Attribute to L. Neil Smith’s The Libertarian Enterprise

[NOTE: This was originally submitted/embedded in a post on another site, by someone with the initials “JT”. But I felt the message was so strong I had to share it here. If I can attribute further, I will amend forthwith.]

NO MATTER WHAT, WE WON

Whatever happens in the end, this evening is a win for the right. Remember that.

As I write this, the issue of the Presidency is very much in doubt. There is every possibility that the Democrat wins it—and given the inbound mail-in ballots sure to appear over the next several days, it is even a probability.

But it was never supposed to be in doubt.

Remember that too. Remember that the Democratic challenger entered Election Day with a commanding popular-vote polling lead, far exceeding that of his 2016 predecessor. Remember that he was looking to significantly exceed 300 electoral votes. Remember that the incumbent was hobbled by an utterly disastrous 2020, partly by circumstance and partly by his own hand. Remember that COVID-19 ravaged the land. Remember that America was stricken by one of the most sudden and grave economic collapses in modern history. Remember that the nation was wracked with months of insurrectionary leftist violence that burned communities, attacked law, and held Americans as figurative hostages. Remember that progressive elites subjected Americans to an ideological terrorization that compelled many of them to endorse radical racial and social ideologies, lest they lose their jobs and businesses. Remember that the institutions of the commanding heights in media, business, and governance launched a full-on attack on American history and identity, tearing down statuary in a fanatical frenzy—and seeking to eradicate the memory of the American Founding itself. Remember that in the final months, an alliance of big media and big tech actively collaborated with the Democratic Party to promote its fortunes and suppress negative news about its nominee.

All the might, fury, anger, passion, and violence of the American left was mobilized, on every front, across years—and it got them to a tie.

Why? It’s because they were aiming at the wrong target the whole time.

Jemele Hill, an eminent lunatic who writes for The Atlantic, a conspiracy zine, tweeted this evening that if the President is re-elected, it will be the fault of American whites. That’s who her elite class thinks is always at fault: the perennial hate object, the great inchoate mass of whites who created this hellscape of a republic, so deeply iniquitous that minority women with middling intellects like Jemele Hill endure—well, fame and money. It’s a big job, fighting the villainous whites and their apotheosis Donald Trump, but it’s a living.

And yet: the President lost white support this time around. We know it from the pre-election polling, and we know it from the post-election outcomes. The President is losing whites. The President is competitive right now, and may in fact be re-elected, because he gained support in every other demographic category. The President is overperforming among African-Americans. The President is overperforming among Hispanics. The President is overperforming among Asian-Americans. The President won Florida because Cubans and Puerto Ricans put him over the top. The President, as I write, is winning Zapata County, Texas, on the Mexican border, with nearly a one hundred percent Mexican-American population. Hillary Clinton won it in 2016 by something like thirty points.

The left spent four years braying about white supremacy—which turned out to encompass pretty much anything they dislike, including federalism, bicameral legislatures, and California Anglos selling burritos—and insisted that it was the moral cause of the age, culminating inevitably in the defeat of the President. While they did that, the President assembled a multi-racial, populist, conservative coalition that—hold on to your hats—just might win this thing.

And also might hold the Senate.

And also might get some House seats.

And also might get another Governor.

If the President is re-elected, we have to modify Hill’s j’accuse a bit. It won’t be the fault of American whites. It will be the fault of Americans. They’ll accept that responsibility. It’s what citizens do.

But let’s say he isn’t re-elected. Let’s say razor-thin margins or outstanding ballots in North Carolina, Pennsylvania, or elsewhere tip things the other way. If that happens, the right still won tonight. We won because we faced the whole machine, and held our own. We won because they meant to crush us and end our presence in the public square—and here we are, toe to toe and still standing. We won because this coalition of ours isn’t going anywhere: the American working class of every race and creed, animated by populist sentiment and real national allegiance, will only grow. The Americans who make things, who are from somewhere, who cherish heritage and community, who put faith and family first will take the country back.

This was supposed to be a Blue Wave. Instead it’s a way station. The most they get is an interlude. The most we get is the future. We aren’t done. This is the most exciting thing: the beginning.