By Tom Klocek

While a Trump victory is a hugely significant event, it is not, in and of itself, a reversal of the past four years of decline. The country has to be willing to heal itself, first and foremost by turning away from the divisiveness the Biden-Harris administration fomented.

And it should start with the Biden-Harris administration. As I watched the morning-after “analyses,” it struck me that it took until afternoon for Harris to concede the election. On election night, as the results were coming in, her supporters saw the handwriting on the wall (maybe they were more biblical than she) and started leaving the watch party in waves.

Various groups coalesced to support Trump. Whether it was Harris’s anti-life advocacy or just her anti-Christian and especially anti-Catholic animosity, Catholic support for Trump jumped by 10 points. Black and Latino support for Trump also increased, some of which is probably attributable to the atrocious border policy of the Biden-Harris administration that hurt many in those groups. Several other groups increased support for Trump in a surprising shift from previously inflexible support for Democrats. This would seem to fly in the face of the “systemic racism” claimed by the Democrats and repudiate their push toward the Marxist idea of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), which itself is inherently racist.

However, the deep state is still there. The government grew in size under this administration, and as we have seen from the actions of the FBI and DOJ, those workers lean heavily to the left. New York Attorney General Letitia James is “ready to fight back.” And, as reported by Fox News and CNN, Jen O'Malley Dillon, Harris campaign chair, said “the work of protecting the nation from a Trump presidency begins now.” Hardly an attitude toward a smooth transition of power.

The animosity seen by physical attacks on Trump and his supporters is not likely to subside absent some bold move by those in their waning months of power. This is why the beginning of a return to unity and Americanism should come from the Left — they are the perpetrators of division, so they must acknowledge their mistake and begin the healing. Lawfare didn’t work because, especially of late, Americans have come to distrust the courts, the legal profession, and especially the DOJ. The elitists are expressing lack of understanding as to how this could have happened, with no real sense of looking at themselves as the cause. Unlike the elitists who ostensibly know better than you, Trump listens and responds to the people, and the people could see that Bidenomics was not working. Yet the administration and its media hacks insisted they had created the greatest recovery in history. It would have been had they only stepped back and let the economy work rather than add taxes, inflation, and regulations.

On the Republican side, they must be gracious in their win. Early in his victory speech, Trump set the tone: “We’re going to help our country heal.” Trump spoke to America. “Young and old, men and women, rural and urban. … They came from all quarters. Union, non-union, African American, Hispanic American, Asian American, Arab American, Muslim American — we had everybody and it was beautiful.” Trump recognized something that the elites on the Left seemed to overlook — Middle America is America.

“Uniting citizens of all backgrounds around a common core of common sense.” This is probably one of the most significant approaches to the way forward — common sense.  “It’s time to put the divisions of the past four years behind us. It’s time to unite, and we’re gonna try.”

The Patriot Post called Harris a sore loser as she “refused to pay Donald Trump the common courtesy of a congratulatory phone call before he took to the stage after 2 a.m. to address his supporters. Indeed, she refused even to address her own supporters, who’d been waiting outside for hours at Howard University in DC. Instead, she pulled a Hillary Clinton and sent out a surrogate.” In my mind, this bodes ill for the first woman president coming from the Democrats.

I’ve already read some bloggers and essayists who suggested that God had a hand in Trump’s victory. The Catholic Church and various Catholic organizations (e.g., EWTN) organized prayers, rosaries, and novenas (nine-day prayer vigils) for fair elections for the good of the nation. Many, even non-believers, credit God for saving Trump from at least two known assassination attempts.

Perhaps this will signal a move back to God, who has been removed from much of the public square. As Pope St. Paul VI once said, “The evil which exists in the world is the result and the effect of an attack on society by a dark and hostile agent, the devil. Evil is not only a privation but a living, spiritual corrupt and corrupting being. A terrible reality, mysterious and frightening. The testimony of both Bible and Church tells us that people refuse to acknowledge his existence … or is explained away as a pseudo-reality.” Bringing attention to the reality of God can only be a good thing. Without God, our nation will not survive. Even though “In God We Trust” is our national motto and is on our money and in our Pledge of Allegiance, He has been shuffled into the background. In an interview with historian Joseph Pearce, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who suffered greatly at the hands of communism, noted, “Untouched by the breath of God, unrestricted by human conscience, both capitalism and socialism are repulsive.”

Time will tell, but we, as Americans, need to be sure that the country unites. We cannot just leave it up to the politicians. They have shown us repeatedly that they are unreliable in this regard. Go out to your neighbor who had a yard sign opposing yours and shake his/her hand. Put out your flag. This is momentous; do not let it pass or go to waste.

Trump reiterated his message of putting America first. Now it’s up to America to put our nation first and remind ourselves that we are all Americans first. And live up to our motto, “In God We Trust.”