; point out how corrupt, greedy, and power-hungry the Clintons and Obamas are. In other words, keep them off balance with daily pressure. Make them squirm. • • • DEAR READERS, Trump is not bad, unfit, racist, homophobic, xenophobic, unstable, or fascist. Neither are we who call ourselves conservatives and Republicans. Trump's approval rating is growing. He has demonstrated during the transition period that he is serious, well-prepared, even-handed and competent. The Progressive Democrat leadership are Losers, and they know it. But, they have no place to go, so they will hang on, ridiculing Trump and all of us who support him and his agenda. Our job? Stand tall -- and get to work. We need to keep winning -- not just elections, but the real war against Progressive globalism and the Democrat Party that uses it. It's time. It's important. And, one more thing to never forget -- we are the champions of the Republic. It is time to prove it.