As I’ve watched the political Uniparty and administrative Deep State conspire to destroy Donald Trump over the last eight years, a tinge of optimism has taken root inside me.  Not only have his tormentors been unsuccessful, but also a growing share of the population see the attacks against him as un-American, vindictive, and dangerous.  There is a heightened social awareness that D.C. is filled with corrupt people who operate the tentacles of government solely for their own benefit and enrichment.

No matter how omnipotent the Deep State appears, this couldn’t have been the outcome it expected.  With every iteration of the “Get Trump” operation, the vultures swirl overhead, eager to nip at his remains and scatter his defenders to the wind, yet the man and his supporters persevere.  Even worse for the D.C. Blob, every time Trump survives, a few more Americans rally to his banner.  Far from ensuring his demise, those who seek to weaken him have made him much stronger.

Think of all the malicious propaganda campaigns that would have surely sunk a less resilient individual.  After Trump’s 2016 victory, Hollywood celebrities desperately urged the Electoral College to disregard the results and install Hillary Clinton as president.  The pop culture industry cynically created the “Me Too” movement as a vehicle for driving him from office.  The Intelligence Community illegally spied on his campaign, blamed his victory on Russian social media trolls, and pushed the lie that he worked for Putin.  The Mueller Inquisition spent two years covering up the FBI’s anti-Trump activities, while doing everything it could to ensnare the president in perjury and obstruction traps.  Members of the military and National Security Council worked with Congress to turn a Biden-Ukraine bribery scandal into a Trump impeachment.  The Department of (in)Justice and too many unethical judges transformed the J6 election integrity protest into an opportunity to destroy lives and take political hostages.  Big-money Democrats have bankrolled countless civil suits against Trump in an effort to bankrupt his entire family.  Corrupt state and federal prosecutors seek to use Democrat juries to convict him on spurious charges and imprison him for life.  Corporate news hosts routinely defame Trump as racist.  Well known historians nonsensically claim that he is an aspiring dictator.  And despite four years of inflation, foreign invasion, and global chaos during Biden’s Oval Office occupation, hyperventilating foreign policy “experts” continue to drum up fear that a 2024 Trump victory will trigger economic collapse and WWIII.

My goodness, that list is long, and really only a snapshot of all the various Deep State operations that have been planned and executed in an effort to deprive the American people of the opportunity to place an outsider (i.e., someone not beholden to the D.C. Blob) in the White House.  Yet right now Donald Trump is arguably more popular than he has ever been.  I cannot help but hear the voice of Robert the Bruce after William Wallace is tortured and executed in Mel Gibson’s Braveheart: “After the beheading, William Wallace’s body was torn to pieces.  His head was set on London Bridge, where passersby were invited to jeer at the man who had caused so much fear in England.  His arms and legs were sent to the four corners of Britain as warning. ... It did not have the effect that Longshanks planned.”

The Deep State has tried to shame Trump with allegations of racism, fascism, and misogyny.  It has framed him for crimes while protecting his political enemies from prosecution.  It has used the pretext of mass COVID hysteria to rig the 2020 election with mail-in-ballot fraud.  It has orchestrated a relentless propaganda campaign to paint Trump and his supporters as vile “insurrectionists.”  It has preyed on people’s fears of nuclear war.  It has denied Trump basic courtesies and treated him as a pariah.  It has imprisoned his voters as a stark public warning.  And still, his support grows.

What does that result tell us?  Well, on the one hand, it says a great deal about Donald Trump.  He simply refuses to cry “uncle.”  For eight years, corporate news media have sullied his reputation.  Pundits have cast him as an “existential threat” to the United States.  Hitmen with law licenses have drained his wealth with civil suits that would have been dismissed had they targeted anyone else.  Partisan prosecutors have threatened his freedom with phony felony charges.  Judges have tried to silence him with gag orders, fines, and threats of jail time.  Yet Donald Trump carries on as if he hasn’t a worry in the world.  He refuses to be broken and forced into submission.  Most people look at everything he’s endured and marvel at his confidence and composure.  I think even his enemies would struggle to identify another historical leader who managed to withstand so many ruthless attacks and survive politically.

On the other hand, it is not merely Trump’s unconquerable spirit that distinguishes this moment in history.  It is the inescapable reality that he has obtained such high public stature despite the vocal opposition of those with entrenched political and economic power.  Outside the conquering emperor, it is a rare feat.

“Democratic” nations are fond of pretending that ordinary people control the direction of their countries with their votes, but, in truth, political leaders rise to power only after the bankers, party bosses, corporate titans, spy chiefs, administrative heavyweights, union bosses, and news media have given their blessing.  In Donald Trump’s case, the collective Establishment universally rejected him and then set about destroying him.  His popularity blossomed anyway.

You can see why this unusual situation greatly concerns the Deep State.  Trump’s success diminishes the permanent bureaucracy’s influence.  Even worse, his success exposes the D.C. Blob’s shadowy manipulations.  Through its efforts to take down Trump, it has been forced to step in front of a giant spotlight.  And the American people do not like what they see.

The Deep State promised that Trump would crash the economy and impetuously start wars.  Instead, he stopped wars, reduced the cost of energy, and expanded middle-class opportunities.  The Deep State insisted that he had “colluded” with Russia.  In reality, Hillary Clinton’s campaign and Barack Obama’s espionage chiefs invented the Russia Hoax in order to illegally spy on Trump and pressure him into leaving office.  The Deep State claimed that Trump engaged in an illicit quid-pro-quo arrangement with Ukraine in order to get political “dirt” on Biden.  In truth, he exposed both Biden’s and other Deep State players’ financial corruption with foreign regimes.  The Deep State says President Trump must go to prison for leaving office with classified documents (even though the president possesses inherent classification authority) but that Jim Comey, Hillary Clinton, Mike Pence, Joe Biden, and countless other Establishment offenders should be excused for unlawfully possessing classified documents of their own.  The Deep State says that it was perfectly fine for Barack Obama to use drone strikes to murder U.S. citizens without any form of due process and to deliver political speeches that encouraged violence against police officers (and resulted in a number of targeted assassinations during his presidency).  At the same time, the Deep State claims that President Trump’s January 6, 2021 speech questioning the 2020 election’s legitimacy in the wake of rampant mail-in ballot fraud was an act of “treason” deserving of the death penalty.  

For eight years now, the Deep State’s two-tiered “justice,” overt propaganda, and malicious political targeting have been too conspicuous for rational people to ignore.  In its unbridled obsession with “getting Trump,” it now stands in bright sunlight for all to see.  This is a good and healthy thing for the American Republic.  If freedom and self-government are to survive, tyranny must die.

Image: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center via Flickr, CC BY 2.0 (cropped).