The end of one year and the beginning of another is always a time to step back and take stock of life. Where have we been? Where do we want to go? Those are important questions to ponder, even if answers can be elusive.

We’ll start with another report that Americans are increasingly fleeing blue states in favor of red ones. While there is reason to worry that the influx of new residents will make a state turn purple or blue (Georgia is a prime example), what happens more often is that conservatives and independents become refugees from increasingly Marxist and failing states. That’s why New York and California are bleeding residents and the only growing population in the latter is the homeless.

The problem with this trend is that it further divides America. Only a handful of states are battleground states in the 2024 presidential election, which is fuel for the leftists who already hate and seek to destroy the Electoral College.

You can see the division in the rhetoric of the frontrunners.

Joe Biden’s gross dereliction of duty at the border is the worst story of the year — perhaps of his three years — unless inflation or his travails with Hunter Biden take the prize.

The border crisis provides an opening for Donald Trump to use inflammatory language to describe the problem. “They’re poisoning the blood of our country,” he recently said of illegal immigrants being allowed into and spread across the country by the Biden administration. When the inevitable blowback came, he doubled down by repeating his valid but unnecessarily provocative assessment.

“TRUMP PARROTS HITLER,” reads the graphic pushed out by Biden’s campaign in response. Biden’s sidekick Kamala Harris likewise mused that Trump’s comments were “similar to the language of Hitler.”

That’s almost humorous coming from the guy pushing eugenics via abortion, mandating vaccines, and delivering angry rants about “unity” in front of that Nazi backdrop.

Democrats scream about all the “threats to democracy” posed by Trump the “dictator.” Yet they sic a series of political DAs and rogue prosecutors on him and then disqualify him from a state ballot just because they don’t like him — all of which happens to be the very things dictators do to political opponents.

“The greatest threat he poses is to our democracy,” Biden’s social media team said of Trump on Wednesday. We’d argue that the Democrat Party poses the greatest threat to our Republic.

Indeed, millions of Americans are convinced that Democrats have so thoroughly rigged the next election — after 20% of mail-in voters admitted to cheating in the last one — that they fear Trump can’t win.

You have one side convinced that Trump is Hitler and a “threat to democracy,” while the other side seeks revenge and a reckoning for leftist tyranny and two-tiered justice.

No wonder there’s a movie coming out in 2024 titled “Civil War.” Indeed, “The weaponization of the legal system creates an all-consuming fire, burning everything in its path,” argues Ben Shapiro. “There is simply no 2024 result likely to result in anything but complete — and perhaps violent — chaos at this point.”

Whew, that sounds hopeless. Fortunately, it’s not.

Remember, there are tens of millions of American Patriots who think as we do. Even less politically inclined people are moving to other states because they know something’s very wrong. We here in our humble shop remain dedicated to defending Liberty wherever we see a threat, and millions of Americans stand with us.

You can do your part and financially assist us today.

The big takeaway is that we should never give up and never quit fighting for Liberty. “We should never despair,” George Washington said, “Our Situation before has been unpromising and has changed for the better, so I trust, it will again.” Ronald Reagan borrowed from John Winthrop to call America a “shining city upon a hill.” His optimism drives us forward in the hope that, as he put it in 1992, “America’s best days are yet to come.”

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!