If you think your to-do list is long, you should see Donald Trump’s! The president-elect won’t spend long celebrating his historic upset between now and January 20, when he’s sworn in as the unlikely successor to Barack Obama. With about 70 days between now and his inauguration, the Trump camp has the enormous task of assembling a team to help him bring the change to DC he promised. That means picking a cabinet and hiring another 4,000 people to staff the government’s 15 departments. And these aren’t your average bureaucrats. These are the men and women who’ll be implementing the laws and writing the regulations to carry them out. (Imagine an administration upholding the law instead of trampling it!)

As new presidents find out: Winning the White House is one thing; managing an entire administration is quite another. Fortunately, he’ll have solid conservatives around him to do it. We know that for a fact because FRC’s Ken Blackwell is one of them! [Wednesday], the former Mayor of Cincinnati, U.N. Ambassador and Ohio Secretary of State was tapped to lead Donald Trump’s domestic transition team. Ken, who has one of the most diverse backgrounds in the conservative movement, was not just picked for his experience but because Donald Trump recognizes the importance of Christian conservatives and their role in delivering the White House into Republican hands. As he starts unraveling the policies of the last eight years, Trump is making it clear that he has no plans to abandon the religious base that made up about half of his support. As our good friend Dr. Bill Bennett said Wednesday, “Now is the time to shake the Earth. Anything is possible.”

Unfortunately, not everyone is taking Trump’s victory so well. A generation of young liberals is showing the world where eight years of anti-American indoctrination leads. On college campuses like American University, Old Glory went up in flames as high-ranking officials looked on with support. Gail Hanson, one of AU’s vice presidents, condoned the display saying the school was “very protective of the freedom of expression.” Other colleges postponed exams, held “cry ins,” and even gave away playdough to cope with the “emotional distress.” At Tufts University, leaders even offered therapy dogs to comfort Clinton fans. Thousands of other angry people took over the streets in major cities, burning flags, looting, vandalizing property, and setting things on fire. Carrying signs like “Not my president!” protestors marched through city streets, shouting profanity, disrupting traffic and inciting enough violence to call in the police.

I must have missed the Christian riots in 2012 when the most pro-abortion, faith-hostile president in history was re-elected to a second term. Obviously, what we’re seeing are the children of lawlessness, spawned by eight years of a lawless administration. Honestly, if God-fearing, Constitution-respecting voters hadn’t intervened on Tuesday to stop Hillary Clinton, we would have continued down this reckless path — which, as we’re seeing, leads to all kinds of chaos. Thanks to these students, the nation is seeing the important work we must start to do to hold accountable the Left’s taxpayer-funded anti-American assembly line: the college campus. Of course, I recognize that in this great nation of ours universities are free to teach what they want — including attacking American ideals and undermining the very republic that guarantees their freedom to do so. But it shouldn’t be done with money from the very government they seek to destroy!

Originally published here.

Revenge of the Deplorables!

There may be another reason Donald Trump did so well with evangelical voters: Hillary Clinton didn’t want them! President Obama’s former faith outreach director thinks that’s the biggest difference between his boss’s campaign and the former first lady’s. “We asked for the votes of evangelicals, and the Clinton campaign didn’t,” Michael Wear told Emily Belz. “It’s a campaign,” Wear went on. “You ask for people’s votes. And Hillary asked for just about every vote except this [group’s].” Of course, as most Americans know, Clinton’s camp didn’t just ignore evangelicals and Catholics — she mocked them. In emails between her top communications official and others, WikiLeaks helped spell out the campaign’s hostility toward the church. (Not that Hillary’s disdain was exactly a secret after her “basket of deplorables” rant.) “Evangelicals feel embattled in this country… Hillary Clinton’s pretty historic silence toward white evangelicals, the campaign’s ignoring these voters, worked to affirm the isolation they were feeling. …Her campaign wasn’t even interested in being in the argument. That hurts.” Wear also blames Clinton’s extremism on things like repealing the Hyde Amendment, which even some in her base opposed. “Maybe pouring tens of millions of campaign dollars into how pro-choice your candidate is, maybe that’s not as motivating as some groups want to tell us it is.” It was an interesting take on a campaign that will be dissected for decades.

And while pollsters continue to take a beating over the election no one saw coming, at least one expert was right: George Barna. For months, he insisted that Donald Trump would need at least 86 percent of SAGE (Spiritually Active Government Engaged) Cons to win. By the end of the night, the GOP nominee had 94 percent — easily outperforming every Republican since Ronald Reagan. Remarkably, 90 percent of them turned out to vote — which was the result of a lot of hard work from FRC Action, which invested tremendous time and energy explaining the stakes of this election and urging battleground voters like North Carolina’s to vote. It paid off. On Tuesday, Donald Trump’s “largest segment of support,” Barna notes, “was the Christian conservative vote.” Even Fox News credited our team with moving the needle on evangelical turnout.

The message from the church was loud and clear: We can help you win. In the end, the importance of the Supreme Court (which more than 1.5 million Americans saw in this FRC Action ad) and the candidates’ position on key issues far outweighed the concerns over Trump’s character. “Mr. Trump did not win because of superior political strategy or performance,” Barna explained. “God produced a miracle in response to the prayers and fasting of His people… The challenge is now for the body of Christ to be agents of reconciliation and unity, and to now lead the country toward policies and behaviors that will honor God and His life principles.”

Several conservatives leaders emphasized that point and called for Christians to stay engaged at a post-election press conference in Washington [Wednesday]. As I said in our election webcast [Wednesday], I believe that if the Republican Party, led by Donald Trump, follow through on their commitments, we’re on the cusp of a conservative generation. But that will take all of us! So don’t be tempted to think your work is done. It’s just beginning! To hear more from conservative leaders about what’s ahead, check out the video from the press conference.

Originally published here.

This is a publication of the Family Research Council. Mr. Perkins is president of FRC.