Online, independent thinkers in comments sections are discussing Trump's chances of carrying significant portions of the black vote in 2020.  Some think he's figuring out ways to pull that bloc to the right.  I don't think that's what's going on.

Trump doesn't enact a policy with the explicit idea of getting votes.  He's all about filling in his checklist of things accomplished, promises made and delivered on.  He knows that if he gets government out of the way, private ingenuity, innovation, and ambition will do the rest.  That is precisely what's happened.

Liberals never credit the ingenuity and ambition of ordinary people to improve their lives by their own efforts.  They don't credit it because they think ordinary people are dumb cattle.  Trump knows better because he's worked with ordinary people all his life and has seen them accomplish miracles.

A related topic: How much of the black vote do you think Trump will get?  Most seem to think 20% is the max.  Some see him going as high as 30%.  I personally don't see an upper limit here.  The black lot has improved by any and all measures, and there's nobody on high to tell blacks "you didn't build that."  They'll know they did build it; they'll also know who got the debris and detritus out of the way so they could.

Nobody has a solid feel for Trump's "cultural impact" or if that aspect of it will ever mean much at the ballot box.  Seems to me the main thing is black folks feeling like they're being listened to and taken seriously.  In the end, that's what democracy has always been about: getting your say.

Two names turn up in regard to cultural impact: Candace Owens and Kanye West.  Ms. Owens is still new to the political arena, so we'll have to see about her staying power.  But West proves the power of feeling that your opinion matters to somebody who matters.  That's cultural impact.  It can be potent at the ballot box.  I think it will be.

Some think the Tea Party is gone with the wind.  I think the Tea Party went involuntarily silent because it wasn't presenting a serious challenge to business as usual, so the MSM ignored it and we didn't hear about it.  But it did not go away.  Proof of its staying power was the election of Donald Trump.  The ideas are still out there, proving again the power of ideas in human affairs.

The decisive thing in 2018 will be if enough new Tea Party-like people get elected to stand with the president in enacting his agenda.  These are true conservatives.  The tendency is to group conservatives with Republicans, but that generalization is no longer valid.  Where once we had conservative Dems and Pubs both, today we have only the extreme far left (Dems) and their amen corner (Pubs), with Tea Party types all by their lonesome in cold D.C.

Republicans like John McCain and Jeff Flake (my senators, sadly) are GOPe, establishment, in it for themselves.  They want to belong to the club and get rich and powerful and feel important.  These oppose Trump and in some cases hate him.  Tea Party people want to do something good for America, meaning get government out of our faces and off our backs.  These support Trump and his agenda.

Then there's the Hispanic vote.  Those of us who live and work with Hispanics know about constant liberal efforts to sign up new arrivals, legal or otherwise.  When my wife was sworn in as a new American back in 2004, Dem activists were on the spot, signing them up.  Not a Pub activist in sight.  Precious few Hispanics voted Trump after hearing liberal scare stories.

After that's voter fraud.  We who live where illegals are common (Phoenix, in my case) know that there are many more, far more than official estimates.  We know it's entirely possible that Hillary's 3.5M popular vote win in California in 2016 owed to illegals.  This has to be cleaned up, voter rolls scrubbed, and observers and vote-counters in place to prevent the left stealing elections.  I'm persuaded that's how Al Franken won office.  It's telling that no lefty politician favors policies that true the vote.

In 2018, the nation will stand with Trump and progress or let the Establishment – Pubs or Dems – get a firmer grip and take us back to the retrogressive days of Barama, corruption, ineptitude, and incipient communism.  But I repeat myself.

Richard Jack Rail frequently contributes to American Thinker.  His A Diary of the Trump Era: Year 1, exclusively uses online sources to present an iconoclastic view of the world that very much favors our iconoclastic president.  Contact Richard at caktusjakk@gmail.com.