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The annual American holiday called Thanksgiving formally began with a 1863 proclamation from Abraham Lincoln declaring the last Thursday in November a day of "thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens," as well as "humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience."
The thought behind Thanksgiving is outward toward God and his blessings and not inward, which suggests gratitude to no one in particular for whatever positives might have occurred in one's life. In the more secular view these positives are not blessings, but are to be chalked up to luck, or "good fortune." May "The Force" be with you.
Most presidents after Lincoln generally followed the pattern of giving thanks to the Deity, even and especially during wars and economic downturns.
In 1939, in the midst of The Great Depression and a looming World War II, President Franklin D. Roosevelt was still able to proclaim: "Let us, on the day set aside for this purpose, give thanks to the Ruler of the Universe for the strength which He has vouchsafed us to carry on our daily labors and for the hope that lives within us of the coming of a day when peace and the productive activities of peace shall reign on every continent."
That optimistic sentiment was reinforced in the Vera Lynn song "The White Cliffs of Dover," which contained this lyric:
Roosevelt also declared Thanksgiving to be on the fourth Thursday of the month in years when the calendar contained five Thursdays to allow more time for Christmas shopping which he thought would help boost the economy.
Even in this month when Thanksgiving comes naturally late on the calendar, advertisers have been declaring "Black Friday" sales beginning in October.
As noted by The American Presidency Project, beginning in the early 1940s, "the language of Thanksgiving Day Proclamations changed to emphasize American values and ideas, and to assert the event's direct link to the 'first Thanksgiving' of Plymouth Colony."
Many myths have grown around Thanksgiving, The Mayflower, and other historical events. The Museum Gallery Archive reports: "Four hundred years ago, Thanksgiving was a religious event, and marked by fasting not feasting. Recent research suggests that the first Thanksgiving of this kind was celebrated by new English settlers at Berkeley, Virginia, in 1619. They were Puritans giving thanks for their safe arrival on the banks of the James River."
Today, Thanksgiving is nearly a blur in the rush toward Christmas and the conspicuous consumption merchants promote to pad their bottom lines. It's too bad because pausing to reflect amid the toxic political environment we have experienced this year - and are likely to continue to experience in at least the near future - is a way to cleanse us from the poison that has infected so many. It is also a way to turn our attention from things on Earth that must pass away to the One who is eternal and in control of all things.
After one of the most divisive presidential campaigns in modern history, dividing friends, family members and even members of some churches, this Thanksgiving offers an opportunity to put bitterness aside, attempt to heal wounds, and focus on what unites us more than our political divisions. Let that process begin with humility, forgiveness and confession to the One who ought to be the object of our gratitude.
This post is adapted from a panel presentation I did on Friday at the David Horowitz Freedom Center’s Restoration Weekend.
First, the topline numbers: Donald Trump won the election 312 to 226. Trump received 76,857,299 votes, while Kamala Harris got 74,365,231, for a total of 151,222,530 ballots counted. Trump’s margin was around 2.5 million votes.
Trump got 2,633,324 votes more than he received in 2020, while Harris received 6,918,270 ballots fewer than were recorded for Joe Biden in 2020. That means that there were around 4,285,000 fewer votes counted in 2024 than in 2020. In 2020, meanwhile, the vote total increased by more than 26,000,000 over 2016. The remarkable number of ballots counted in 2020 has yet to be explained.
Trump actually scored three points lower with white voters in 2024 than he did in 2020, so his margin of victory came from minority voters. The story of the 2024 election is that the Republican coalition of middle-class and working-class voters that we have been talking about for some time, actually came into being. The numbers that follow are from exit polls and therefore are not Gospel, but they should be close enough to make the point.
Harris carried the black vote 83% to 16%. Trump won 24% of black men, but black women are the most hard core Democratic demographic, and only 8% percent of them went for Trump.
Harris carried the Hispanic vote 56% to 42%. Once again, Trump did notably better with Hispanic men, whom Harris carried by only 50% to 47%, In 2020, Trump lost Hispanics by 63% to 35%. His improvement this year was critical to his victory.
Trump carried white voters 55% to 43%. This was down from the 58% of white voters that Trump won in 2020.
Exit polls suggest that American Indians were Trump’s best demographic, stronger than whites. I have no idea why this would be true, and suspect it is an artifact of small sample size, but take it for what it is worth.
One notable finding is that age was not much of a factor in 2024. For many years Democrats have believed that they own young voters, and their get-out-the-vote efforts on campuses reflect their assumption that the large majority of those votes will go to them. But that didn’t happen in 2024. Trump did pretty well with young people (18-29), losing by only 46% to 52%. Going up the age scale made little difference. Trump got 47% of those 30-44, 52% of those 45 to 65, and 51% of those over 65.
What we saw in 2024, more than anything, was a class realignment. Trump carried voters without a college degree by 14 points, while Harris carried those with a college diploma by 13 points. Again, that is something that we have been talking about for a while. But bear in mind that in 2020, Trump carried those without a college degree by only two points. Almost all of his improvement in that category between 2020 and 2024 came from minority voters.
So 2024 was a landmark election, manifesting a substantial realignment of the parties. The obvious question is, will that realignment hold? Or was Trump’s relative success among minority voters the result of his personal appeal to those groups?
The latter was definitely a factor. The Democrats’ lawfare, the multiple assassination attempts, and Trump’s bold personality did appeal to minority men (and, of course, to men in general). But I am optimistic that the realignment will hold, for several reasons.
First, the movement of the working class to the GOP is based on solid economic reality. Bidenflation, job stagnation and the traumas caused by the open Southern border were the key elements driving blue-collar votes, although a disdain for wokeness no doubt contributed. Those economic factors are not going away. I think blue-collar voters will see real economic relief during Trump’s term.
Second, there is evidence that working class voters are increasingly identifying with the GOP, not just with Donald Trump. Thus, in polling done shortly before the election, more voters described themselves as Republican or Republican-leaning than as Democrat or Democrat-leaning. This is a change: since the New Deal and World War II, there have generally been more self-described Democrats than Republicans. Forty years ago, we heard a lot about Reagan Democrats. You don’t hear many references to Trump Democrats. I think those voters mostly see themselves as Republicans.
Third, the GOP has a lot of upside with minority voters. The dam has now been broken. Voting Republican is now not just acceptable, but common within those demographics. I don’t think Democrats can hang on to the overwhelming majority of black votes that they got even in 2024, and I think Hispanics and Asians will continue to move toward the Republicans based on both economic and cultural issues.
So Trump’s unique appeal did contribute to his win this year. But I think that underlying realities point to a bright future for Republicans with minority voters, and therefore to a lot of winning elections.
It’s one thing to lose an election; it’s another to lose your identity. The Democratic Party in 2024 faced both these crises, culminating in Kamala Harris’s defeat to Donald Trump. But the real story isn’t just the loss itself—it’s the timeline. The Democrats didn’t simply wake up to a red wave on election night. They saw it coming, months—if not years—before the polls closed. The warning signs were blaring, yet their response was tepid, constrained by internal contradictions and a miscalculation of their own base’s discontent.
For decades, Democrats relied on their coalition of diverse, working-class, and young voters to carry elections. However, in the Trump era, that coalition began to fracture. By the time Harris inherited Joe Biden’s shaky mantle, the party’s grip on its base had loosened significantly. The cracks had been forming for years, but in 2024, they split wide open. Voters who once delivered decisive Democratic victories either stayed home or, more surprisingly, voted Republican.
What makes this loss even more striking is how predictable it was. Internal Democratic polling revealed grim realities early on. Harris’s campaign never showed her leading Trump, and despite public polls briefly suggesting otherwise, her advisers never bought into the optimism. They weren’t fighting to win; they were fighting to mitigate a looming loss. This wasn’t just a bad election cycle—it was the culmination of deep-seated issues the party had long ignored.
The Early Warning Signs
From the start, Kamala Harris’s campaign was an uphill battle. Internal polling, as disclosed by her senior advisers, never showed her leading Trump.
And she might not have had much chance of winning anyway, given the deficit she inherited from Biden when he dropped out of the race in July.
“We were hopeful. I don’t know how optimistic we were, but we thought, OK, this is tied, and if a couple things break our way [we could win],” David Plouffe, a senior adviser to the campaign, said Tuesday on the “Pod Save America” podcast in a joint interview with fellow Harris campaign alums Jen O’Malley Dillon, Quentin Fulks and Stephanie Cutter.
Plouffe said the campaign’s internal polling never had Harris ahead of Trump.
“We didn’t get the breaks we needed on Election Day,” he said. “I think it surprised people, because there was these public polls that came out in late September, early October, showing us with leads that we never saw.”
Her campaign strategy, while emphasizing loyalty to President Biden, lacked the adaptability required to confront Trump’s populist narrative. Biden’s late withdrawal left Harris to inherit an administration plagued by discontent, a struggling economy, and a pandemic hangover.
In the weeks leading to the election, optimistic public polls created a facade of Democratic competitiveness, but the party’s insiders knew better. As David Plouffe admitted, they “never saw” the leads reported by external pollsters. This wasn’t just a campaign with bad breaks—it was a party disconnected from its base.
It has long been clear that the rise of Donald J. Trump meant the end of the Republican Party as we once knew it.
It has belatedly become clear that his rise may have meant the end of the Democratic Party as we knew it as well.
After three Trump elections, almost every traditional Democratic constituency has swung to the right. In fact, Mr. Trump has made larger gains among Black, Hispanic, Asian American and young voters in his three campaigns since 2016 than he has among white voters without a college degree, according to New York Times estimates. In each case, Mr. Trump fared better than any Republican in decades.
For instance, between 2012 and 2024, Black support for Democrats dropped by 19 points, Hispanic by 29, and Asian by 17. These shifts represent more than a bad campaign; they reflect a party out of sync with its constituents.
Why Did They Drift?
Trump’s populism co-opted the Democrats’ historical appeal as the “party of the people.” By emphasizing themes like economic nationalism and cultural authenticity, Trump resonated with voters who felt alienated by the Democrats’ focus on progressive social policies. The shift wasn’t solely about Trump, though. The Democrats’ pivot toward an anti-Trump identity alienated many traditional voters. Instead of embracing economic populism, the party became synonymous with academic language and “woke” progressivism.
The Harris Campaign’s Missteps
Kamala Harris’s inability—or unwillingness—to distinguish herself from the Biden administration exacerbated these challenges. Her campaign avoided confronting Trump’s narrative on issues like the economy, crime, and trans rights, instead playing defense. As Fulks noted, focusing on counterattacks left no room to define Harris as a candidate.
Moreover, her unwavering loyalty to Biden backfired. When pressed for differences between herself and the unpopular incumbent, Harris failed to deliver, reinforcing perceptions of stagnation rather than offering hope.
The Numbers Don’t Lie
The erosion of Democratic support wasn’t just anecdotal; it was seismic. According to data from the New York Times article referenced above, nonwhite voters without college degrees swung 37 points toward Republicans from 2012 to 2024. Among young voters aged 18–29, the Democrats’ margin shrank from +25 in 2012 to +11 in 2024. The party that once claimed a diverse coalition of working-class and young voters is now scrambling to understand its new reality.
What Lies Ahead?
The Democratic Party’s struggles in 2024 were years in the making, but they offer a stark lesson. Rebuilding will require more than refining campaign strategies; it demands a return to economic populism and a recalibration of cultural priorities. If Democrats fail to reconnect with their disenchanted base, their future as a viable political force is in question.
As the dust settles, one thing is clear: Democrats saw this coming. The question now is whether they have the courage to change course.
There is so much to be said about Donald Trump’s victory in the 2024 presidential election. I’m sure you’ve probably noticed that this year, things just seem different. And you’d be right. Recent polling shows there’s been a dramatic shift in how Americans perceive the Trump transition compared to eight years ago.
CNN’s Harry Enten shared insights that highlight the significant change in public sentiment, suggesting a new era of optimism surrounding Trump’s leadership.
“Take a look here,” Enten began, pointing to data from November 2016. At that time, Trump's net approval during his transition was only "plus one point." Enten emphasized, “That was well, well, well below the historical norm.” Fast forward to today, and Trump’s approval during this transitional phase has skyrocketed to +18—a remarkable 17-point increase. “The bottom line is this: if eight years ago Americans were lukewarm on Donald Trump, at this particular point, they’re giving him much more of the benefit of the doubt,” Enten noted. “A lot more Americans are in love with this transition.”
And then there's his numbers with young people. Would you believe that 65% of voters under 30 approve of the Trump transition?
Not only has public perception improved, but attitudes toward Trump’s upcoming presidency have also undergone a striking transformation. “Eight years ago, 53% of Americans were scared or concerned… Now, the shoe is on the other foot,” Enten explained. Today, 53% of Americans say they are “excited or optimistic,” signaling a “flip flop” from the apprehension many felt in 2016.
This newfound optimism isn’t just about the transition. As Enten explained, “it’s not just that they like what Donald Trump is doing right now. They’re optimistic for the future.” Compared to eight years ago, when skepticism and fear dominated, Americans are now more hopeful about Trump’s ability to lead effectively.
Interestingly, this shift in sentiment extends beyond Trump’s supporters. According to Enten, Democrats—who were fervently opposed to Trump in 2016—seem to have softened, albeit from a place of fatigue. “I think one word to describe Democrats now is just they’re exhausted; they’re tired,” Enten remarked. He attributed this to Trump’s unique ability to wear out his opposition. Today, only 44% of Democrats are motivated to oppose Trump, with the majority either indifferent or, surprisingly, somewhat supportive.
The data illustrates a seismic shift in American politics. Enten concluded, “This is really a very different picture from eight years ago. The American folks are much more behind Donald Trump than they were back in November of 2016.”
Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR), in a scathing letter to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, slammed "partisans and obstructionists" at the Department of Defense who are already plotting ways to thwart the incoming president's agenda.
Cotton was responding to reports that officials within the United States government are conspiring against President-elect Donald Trump to undermine decisions he finds warranted in furthering the interests of this nation.
Like mass deportations or firing underperforming officials.
"It appears that partisans and obstructionists inside the Department of Defense are laying groundwork to defy or circumvent President Trump’s plans for both military and civil-service reform," Cotton wrote. "These actions undermine civilian control of the military and our constitutional structure of government."
As RedState previously reported, the crux of these rogue officials' concerns involves stated intentions by Trump to make a national emergency declaration to repurpose assets from the Pentagon to detain and deport illegal immigrants.
“Troops are compelled by law to disobey unlawful orders,” a defense official asserted. “But the question is what happens then – do we see resignations from senior military leaders? Or would they view that as abandoning their people?”
Cotton, in his letter, also took direct aim at Austin, claiming: "You also issued a message to the department the day after the election commenting that the military will follow 'lawful orders' from the new president—a thinly veiled and baseless insinuation that President Trump will issue unlawful orders."
The Republican Senator asserts that the DOD's actions in preparing for Trump by angling his agenda as "unlawful" is proof that the entire department is badly in need of a fundamental overhaul.
"And, of course, while inappropriate and annoying, these tactics are also useless because no action by the outgoing administration can limit the incoming president’s constitutional authority as commander-in-chief," Cotton concludes.
"Please, therefore, knock off this nonsense and get on with the business of handing over the reins to the next administration."
It's almost certain that they will "knock off the nonsense" once nominee Pete Hegseth replaces Austin. Prior to being nominated by Trump, Hegseth had some very interesting thoughts on cleaning up the DOD.
"First of all, you got to fire the Chairman Joint of the Chiefs and obviously going to bring in a new Secretary of Defense, but any general that was involved general, admiral, whatever — that was involved in, any of the DEI woke s**t, has got to go," Hegseth said during an interview on the "Shawn Ryan Show" podcast.
The obstructionists, thinking they can disobey commands from the president because they've personally ascertained them to be unlawful, need to go as well.
So now we know that the cop who fatally shot unarmed Donald Trump supporter Ashli Babbitt, 36, during the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot was rewarded with a promotion and a $36,000 bonus.
There were no ill consequences for his rash actions that day. Instead, Capt. Michael Byrd, 56, was held up as a hero of democracy, despite the fact that he had a lengthy disciplinary record that includes leaving his loaded handgun in a public bathroom in the Capitol Visitor Center, “improperly” firing his gun at a car near his home while off duty and abusing a Maryland cop who tried to stop him entering a high school football field as a “racist a–hole,” again while off duty, according to a letter released last week by the GOP-led House Administration Committee’s Subcommittee on Oversight.
Three entries in Byrd’s internal affairs record are missing, wrote subcommittee Chairman Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.) in a letter to Capitol Police Chief Thomas Manger.
Left’s convenient spin
Loudermilk is asking questions about Byrd and everything else about the Jan. 6 riot that was used so effectively to tarnish Trump and his supporters and that provided the excuse for the Biden administration to weaponize federal law enforcement against them.
The J6 riot was not an insurrection but a protest that escalated into an out-of-control riot because then-Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund was denied intelligence about potential threats that day and denied National Guard backup that he was begging for.
Sund is a crucial witness to history. Pelosi (D-Calif.) made him her scapegoat, firing him immediately, but she knew he had begged for the National Guard to assist his vastly outnumbered troops.
He needed the permission of the Capitol Police Board, and Pelosi and then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) controlled the two sergeants-at-arms who had to give him the OK. McConnell’s guy deferred to Pelosi, and Pelosi’s guy kept saying he had to “run it up the chain to get Pelosi’s approval,” says Sund.
But the National Guard didn’t arrive for hours, delayed not just by Pelosi but by officials at the Pentagon who had become so Trump-deranged that they believed the president would repurpose the troops to declare martial law and try to hang on to power.
This was a delusion that worst gripped Mark Milley, then-chairman of the Joint Chiefs, the most powerful military figure in Washington.
Milley was constantly talking to people about the threat of a “coup” by Trump after the 2020 election, Washington Post reporters Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker wrote in their book “I Alone Can Fix It,” which paints Milley as a defender of democracy rather than an emotional weakling defying his commander-in-chief.
In the days leading up to the riot, Milley told his staff that Trump’s suggestions that the National Guard be deployed on Jan. 6 were just an “excuse to invoke the Insurrection Act” and call out the military.
The book paints a picture of an increasingly paranoid Milley fielding calls from unnamed “friends” egging him on in his delusion.
Milley came to see Trump as Hitler. “This is a Reichstag moment,” he told aides. “The gospel of the Führer.”
Milley seemed to get radicalized after the June 2020 riots at Lafayette Square in front of the White House, which got so violent that Trump and his family had to be evacuated by the Secret Service to an underground bunker.
Milley’s Trump grudge
Trump two days later ordered that Lafayette Square be cleared so he could reassure the public by appearing at St. John’s Church, which had been firebombed the previous night.
Milley was more upset at the criticism he received for appearing in a presidential photo op in his uniform than he was about the fact that the president had to be evacuated to a bunker.
During those violent riots, officers at the capital’s Metropolitan Police Department were “ordered not to assist at the White House,” says Sund, undoubtedly by DC Mayor Muriel Bowser, a rancid Trump hater.
Rioters try to break through a police barrier at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington.AP
Sund says the DC cops “were so furious having to watch bloodied Secret Service agents being taken out by ambulance” while they could do nothing. Afterward, he phoned then-DC Police Chief Pete Newsham and asked for an assurance that if he had problems at the Capitol, the DC police would come and help. Although Newsham retired five days before the Jan. 6 riot, the DC police “could not have helped me more,” says Sund, and sent him 1,000 officers.
But when it came to the National Guard, Sund hit roadblock after roadblock.
After his troops had been fighting rioters for 80 minutes, Sund finally got approval from Pelosi to call in the National Guard, moments before the first window was broken.
He then called Gen. William Walker, commander of the DC National Guard, but Walker needed permission from Trump’s acting Secretary of Defense Chris Miller, who was suffering from the same Trump delusion as Milley.
It took four hours for the National Guard to arrive. But it was all over by then.
Walker’s hands had been tied by a curious memo issued by Miller two days earlier, ordering “unprecedented restrictions on the DC National Guard” applying to Jan. 5 and Jan. 6, Sund says in his book, “Courage Under Fire.”
In his Jan. 4, 2021, memo titled, “Employment guidance,” Miller dictates that, without his “personal authorization,” the DC National Guard cannot be issued “weapons, ammunition, bayonets, batons, or … helmets and body armor” or “interact physically with protesters … employ any riot control agents … share equipment with law enforcement agencies … employ helicopters or any other air assets,” and so on. In other words, they could do nothing.
And nothing they did, until it was too late.
Ominous WaPo op-ed
Something else significant happened the day Miller issued his memo: An op-ed signed by 10 former secretaries of defense, including Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Jim Mattis, was published by the Washington Post warning that Trump might use the military to hang on to power. They warned, “Civilian and military officials who direct or carry out such measures” would potentially face “criminal penalties.”
Miller got the message. He later testified to Congress that he wrote the memo because he was afraid Trump “would invoke the Insurrection Act to politicize the military in an antidemocratic manner.”
As a result, Sund never got the National Guard backup he needed to stop the Capitol being overrun. Mayhem was inevitable.
Conveniently for the Democrats, the riot prevented Trump allies’ efforts in Congress from delaying certification of the Electoral College votes and was a perfect branding exercise to make Trump and his supporters look bad.
The irony is that Sund, the man who did more than anybody to save the Capitol that day, was forced out in ignominy before he was eligible for his pension — while everybody who failed got off scot-free.
What do you think? Post a comment.