“america is over!” — banner carried by Minneapolis rioters, AP photo, 11/3/20

“we have just begun to fight!!!” — Donald Trump, on Twitter, 12/12/20

Here is our current conflict in a nutshell. It’s between those who can’t wait to sink the United States, and those who are battling to preserve America as founded, the bulwark of liberty.

It is mind-boggling to me that there would be anyone living in this country, experiencing the blessings of freedom, who would celebrate its end. What kind of sick mindset must you have, to crave the decline and fall of your own nation?

I’ve been asking this since 2015, when Trump first announced his America First, Make America Great Again agenda. The left reacted to that like a herd of stuck pigs. And the squealing has continued for five years, through President Trump’s entire first term — and to this day. On 11/23/20, former (i.e., fired) Defense Secretary James Mattis wrote in Foreign Affairs: “When President Joe Biden and his national security team begin to reevaluate U.S. foreign policy, we hope they will quickly revise the national security strategy to eliminate ‘America First’ from its contents.”

How in the hell is America First controversial? What ordinary, standard issue, average American in his or her right mind could possibly oppose that?

We’re the good guys, by any measure. We don’t conquer; we liberate. We save people under duress. We rescue people who have suffered great loss in natural disasters. We bailed out Europe after saving it in World War II. We defend Europe militarily. We defeated the monstrous Evil Empire, saving the planet from the brutal communist regime of the ussr. How in the world can anybody — especially a four-star general — come along and say that America First is somehow problematic?

Well, I’ll tell you how. If you believe in globalism, that is, in a globalist arrangement in which there aren’t any nation-states, in which we’re all “citizens of the world” with no national loyalties, if that’s your ultimate objective, America is the problem. If you believe there should be no lone U.S. superpower, if you disbelieve in American exceptionalism and the miraculous nature of the American Founding, then you would find talk of making America great again revolting. You’d loathe America First.

If maga or America First threatens you, then you really aren’t a traditional American. But you are a member of the Washington establishment — and this goes back decades. Bill Clinton’s Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, summed up this insider consensus on 4/14/98: “We very much don’t want to be out there by ourselves as the organizer and the only superpower,” she said. “People … think we just want to be king of the hill, but we do not.”

The heck we don’t. Imagine China as king of that hill. Under the Chi-Coms, the world would descend into a thousand years of darkness. And this threat is not imaginary. Due to the ridiculous wrongheadedness of the Washington establishment, Communist China’s world expansionism is a looming crisis.

To my enormous frustration, the Republican establishment is as much a part of this Washington consensus as is the Democrat establishment. You’ve heard me lament countless times that the elected political class of Republicans, the rinos, the NeverTrumpers, don’t think there’s a crisis at all.

They didn’t think that the attempt to get rid of Trump with a literal coup based on a made-up-out-of-nothing Russian collusion story was a crisis. “Nothing to see here. There’s no danger.” Meanwhile, their voters, the American people, understand the threat is existential. They’re right. The threat is to our society at large, to our culture, to Western civilization, to the kind of country we’re going to be. Will we continue to be the country of the Founding? Or will the communists succeed?

That is what is at stake. This has become a full-fledged battle between socialists and communists on one side and us on the other.

There’s nothing that can be done to persuade them. These people are going to have to be defeated, election after election after election. Yes, I know, I know — we’ve got rampant electoral fraud on top of all the other obstacles. But that just means we don’t stop! It means we don’t give up.

We’re never going to give up on America. I’m not. You aren’t, either. And on top of that determination, we have power the left will never know: faith in God, and deep love of our country.

I know the odds are steep. But here’s the thing. The American left’s greatest weakness is that it is comprised of people who hate this country. Hate is poison. It is destructive. You cannot survive on hatred. You cannot sustain a movement based on it. Eventually it results in implosion. This entire 2020 putsch is built on lies and rage and violence and will collapse of its own immorality.

Folks, never forget this: we outnumber them. We have millions and millions of Americans who are fed up — and can’t wait to express it. The fraudsters have no idea what is about to come at them. We just need to continue to fight for what we believe in, knowing full well that we can prevail. We’re not alone — you’re not alone trying to fight these crooks. There are 74 million-plus of us and growing. And we are not just going to be docile, like they’re expecting.

As Sen. Josh Hawley (R, MO) put it on 12/16/20 at the Homeland Security Committee hearing on 2020 election irregularities:

After four years of … being told that the last election was fake and that Donald Trump really wasn’t elected and that Russia intervened, after four years of that, now these same people are told, “You just sit down and shut up. If you have any concerns about election integrity, you’re a nutcase. You should shut up.” Well, I tell you what: 74 million Americans are not going to shut up.

Damn straight! The left thinks they can tell 74 million-plus Americans that their votes don’t matter, and their views don’t matter? They have no idea what kind of backlash they’re manufacturing. They do not know the strength, size, and righteous power of the enemy they are creating.

As Donald Trump proclaimed before the whole world at the December 5 rally in Valdosta, GA: “We will not bend, we will not break, we will not yield, we will never give in, we will never give up, we will never back down, we will never, ever surrender! Because we are Americans, and our hearts bleed red, white, and blue!”

We are the sons and daughters of liberty. It is priceless, but we know its price, and we know its cost. And we are about to educate those who would try to steal it.

Photo ©2021 Associated Press/Richard Tsong-Taatarii/ St. Paul Pioneer Press Out; Kare11/Tenga and NBC Affiliates Out; WCCO and CBS Affiliates Out; KMSP and FOX Affiliates Out; KSTP and ABC Affiliates Out; TPT and PBS Affiliates Out