It is morning again in America

Time to be "great again" — and also reasonable

Many years ago a president ran on a slogan, "Let's make America great again." It sounded good to the voters. He won and used that tagline again for the re-election campaign.

In the season of that second election, the people of the United States were perhaps experiencing the least division since World War II. At the time, though, there were no red golf hats with the slogan emblazoned upon them. Campaign posters and buttons were pretty much the extent of it.

There was simply a feeling that it was about time for the country get serious…again.

Time to finally beat the Soviets once and for all. High time to completely emerge from the "malaise" that Jimmy Carter shamed the citizens with. Time to become "great again."

Naturally, then, the 1984 presidential election rendered the syrupy liberalism of challenger Fritz Mondale a death blow.

The incumbent Dutch Reagan, on the other hand, waltzed to an electoral college blowout—one of the biggest in history. It was indeed the Reagan campaign that first suggested, "Let's make America great again."

For a while, America stayed on the right path. Then came the backslide—quite severe, starting in earnest with the Clinton Administration. And now, in the wake of the last two presidential cycles, there exists a divided nation, its massive fissures perhaps unlike that in any era since the Civil War.

But make no mistake, and borrowing again from Reagan, it is morning again in America.

The November presidential election once again repudiated the crass and callous messaging from the institutional left.

The breakthrough? For three straight cycles now, the Trump campaigns have cribbed the Reaganite language: Make America Great Again.

They've won (at least) twice with the message. As per Meat Loaf, two out of three ain't bad.

The American ethos over time has, after all, tended toward greatness, yet a question remains: Will the throngs of "MAGA" get their way and help make their country ascendant once more?

Americans shouldn't hold their breath, but in the personage of Trump, the nation stands its best chance for greatness since those salad days of Reagan.

Another analogue, perhaps, is to see in The Donald a new, but quite aged, Cortés.

When the great conquistador stepped on to the shores of what is now Mexico, the Aztec Empire was the dominant political and military force in the region. The pagan hordes of monstrous Aztec warriors regularly subdued rival tribes across central Mexico, meanwhile graciously incorporating the concept and practice of human sacrifice into daily life.

However, there lingered a remnant—a patchwork of unconquered people, city-states, and tribes—willing to fight the brutal Aztec warlords. They just needed help.

Hernán Cortés and his Spanish forces arrived at the right time in the right place—for it was at the peak of the Aztec Empire. The conflict between the conquistadors and the Aztecs was bloody, but when it played out, good conquered evil.

The Aztecs and their penchant for human sacrifice gave way to the Holy Cross and the notion that all people, regardless their station in life, are capable of eternal salvation.

In modern America, the cultural left—specifically the columns of neo-pagans and their atheistic kinsmen—remains resolute in its butchering of history, painting the Aztec Empire as merely an innocent victim of Spanish aggression. Today's academy of historians—hard left at its core, and as such—demonizes the Spanish as genocidal slavers who looted and plundered with impunity. As destroyers of a native "culture."

Rich.

Likewise, today's Democratic Party and its sycophants drone on about a woman's need for "healthcare" and "reproductive freedom." Civilized people have long thought such euphemistic language an abomination. This systematic depopulation of a culture has, until recently, been considered "genocide."

Could, then, Montezuma finally be getting his revenge after all? For, today, the Democrats embrace the cardinal beliefs of his savage culture. Child sacrifice is now a tenet of the party platform.

Within the ranks of the left have recently emerged loud bellyaches and tears (and even some kvetching over on Bluesky, apparently) because they no longer have a free and unfettered license to sacrifice America's unborn. All because Trump won, they say.

If one was to don his general manager's cap and evaluate the Trump victory in these terms, it would be a great trade. The barrage of leftist propaganda and gaslighting was suddenly quelled in return for a septuagenarian celebrity winning an election. Throw in the added benefit that there, as of yet, has been no bloodshed in the "mostly peaceful" process of voting and its aftermath.

Yet that side is still bloodthirsty. Not content. For the crime of appreciating Trump's victory, they'd prefer decent people die—and they make no bones about it.

The challenge: In today's political environment we are asked to be reasonable but expected to be "moderate."

Even the best GMs in the game will struggle to execute that trade.

If asked to be reasonable, then oblige. Further negotiations are unnecessary.

Now reflect.

The Reagan campaign reminded us four decades ago that it is morning again in America. "Why would we ever want to return to where we were" over these last four years?