For the first time since 2018, and only the third time since the 1950s, the GOP will control all three seats of elected power in this country: the House, the Senate, and the Presidency. That’s about as much of a mandate as anyone can ask for.

And so my message to Republicans -- and I think I speak for roughly 80 million Americans -- is this: Do not squander the opportunity.

Unfortunately, that has been the norm for Republican lawmakers. During Trump’s first term, the GOP Congress passed tax cuts, yes, but it also failed to build the border wall or get rid of the odious ObamaCare. Those failures, in my opinion, probably cost Republicans the House in the midterms. They didn’t do what American voters had elected them to do, so the voters threw them out.

Indeed, that has been the pattern for most of my adult life. Democrats cannot govern effectively because their policies are not grounded in reality. They live in a fantasy world where our enemies won’t do us harm if we’re just nice to them, raising taxes doesn’t lower investment, printing money doesn’t lead to inflation, same-sex marriage is just as beneficial to society as traditional marriage, and men can have babies. After a few years of social and economic devastation brought on by Democrat rule, the voters are itching for a change. (At the national level, at least. In some blue states, the apparently masochistic voters appear to embrace the devastation.)

So they vote in Republicans, based on their promises to fix things. But then, once elected, many of those same Republicans tack to the middle -- or even, in some cases, to the left of middle -- and essentially govern as Democrat lite. This again leads to chaos and decline, if not quite as much of it, and so after a few years the voters are tired of them, too, and (quite irrationally, I believe) bring back the Democrats -- whereupon the cycle starts all over again.

This time around, we simply can’t afford that kind of nonsense. Ain’t nobody got time for that. Republican lawmakers, if they want not only to keep (and perhaps expand) their majority but more importantly to save our country, must govern as rock-ribbed conservatives. They must keep the promises they made to the American people and help President Trump keep his promises, rather than undermining him at every turn as they did seven years ago.

We have got to get a handle on immigration, starting with deporting the foreign criminals who are terrorizing so many of our communities while making sure no more of them are allowed to just walk across our borders.

We’ve got to put an end to the ruinous DEI regime at America’s colleges and universities, not to mention the federal government that is sapping our institutions’ strength, depriving people of opportunities and livelihoods, and in some cases even costing lives.

We’ve got to make sure the ghoulish Mengele disciples haunting our medical profession are no longer allowed to mutilate and sterilize young children in the name of horrific, reality-denying, anti-human “transgender” ideology.

And we must make sure that freedom of speech remains the governing principle of American public discourse -- that citizens are allowed to speak freely on social media, in print, in boardrooms, in classrooms, and on college campuses across the country without fear of government censure or censorship.

Those are just a few agenda items to start with, all of which President Trump already has plans to address. And there is much he can do on each of those fronts with the stroke of his pen, through executive orders, as well as by putting the right people in place to lead the efforts (as he has done, for example, by naming Tom Homan as his new Border Czar).

But to make these changes permanent, to embed them firmly in our national character, we will need Congress to act. In so doing, they can demonstrate to the American people that they intend to keep their promises, affirm their support for and solidarity with the most popular president of our lifetime, and do great and lasting good for the country in the process.

Let us pray that they have the necessary wisdom, humility, and fortitude.

Image: Gage Skidmore