“We make men without chests and expect from them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honor and are shocked to find traitors in our midst.” —C.S. Lewis

When Donald J. Trump established himself in the president's office in January 2017, one of the first things he did was hang a portrait of President Andrew Jackson in the Oval Office. That was a signal.

Andrew Jackson was an irascible war hero known for his blunt manner, explosive temper, and inclined to physical violence. He was elected President in 1828, his second attempt, as a reformer who promised to clean out the “deep state” corruption of his day.

By that time, our country’s founders had passed on, and power had been inherited by a motley group of inheritors and cronies (Hunter? Is that you?) who established a cozy kleptocracy to ensure their continued access to the public trough. Unsurprisingly, ordinary citizens were very unhappy to the point where southern states, led by Sen. John Calhoun (S.C.), Jackson’s future vice president, threatened to secede via federal “nullification,” while northeastern elites, represented by Daniel Webster, worked assiduously to enhance federal control over the United States and its riff-raff citizenry.

Despite much howling, unceasing personal attacks, and violent opposition from the deep state of his time, Andrew Jackson persevered, fixed it…and was re-elected in 1832. Andrew Jackson, in other words, was a disruptor.

Image: Donald Trump by Gage Skidmore. CC BY-SA 2.0.

All human organizations become corrupted. That’s in our nature. The Austrian economist, Friedrich von Hayek, explained the process by which this happens in his classic Road to Serfdom: all governments and other organizations start out formed and led by idealistic drivers but are gradually undermined by weak, self-serving bureaucracies vulnerable to depredation by sociopaths and psychopaths pursuing their own self-serving agendas.

Action leads to reaction. In American history, we have had a history of disruptors. Following the institutional neglect and corruption of James Buchanan, Abraham Lincoln paid the ultimate price for disrupting the institution of slavery but cleared the table for a period of national rebuilding under President Ulysses S. Grant and a string of Civil War-hero presidents.

Wilson’s Progressive Deep State relentlessly impugned Warren Harding’s character and reputation as he dismantled Wilson’s Progressive police state, clearing the way for a national resurrection under Calvin Coolidge.

Harry Truman survived both character and physical assassination attempts as he wrestled to dismantle FDR’s Progressive Depression-era and War economies, leaving the field open for a national resurgence under Dwight Eisenhower.

The Deep State corruption we face today is the most serious our nation has ever confronted, as it is both broad and many layers deep, rife with grift and treason using tools of subversion never envisioned by our Founders…tools like electronic media, for example. In true Progressive fashion, it has progressed in a ratchet-like fashion, reaching for new limits of depravity. The Clintons to the Obamas to the Bidens have established themselves as a neo-aristocracy, immune from the law and without serious resistance from Republicans more interested in feathering their own nets, stroking their virtues, and loath to make a fuss in the name of a mythical “national unity.”

Moreover, unlike Jackson’s time, election fraud techniques have become so sophisticated and multi-layered that the rise of a permanently entrenched uni-party sustained by fraudulent elections is a very near probability. 2024’s election may indeed be our nation’s last, leaving us only free to resign ourselves to living in a third-world kleptocracy.

The corruption is so ingrained and involves so many people that only massive upheaval with severe consequences could hope to reform our government. The only way to save our country is to restore accountability…full accountability…to government. Deep Staters know this and know that they will have to fight with no holds barred to avoid losing their jobs, their pensions, their security clearances, and/or their freedoms. They risk losing everything if they allow a Republican disrupter to win, but they also know that they control enough of our nation’s institutions to prevent this from happening. Thus, they will Bork and otherwise destroy any Republican candidate who poses a threat, no matter who that candidate is.

So, who, exactly, within the Republican Party would /could rise to the challenge of taking on this Deep State? Spare me! The evidence for Bill Clinton’s, Hillary Clinton’s, and the Biden Family’s criminal and treasonous behavior was always clear, but Republicans did nothing to hold them accountable. State Security Services quietly sat on evidence of bribery and tax evasion by the Clintons and Bidens for years until finally forced to reveal it by Congressional subpoena. There were no penalties for lying under oath and stonewalling. We can assume that the Biden crime family’s now-documented bribery income wasn’t properly logged in their tax filings. Where has the IRS been?

To reform and revitalize our government, we need a disruptor, and Trump is the only one who volunteered for and can do the job. The presidential candidate upon whom it will fall to lead this reform must accept that he and his family will be battered and bloodied. Progressives do not spare spouses and children.

The cost of reformation will require enormous reserves of personal and political capital. It is for this reason that Donald Trump is our man of the hour. This is not to obviate his negatives, of which he has many, but we already know that they come with the package. Even Winston Churchill, Europe’s savior in WWII, came with incredible personal baggage. But he persevered.

A re-elected Donald Trump will be limited to one term, so he will be free to act without an eye to his political future. He has demonstrated by word and actions that he loves our country and will do what he feels is necessary to resurrect it, absorbing the ceaseless body blows that will be hurled against him. Trump, America’s “honey badger don’t care”!

The current crop of Republican candidates demonstrates that, for once, we Republicans enjoy a deep bench of talent. Moreover, we have some excellent candidates vying for that position. Personally, I would be thrilled to have a President of the caliber of a Tim Scott, Ron DeSantis, Vivek Ramaswamy, or any of the other good candidates (not Christie)…in normal times.

That said, I also don’t want their political capital expended fighting the Deep State instead of effecting good policy. We should know by now that the Progressive Deep State will do everything it can to destroy them. Let’s first allow President Trump to prepare the ground upon which the Good Men and Good Women of our country are unleashed to restore our country to its former greatness.

Danny Lemieux (a pseudonym) is a political and economic refugee from Illinois now living in a southern state surrounded by normal people.