As I expected, Donald Trump redrew the electoral map. What surprised me was his ability to carry States with growing Millennial and Hispanic populations. Anyway, Trump won the most divisive and evenly split election since 2000. We must now begin setting rational expectations for a Trump Presidency.
Speaker Ryan and leadership have a broad plan for repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act, to reform Medicare, reforming regulation and providing oversight to an out of control federal bureaucracy. It is very important that Congress and President Trump compromise effectively and quickly with one other. Trump is a deal maker and he already has good business relationships with the most powerful men and women, of both parties, on Capital Hill.
Republicans have this one chance to make our government govern better, to undo generations of damage levied at small businesses and on whom Donald Trump (President-Elect Donald Trump) calls the forgotten men and women of America.
Trump did not come into office with a mandate. As provisional and absentee ballots come in, we expect that Donald Trump will have received a similar number of votes as Senator John McCain and Governor Mitt Romney. In other words, Trump’s candidacy did not grow the Republican Party. While our population has grown, Trump may have picked up 1% in new voters and lost about 1% of Republicans who normally vote Republican. Millions of Obama Democrats stayed home, especially in the Rust Belt States which delivered Donald Trump the Presidency.
Understanding this is essential to understanding why compromise is paramount. Never before have Republicans controlled so many branches of government in our federalist system. If we spend the first two years fighting over the finer points of policy, instead of writing, passing and signing legislation into law, we will have missed the greatest opportunity ever presented to the Republican Party to demonstrate its ability to govern more effectively. In fact, if Republicans prove they can work together (and this includes the Freedom Caucus), then Republicans could continue to hold such astounding majorities long into the future. If Republicans prove that they cannot work together and if the lives of average Americans do not quickly improve, the Democrats will be given 2nd chances across the board.
What would we not be willing to compromise in order to get the ACA, and all it’s taxes and regulations, repealed? I understand that Trump has his agenda and Speaker Ryan has his agenda, but I pray that both Trump and Ryan will put the American People before their own pride. I pray that Republicans will not bicker endlessly over details and that a good working relationship between Trump and Ryan will lead to a better relationship between Republicans in general. We’ve been too divided and too divisive for too long. Now is our chance to heal those wounds and prove to the world that the Republican Party is a party of effective leadership, of efficient government and of strong free market principles.
It’s time to set aside our factional divides and focus all of our attention on giving America back to her people.
