I have a confession to make.  I have HDS – Hillary Derangement Syndrome.   It is dormant, but only because Hillary Clinton did not become president of the United States.  Had she, I would now be every bit as deranged as are those who exhibit Trump Derangement Syndrome.

It would have started on election night.  I watched on television as Hillary-supporters wept in disappointment, even anguish, as it became clear to them that their expected victory celebration had suddenly turned into the lamentation of their crushing defeat.  In a bizarre way, I felt sorry for them – not because I wished they had won, but because I had pessimistically expected to be in their state of mind.  I had expected to be disgusted by the sight of a fiendishly grinning Hillary Clinton coming on stage to don the crown she so fervently believes is her birthright.  The depth of my sorrow for America would have been more painful than the grief experienced by the 'Clintonistas.'

After that brief moment of empathy, I felt overjoyed.  The Trump victory had rescued the nation from a fate worse than we knew at the time.  Given the revelations of corruption that have surfaced since then, the suppuration of bureaucracy is even more sinister than we had imagined.

Expecting a Hillary victory, I dreaded what I knew was coming.  The Second Amendment would soon be dead, killed by a million regulations and proscriptions put in place by executive orders upheld by a Merrick Garland liberal Supreme Court.

Free speech would have been eviscerated by a never-ending escalation of Orwellian newspeak definitions of hate crimes, until even declining to praise every perversion would be considered proof of criminal bigotry.  Conservative views would be silenced by law.

Freedom of religion would be expanded, but only for non-Christian, non-Jewish faiths.  Those two would be snuffed out, beginning with the Little Sisters of the Poor.

Within months, the nation would have been swarmed over by immigrants who know nothing of our language, customs, or values.  We would be inundated by people who hate us, and a Hillary government would have confiscated our wealth to be given away to them.

The very Constitution itself would have become a swirl of words that would mean anything the radical left deemed.  Our history would be taught only in terms of condemnation. 

I could go on, but the bottom line is that, along with millions of my fellow citizens, I would be adamantly opposed with every glint of my being to the policies Hillary Clinton would have imposed.  My opposition would be based on the principle "whatever it takes" to preserve freedom for my children and grandchildren.

I would no longer view my political opponents as merely mistaken, but as evil, just as they now regard us.

Happily, none of this came to pass, and hopefully, it never will.  But just thinking about it gives me a little better understanding of those who feverishly and frantically exhibit Trump Derangement Syndrome.  Their world is ending, and they know it.  They are like the Beast who knows that his time is short and seeks to devour whom he may.

They are not to be underestimated.  They will stop at nothing.