Trump/Pence In D.C., About That Performance, Lots Of Egg, Fringe Freak Out

Trump / Pence Come To Washington

by Gary Bauer, Contributing Author:  Trump/Pence Come To Washington - President-elect Donald Trump is in Washington today. He met with President Obama at the White House this morning to discuss an orderly transition of power. As some in the media have noted, this meeting will undoubtedly be "one of the most humbling moments of Obama's presidency."

This afternoon, President-elect Trump and Vice President-elect Pence met with Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. Yesterday, Ryan issued a very gracious statement, promising to work hand-in-hand next year with President Trump.

Ryan noted that Trump "turned politics on its head" and he credited Trump for providing "a lot of coattails" that pulled several GOP candidates "over the finish line."

Trump's strong performance in key states limited GOP losses and enabled the party to maintain control of Congress, which will be especially important when it comes to confirming President Trump's Supreme Court nominee next year. The GOP is in its strongest position in Washington, D.C., since the 1920s.

About That Performance - Donald Trump won a historic victory Tuesday. It appears he will win the Electoral College vote 306 to 232. He did it by carrying states that haven't voted Republican in decades.

• Iowa -- While George W. Bush carried Iowa in 2004, the state had voted Democrat in six of the previous seven elections.
• Michigan had not voted for a Republican presidential candidate since 1988.
• Pennsylvania had not voted Republican since 1988.
• Wisconsin had not voted Republican since Ronald Reagan's 1984 landslide.

The emerging consensus is that Hillary Clinton failed to energize the Obama coalition and underperformed with younger and minority voters. That is true to a point.

But in Florida, Clinton actually outperformed Obama. According to one analysis, Clinton won about 250,000 more votes than Obama won in 2012. Thankfully, Trump won 120,000 more votes than Clinton. And he outperformed Mitt Romney by more than 440,000 votes in the Sunshine State!

Lots Of Egg - There is not enough space to go through all the people who have egg on their faces following Tuesday's historic election. But let's try to name a few of the worst offenders.

• The Media. The left-wing media plumbed new depths of outrageous bias this year. In many cases, so-called journalists publicly justified their blatant contempt for Donald Trump and his supporters. If they had any integrity, which they obviously do not, they would all resign immediately.
• The Pollsters & Prognosticators -- All of the polls were wrong. As were professional political scientists like the University of Virginia's Larry Sabato. Three days ago, Professor Sabato's pre-election "Crystal Ball" predicted a Clinton landslide in the Electoral College of 322 to 216. It seems his crystal ball blew a fuse. Yesterday, Sabato apologized, saying, "This is bigger than 'Dewey defeats Truman.'"
• The Pundits -- Two weeks before the election, Karl Rove said Trump needed "an inside straight," adding, "I don't see it happening." On Election Day, Republican consultant Anna Navarro said on CNN, "I can assure you that Donald Trump will get historic low numbers among Latinos. It's going to be probably in the teens, if he breaks 20%. . . It will be sweet, sweet justice. . . if tonight it was the Latino vote that defeated Donald Trump." According to the exit polls, Trump won 29% of the Hispanic vote, more than Mitt Romney.
• GOP Elites -- Just after 4:00 PM on Election Day, Senator Lindsey Graham tweeted that he wanted Egg McMuffin. Whoops. No, that would have been preferable. Instead, Graham tweeted, "I voted @Evan_McMullin for President." A spokesman for George W. and Laura Bush said that they did not vote for Trump or Clinton or anyone else for president. And let's not forget the 2012 GOP Autopsy, which contained several recommendations for how the party needed to moderate in order to win. Wrong.
• Finally, some of the most prominent conservative journals were quick to embrace the #NeverTrump mantra probably because so many of their writers live, work and socialize inside the D.C. Beltway. They spent months telling us that you can't buck demographic trends. But what I don't get is why so many on our side are embracing policies -- such as left-wing immigration policies -- that exacerbate those trends.

Perhaps the most disappointing person in this category is George Will. He quit the Republican Party this summer after Trump won the nomination. A week before the election, Will said on ABC that he hoped for a Clinton landslide so the GOP could free itself from the influence of conservative talk radio. I don't understand how Will thinks it would help the party to abandon one of its biggest allies, much less lose the Supreme Court for a generation.

Left-wing Fringe Freaks Out - The radical left-wing fringe is freaking out, refusing to accept the results of the election. #NotMyPresident is trending on Twitter. Tolerant leftists are burning flags and even rioting.

You can tell we won because suddenly there is a chorus of the media and Washington insiders lecturing us about how important it is for us to reach out to our defeated foes.

I just did a TV interview with the BBC. The first question was, "What would you say to the outraged people demonstrating in dozens of U.S. cities against Donald Trump? What do you want to tell them this morning?" I responded, "I would tell them 'You lost.'"

I wasn't being flippant. Talk about unity and burying the hatchet never happens when the left wins a sweeping victory. In fact, Obama's message to congressional Republicans was "I won."

When Obama briefly had all branches of government, he rammed Obamacare down our throats. Nobody was telling him it was ill-advised. No one was saying he had an obligation to reach out to people in Middle America, which he described as "bitter" and "clinging to their guns and Bibles."

Thankfully, this country believes in the peaceful transfer of power. But on almost every fundamental issue facing the nation today, there are deep divisions between the left and the right.

I understand the need to sound magnanimous in victory. But we should not hesitate to use the advantage we have to preserve religious liberty, extend the protections of the Constitution to unborn children, revamp our military and stop the left's radical social engineering.

The reaching out we should do is to convince those Hillary voters who may be persuadable that they will be better off joining us and our agenda. It is not our responsibility to water down our agenda so that spoiled college kids and radical fringe activists don't feel "triggered."
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Gary Bauer is a conservative family values advocate and serves as president of American Values and chairman of the Campaign for Working Families

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