The Patriot Post® · Challenges Ahead? Ask a Veteran

We’re just coming up for air after a year of near-total immersion in election matters. There are many issues to confront in the wake of last week’s electoral tsunami. But I am writing this column on November 11 — Veterans Day — so first and foremost, let’s resolve never to forget the enormous debt we owe to those who consciously choose to leave home, put on the uniform, and take on difficult and dangerous assignments to protect our homeland and our freedom.

So, let me try to address both and, along the way, connect a few dots.

The good news about the election is that last week’s outcome was as clear as it could be — the word “decisive” doesn’t come close. The election results leave no room at all for bickering about lost or stolen votes. Donald Trump won the Electoral College by a staggering 312-226 margin. And for those who believe that we should elect presidents by popular vote, he won that, too, by a whopping 3.5 million votes (as of this writing). Team Trump made a clean sweep of all seven battleground states, including the supposedly invincible “blue wall.” They appear to have won majorities in both chambers of Congress, including a dramatic reversal in the U.S. Senate and a virtual lock on House control. The GOP captured the highest margins in years in nearly every voter category.

Clearly, the electorate has spoken. Per my “Morning After” column one week ago, we’d hoped that a convincing win by either side would provide a toe-hold start in bridging the vast partisan divide between the American Left and Right. I thought it reasonable to anticipate a gracious, forward-looking victory declaration from the winning side and a comparably gracious concession from the other. It was not to be.

Trump’s 2:30 a.m. celebratory remarks were tempered and positive, but — after 14 hours of deafening silence — Vice President Kamala Harris’s televised remarks conceded only that she had lost the election (obviously), but simultaneously pledged to continue the “fight” on all fronts. Her vow to prompt a 2024 version of anti-Trump “resistance” was unmistakable. Over the next 24 hours, the Harris keep-fighting message was enthusiastically joined by Democrat leaders across the nation.

I’d thought, naively, I suppose, that we’d learned that lesson once before. The multi-year Russia collusion hoax and related obstruction of virtually all Trump initiatives in this first term was, in my view, a colossal political error by the Democrats, one that clearly harmed the nation and that planted the seeds of last week’s resounding rejection by the electorate. But here we go again…

And what does any of that have to do with Veterans Day? My thinking is that maybe this week, along with the usual “thank you for your service” sentiments (which, by themselves, are terrific), we could take a lesson or two from those who, driven by love of country, have made such enormous sacrifices on our behalf.

We all worry about the challenges ahead. Those in military service face daunting challenges, day in and day out, and they don’t get to pick the leaders who decide how we deal with those challenges. We’re not always happy with them; we may disagree with their orders, but we comply with them anyway. And that system works remarkably well.

Yes, I understand that military and civilian life are completely different. No one (not even Donald Trump, as often accused) endorses some brand of militaristic leadership — call it “dictatorship” — in our free country. Instead, we choose our leaders via fair elections, and if we’re not happy with their leadership, we kick them out and elect someone else the next time around.

But here’s the other side of the story. In military service — for example, in the U.S. Navy submarine service in which I served — mission trumps all. On a submarine, we are all literally in the same boat. To get the job done and to come back home safe and sound, we have to pull together. There is no room — zero — for “resistance” to our commanding officer. Everyone on that ship, from top to bottom, succeeds — or fails — together. It’s as simple as that.

Aren’t our nation’s citizens also in the same boat? If our nation succeeds in fixing the economy, providing reliable and clean energy, closing the border to uninvited and unvetted intruders, or safely navigating the global hazards facing us, we all benefit. If it fails, we all pay the price.

There is an important lesson here. No matter what Oprah predicts, Trump will not be our leader forever. If Harris or any of her angry Democrat counterparts want to encourage an electorate change of heart for the next election, be our guest.

But until that next election, no one in this nation benefits by undermining our president’s success. Active interference by political opponents — à la 2016 — with presidential actions must be out of bounds. Period.