Edmund Burke wrote ““People will not look forward to posterity who never look backward to their ancestors.”
Today I read that Donald Trump is “saving America”. It’s not uncommon comment on Twitter and Facebook.
With that backward glance that Burke just suggested, let me put Donald Trump in the context of one of his predecessors.
George Washington first set out to save, and then set the foundation for America. That was his actual intention. Donald Trump also set out to “save America”. I’m sure of it.
But George Washington would be dead and buried 35 years before America actually would be saved.
It will be at least that long after Donald Trump has gone before America will be saved this next time around. What we are seeing now, and our children will be seeing (I’m the same age as Mr Trump) for many more years, is a work in progress. A house cleaning and restoration.
There will be many fights, maybe even a few setbacks, although I don’t foresee any serious ones if your hearts stay in the trim. Then you can finally ease back, light up a big filter-tipped Picayune and blow smoke rings and say to yourself, “America is saved.”
Washington had the harder time of it. He had to spend five years dodging and hiding from the British as he built and trained his main army from scratch, while his other generals kept English forces occupied and divided in the north and south. Finally, he surrounded the British in Virginia where they surrendered. More than just a couple of miracles were involved.
The good news for us today is our original design is still intact, so we don’t need to jerry-rig the basic architecture. There needs to be a lot of internal remodeling though. We largely need to broom out the trash, and improve our choices for who we want to represent us in the Congress, and later, who we will want to succeed Donald Trump in a one, two, three, four, succession, as well as some necessary closer-to-home state legislature and local governments repairs, especially with our schools and universities. It seems “becoming American” even for native-born Americans is becoming a lost memory.
So, Edmund Burke was right, we need to pay more attention to the shoulders we stand on, in both our family tree and our national tree, and relearn the basic natural laws of gratitude. A little religion wouldn’t hurt either, for even Darwin agrees with God about the natural laws that go into marrying a population’s survival to that simple word “Good”.
America has always been great because it is Good. Donald Trump knows this.
Our constitutional architecture and floor plan is as sound as it was the day the mortar was poured 233 years ago. It was Washington who gave us that “lived-in” look those first 37 years, while the rest of America was out clearing brush and setting up shop to pursue “life, liberty, and happiness”. We were working people, “and good’ns, too, Lord”, just by being able to make our own way.
Donald Trump has proved that most Americans still want to be that way.
But his restoration project will take at least another 35 years, just like Washington, long after he has passed away.
Let that sink in.
x x x
In that vein, this is a subject I will harp on in my few remaining years.
I won’t whine, though, for it seems too many on our side have already formed their own Whine section of the National Chorus, and as with all whine sections, is way out of tune. They can be seen and heard on Twitter and Facebook daily, and one senses that the impatient toe-tapping, “I want it, and I want it NOW” was learned at an early age. This is an especially bad look for adults over 35 on our side.
Although I’d like to shush that awful whine as I would the Left, with a bar of Ivory Soap and a tooth brush, I fear that many of this chorus may leave our cause anyway once Donald Trump leaves. Groupies… who are not in it for the long haul.
We will need them in coming years.
They are pessimistic, often not seeming to know that we’re even winning, not losing. They seem to know even less of Civics than they do American History, and nothing of legal process, even though they can cite the US Code easy enough. So when they read that McCabe is not going to be charged on the first of what we know are more serious charges awaiting him, they go all to pieces, blaming everyone working under Trump. This is a greater indictment against them that any of Trump’s underlings, for one, it reveals their teat-fittery to be just as bad as the spoiled children of the Damned on the Left, and two, they are studying.
So do your homework. Don’t be those guys on the Left. Don’t sound like you learned American government from a comic book. Read American History for real! And learn a little world history, especially since America has given close to a million of our soldiers to saving other countries’ sorry asses, many of whom never liked us and never will. (This is why so many of their cellar-dwellers moved here in the first place; to cash in on that Constitution our architects built, that allows them to grow past their origins. Done the right way, they make very good Americans.)
Beside keeping Ol’Besty over the fireplace well oiled, become a student and learn. Then teach. First around the dinner table. Then among friends.
If you see patriots on Twitter fitting this Whine description, just send them a link to this short article Be nice. We want to keep them, for there is much good they can do for many more years.
Trump is not a god. Not even close. But he can save us in about 35 years if you do the follow-up.
