The year 2008 will not go down in my memory as one of the happiest.
It was a year of bailouts, a suffering economy, bad political leadership and even worse choices for the future.
So why am I so happy this New Year’s Eve? Why am I popping the champagne corks and throwing streamers around the house? Why am I so giddy?
Give me a chance to explain.
How much worse can it get? The answer is, unfortunately, quite a bit worse.
Beginning Jan. 20, a new administration and a new Congress take power. There is little reason to believe they will be making good choices for America, and there’s plenty of evidence they will attack our most basic and cherished liberties.
Look for the economy to get even worse as it did from 1977 through 1980, when we suffered double-digit inflation and Americans had to get used to gas lines. Look for America to be attacked and bullied as it was in a similar period from 1977 through 1980, when the Soviets marched into Afghanistan and the Iranians took over the U.S. Embassy in Tehran.
We won’t have the same problems Democrats brought us in those days. We will have new ones. But they will translate into misery and humiliation. Mark my words.
So, again, why am I happy?
Well, that’s the bad news. But today is not a day for bad news. Today is a day to look at the opportunities before us – to discover the silver lining in those foreboding dark clouds on the political horizon.
Here’s the good news. There will be nobody else to blame for what transpires in the next two years but the Democrats, who, for the first time since 1993 and 1994, have a hammerlock of control on the levers of power.
Oh, I know the next two years will be full of excuses for the Democrats. They will do everything in their power to blame all of their problems and all of their inadequacies in dealing with them on George W. Bush. The truth of the matter is that Bush messed up badly. He virtually handed the Democrats their total control of the executive and legislative branches of government.
But excuses only go so far. They don’t sit well with the American people.
Do you remember what happened in 1994? Do you recall what happened in 1980?
There is not only an opportunity for a revitalized Republican Party inspired by the ideals of Ronald Reagan and remade in his image, there is a near certainty such a party will be given new life in 2010 and again in 2012. All the GOP has to do is recognize that those Grand Old Principles really work and have plenty of appeal to the American public.
Unlike many of you reading this column today, I am not fearful about the attacks on freedom that are surely coming this year and next, I see them as a necessary evil for a reawakening of the American public. Nothing short of what is coming could possibly get us back on track.
I’m not telling you to sit back and relax. I’m advising you to hunker down for battle. It’s not going to be easy. But there is an end in sight.
Here’s what I see coming in 2009:
- attacks on our most fundamental right to bear arms;
- attacks on our most fundamental right to free expression;
- attacks on our most fundamental property rights;
- attacks on our most fundamental system of free enterprise.
Socialism is coming to America – and it is coming like a speeding freight train.
But, if we play our cards right, none of the damage will be permanent – and it will soon be obvious to nearly all who was responsible for the misery it created.
We may be mourning for America for the next two years. But morning in America can be right around the corner.
As I have pointed out many times, we had to live through the Jimmy Carter years to get the Ronald Reagan years. There is no conceivable way Ronald Reagan gets elected president in 1980 without America experiencing the misery of the Carter years. It’s just that simple.
Likewise, the short-lived but memorable victory of Republicans in 1994 would not have been possible without the overreaching of Bill and Hillary Clinton in 1993 and 1994. The Republicans squandered that opportunity, but no one can deny the opportunity presented itself because of Clinton and the Democrats’ control of both houses of Congress.
It is with that good news, I wish you a very happy New Year. Don’t be demoralized. We will be living through tough times – no question about it. But keep your chin up. Keep smiling. Our chance is coming soon.
