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Promoted from the diaries by streiff. Promotion does not imply endorsement.
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Knowing what we know now, does the message in Trump’s October 2016 video speak to current headlines?

The way I see it, you can trace the disturbing headlines from this week back to the issues he raised. In fact, the major events that have occurred since the November 2016 election all seem to line up as he described.  Whether it’s the response to Justice Kennedy’s retirement or the calls to abolish ICE or the stonewalling of Congressional oversight by the DOJ and FBI, the same themes are present.

To understand where we are, it might help to look back at how we got here.

If you’re like me, you knew something has been wrong in the Democrat party for decades.  And after 8 long years of corruption and failure and suffering during the Obama years, the prospect of Hillary ‘Catch Me if You Can’ Clinton becoming president was unacceptable.

Going back to Whitewater (and before that), it was clear the Clinton’s were the center of countless scandals.  Some were shady, like Hillary’s $100k Cattle Futures gains, others were abuses of power, and there isn’t enough time to catalog all of that here.  But between Benghazi, the Clinton Foundation, Uranium One, Haiti, and of course, her illegal and non-secure email server, it was clear this person was objectively unfit to serve (and if she hadn’t married so well, she’d be locked up).

But back in 2016, I didn’t know much about Donald J. Trump.  I thought his presidential run would be a lark like the brief 2012 adventure.  I resented that.

Given the stakes, I had no interest in a billionaire playboy screwing around and throwing the election to Crooked Hillary. Besides, some of the star conservatives who’d risen in the Obama years to fight were running in the primary, including Cruz, Walker, Perry, and others I was less excited about or actively against (Jeb!).

And if you believed what you read in the media, Trump was not just a playboy, he was a bigot, a tyrant, a lunatic, and of course, stupid. As you can imagine, when he won the nomination, I was disgusted.  How could this happen when there were so many other conservatives to choose from? Heck, I would have settled for Rubio and hope he could be reigned in from his penchant for pandering on immigration.

Truth be told, I supported the idea that Trump should be replaced at the convention with Cruz or just about anyone else besides Kasich.

But the whole time I had a friend who told me a) Trump would win, b) that was a good thing.  He’s a veteran and extremely well read when it comes to military and political history.  But I’d followed current politics more closely so I initially dismissed his prediction.

One day in October 2016 he forwarded me this video (and others). He said Trump was going to defeat Hillary.

I had to admit, even though this video is clearly produced and not raw like a rally speech, it hit some hot button issues that I’d not heard said so bluntly by a Republican nominee before.  Particularly, when he said the media is a special interest and that the Clinton’s are criminals, it got my attention.

Now that we have the benefit of hindsight, with the IG reports piling up and the exposure of the criminality and corruption inside the FBI and DOJ and State Department, was Trump right? Was the 2016 election a crossroads and not just another cycle? Is the establishment in both parties aligned in supporting policies that are not just ineffective but actually against the interest of the public?

Regardless of whether you supported Trump, or whatever your personal feelings about the man, watch this speech and see how the message matches up with current headlines.

As the mid-terms approach, I think it’s worth remembering how much is at stake, and it’s not about R vs D.  It’s about the Establishment vs the people.  I’ve been saying for a while that this isn’t really about Trump personally for me.  It’s about the fight against leftism that has come so close to fundamentally transforming America into something that goes against everything the Founders fought for.

I’ve noticed that Trump’s rallies are different than his major speeches – like before the UN or this one.  They hit big, important issues.

I’ve been called a cultist, a Trumpkin, and that’s fine. I was not a Trump supporter, he was not the president I wanted, but he may just be the president we need, all things considered.

Even if you don’t normally comment, I’m curious to see what your reactions are to the message in the speech (not the messenger). If it helps, pretend your preferred conservative delivered this same speech.

Watch to the message from 2016 with the hindsight of 2018.  See what you think.