A Look Back at My December 2106 Predictions for 2017

HOW DID I DO WITH MY 2017 PREDICTIONS? Here's a review of what I said in December 2016. Most important is the fact that I didn't make any specific predictions for 2107 -- I said : "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." • Well, with that great start , I then actually made a prediction : "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." • I have to say that was a pretty good description of what 2017 has produced. • And, then I wrote about several topics. • • • The first was what I called "THE TRUMP ERA IN GOP POLITICS." I named it "the one reason I have for optimism as 2017 begins...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." We know, looking back on 2017, that the GOP elite leadership that tried "to run as fast as they could away from Donald Trump because they were sure his massive defeat would take them down, too" were wrong, and many of them saw that after the GOP nominating convention and came around. I noted 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." Ah, but he didn't save himself. Prizebus fell because he couldn't make order stick in the Trump White House. So, Rience Priebus fell to General Kelly, who has done a remarkable job of making the West Wing run smoothly. But, I don't fault Reince Priebus -- he tried to support President Trump, but it took a tougher soldier to do the job. • • • THE #NEVERTRUMP GOP NEO-CONSERVATIVES. I noted in December 2016 that "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." • Senator Lindsey Graham seems to be trying to accommodate President Trump, perhaps because they both want a strong military and are willing to work together to achieve it. I also find that when Senator Graham is free of the hovering influence of Senator John McCain, he is more reasonable and Republican. Maybe he will finally be a real Republican again. • We have neither seen nor heard much from either Kasich or Romney in 2017. There are those who want Romney to run for the Seante from Utah if Senator Orrin Hatch retires. Normally, I would say that Senator Hatch, who has served long and well, should step aside, but a "Senator" Romney is not something I would easily accept. • 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." That was my sense of the GOP establishment in December 2016 and it hasn't changed much. They are the Swamp Creatures of 2017 who smile while they sharpen their knives against their own party's President. They took almost all of 201 to see that Hillary Clinton's never-ending string of alleged corruption and illegal conduct sullied not only Hillary Clinton and her tight-knit group of devoted hacks. The aura of corruption sullies the republic, and they are perhaps coming latel, but coming, to the realization that she must be brought to the bar of justice. • • • SAVE THE REPUBLIC. I wrote last December : "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." I asked all 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." • And, I have to give full credit to the millions of conservative and Republican and Independent Deplorables who have stood tall with President Trump through a year of the most outrageous attacks on a President and presidency since Lincoln was attacked on all sides for trying to save the Union. • • • THE DEMOCRAT MELTDOWN. I said a year ago that : "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." I concluded that, 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, literally I now believe, 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, I was clear that Obama had ignored Americans' 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." The result was that Obama left millions of Americans who used to vote for Democrats feeling "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 ProgDems, as I have called them this year, are losing the battle for the hearts and souls of middle class America. It may take some more time to finish off the extreme Left Progressive agenda they preach, but 2017 was the year in which they "lost." • • • THE END AND THE BEGINNING. In December 2106, I quoted David Prentice, who wrote in American Thinker : "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 in 2017 was that the Trump revolution broke this chain, as I wrote : "with Trump out-foxing them and winning against all odds in a massive upset." Prentice said : "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." • We have seen all of that and more in 2017, but we are still standing and we feel the winds of change blowing through the Washington Swamp -- it took the pain and unending humiliations of 2017 to get us pointed in the right direction. • • • OBAMA'S FAILURES. Finally, I noted last December that : "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...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. • In 2017, we were led by the master at "making them squirm." Never has modern America had a President so toughminded and impervious to insult and lies as Donald Trump. That he sttod and took the heat in 2017 is largely the reason the Trump preisdency and the Republic survived. • • • DEAR READERS, Trump is not bad, unfit, racist, homophobic, xenophobic, unstable, or fascist. Neither are we who call ourselves conservatives and Republicans -- and proudly wear the badge of honor as Deplorables. Trump's approval rating is growing. He has demonstrated during 2017 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 in 2017 was, as I put it, to :"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." • That was my crystal ball looking ahead to 2017, and it still serves as a roadmap for Trump supporters, even as the battle shifts and takes on a new aspect. • On New Year's day, you will have my predictions for 2018. • For now, enjoy the rest of the Christmas Holiday Season and have a safe and Happy New Year's Eve celebration.