As of last night, the Republicans have secured the presidency and both chambers of Congress. On the one hand, many will see this as a reprieve, and future events will give some support to this. At the same time, a lot of people are in for a wakeup call.
I hope no one reacts to this election outcome with the sense that the tide has turned or that things will get better. While this may seem to be a humble response, it is quite the opposite. To isolate just one issue: a nation where both parties openly support abortion stands under condemnation from God. We do not deserve God's blessings in the next four years, but we can and must pray for his mercy.
Our problems have grown beyond our ability to solve them. Even now, consider how many extremely unlikely things had to align to accomplish Trump's win, how non-ideal he is as a candidate, and how many concessions were and will be made.
Trump's last term may serve as a predictor for this one. He surrounded himself with party mainliners who subverted his agenda, was hampered by a split Congress, and was ineffective at pushing changes through the establishment bureaucracy. A salient example was his attempted simplification of the tax code, which resulted in reducing the 1040 to a two page form, but at the expense of a much more complex set of schedules in addition to the 1040. This serves as a microcosm of Trump's effect: Surface improvement while the underlying problems fester and continue to grow. As another example, consider how the economy was booming on the surface while massive amounts were added to the deficit. His term also showed a terrible lack of wisdom in the face of complex problems (such as how he handled COVID), his unwillingness to fulfill significant campaign promises, and his insistence on being nice to his opponents instead of standing for justice.
Some things are very different this go round. Instead of surrounding himself with party mainliners, he has surrounded himself with people who are solid Democrats (as he himself is), albeit of a slightly-less-radically-leftist bent. This strategy probably won him the election, as people like RFK Jr., Musk, Gabbard, and Rogan have huge sway in typically democrat demographics. But with perhaps the exception of Musk, these people's policies are not considerably different than when they supported Bernie, Hillary, and Biden. He has the party support of Congress, but Republicans have a solid track record of not taking advantage of a majority, being crippled by very different views and terrible leadership.
The election itself was an example of surface improvement while the underlying problems fester and continue to grow. It is early, but there were numerous reports of the same kind of highly suspicious election issues as in 2020, suggesting that the only thing that prevented a redux of that extremely improbable election outcome was the sheer number of Democrats who voted independent, the shift in votes in a few key demographics, and the increase in turnout in swing states--in short, "too big to rig." The mainstream media and internet outlets dishonestly skewed and filtered just about every piece of news throughout the entire campaign, showcasing that America's information access hangs by the thread of Elon Musk's recently purchased "X."
If Trump is not waylaid by one or more of the sea of dangers facing him, from old age to violence, we should expect a series of surface improvements with growing underlying problems:
- The stock market will likely explode higher, but the deficit will grow very quickly, too. The overall increases will continue to hide the fact that companies just aren't profitable anymore, and the markets rely increasingly on fewer and fewer companies.
- Taxes will probably be lowered, but without matching cuts to government spending.
- Some global wars may be resolved, but Trump's affinity for bellicose Israel may lead to troop involvement there, and his ability to negotiate may falter with China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea.
- DEI and other tenets of communism deeply entrenched in the US will probably approach dormancy during his term, and symbolic gestures and removal of figureheads may occur, but the army of bureaucrats who carry it will not be removed and will continue to believe what they do.
- If Trump manages to enact tariffs, expect that to go the same was minimum wage increases: everyone will make more money, and yet everyone will be poorer.
- Immigration will slow down, but it won't stop, and it is highly unlikely that deportations will occur in any meaningful way.
I also fully expect there to be a plethora of actions by Trump that are absolutely opposite of what those who elected him expect or want, at the level of (and possibly including) some form of amnesty for illegals.
I believe that God's purpose in Trump's re-election is to provide a temporary reduction in the rate of decay of America while also providing mounting evidence that the problems that will continue to grow are now beyond the ability for the US government to solve. Far too many people believe the government is capable of fixing things if we just elect the right people, and a bunch of them will cease to believe that over the next four years.
My advice: Use whatever benefits come to get your house in order. Get right with God, get your family right with God, get your temporal affairs in order, and use this time as a window to move ahead toward your long-term goals in where you live and how reliant you are on the system, including what you do for money and where your food comes from.