By: Mark Davis – star-telegram.com – November 6, 2024

He’s not the monster you’ve been told. And can’t we all agree we need a better border and stronger economy? | Opinion

As Donald Trump prepares to return to the presidency, I balance my obvious satisfaction against the still-fresh memories of what it’s like to lose. After all, my candidate did not prevail in three of the last four elections.

On those occasions, I spent time commiserating with fellow conservatives in search of silver linings and occasions for optimism. I’m not sure how that process plays out across liberal America as the Kamala Harris campaign post-mortems begin, but in my crowded post-election mind and heart, I find a variety of things I sincerely want to offer to people who voted for her.

Our votes are always a combination of two sentiments — our hope to see one candidate win and a desire to stop the opposition. So, what can I possibly offer to people who wanted a wholly different result because they see things in a wholly different way?

In these polarized times, I can’t say the following will amount to anything resembling comfort, but perhaps it will pass for an invitation toward clarity, so that we might address our differences with more honesty and goodwill.

My first offer of good news is to assure Democrats that many of the horrific things your side said about Donald Trump are staggeringly false. The horrors you were told to expect by many media outlets and candidates will not be coming to pass.

Trump is in fact not Hitler. There will be no dictatorship, even on day one. (He said that as a joke, by the way, an occasion to remind us that we should rediscover our sense of humor.) Democracy is not in danger. It never has been. Trump’s objections to a questionable 2020 result did not imperil the nation. Nor did the Capitol rioters, whom he did not incite, and who were ultimately and properly quelled. The daily drumbeat that Kamala Harris losing opens a door to fascism is a smear that now lies on the ash heap.

You will not see the inauguration of a man who found “good people on both sides”of white supremacy, a malicious misquote debunked by even liberal fact-checkers yet spread wantonly by Harris, Joe Biden and the usually more measured Barack Obama.

Trump will not be shutting down media voices who oppose him. Are you kidding? As MSNBC hosts and the women on “The View” have cowered in fear of Trump repercussions, one has to wonder if they remembered his actual presidency, where they were free to savage him for four years. Have they met the guy? He loves the battle, thrives on tangling with media trolls and will relish the back-and-forth as they enthusiastically condemn everything he plans to do.

Speaking of what he will do, those of you in the Harris camp have been woefully misinformed about his intentions on abortion, which seemed at times to be the party’s foremost passion. He seeks no federal abortion ban, despite countless dishonest campaign ads that said he does. He is also a staunch supporter of in-vitro fertilization, eroding further the credibility of those who sought to attack him on what the left calls “reproductive freedom.”

On abortion and other issues, there are obvious debates ahead on various matters of policy and governance, as there should be. But on some of the contentious issues of this campaign, Trump’s win should yield some results that can be a benefit across ideological lines.

Isn’t a functioning border better for everybody? Don’t we all benefit from a better economy? And isn’t the world safer when international tyrants hesitate to antagonize a sitting American president? Those questions may seem projected through a political lens, but objectively, during the Trump presidency, the border, the economy and world stability all looked better. That’s why he won again.

Now that he has, one final suggestion would be to resist the temptation to blame the country as a crestfallen media culture would have you do. Wednesday morning’s analysis was filled with imagery of a country driven largely by fear and anger with a heaping helping of racism and misogyny that made it impossible for a woman of color to win.

None of this is true. In this year like no other, Trump won the old-fashioned way: People wanted his policies more than those of his opponent. In her way, Harris lost in part due to a factor that arises from time to time: She was a terrible candidate. It wasn’t her race, her sex, or the relatively short burst of time she had to campaign. She simply did not have the authenticity and relatability to win.

For wounded Democrats, perhaps this can be a small comfort — your agenda may fare better in the hands of a standard-bearer who can communicate with skill. And because Trump will be an instant lame duck once inaugurated, a wide open 2028 race on both sides will quickly form. That brings yet another benefit for hopeful Democrats: the opportunity to nominate a candidate you actually voted for.

To see this article in its entirety and to. subscribe to others like it, please choose to read more.

Source: Even Harris voters will find good things in Trump’s 2nd term | Fort Worth Star-Telegram