Trump’s Victory and His First 100 Days

Photo by Gage Skidmore

Wow, what a difference 24-hours can make.

On Tuesday I looked up the average retirement age of Supreme Court Justices and was real uneasy about the potential retirement of Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the Second Amendment with a possible appointment of Justice Merrick Garland.
On Wednesday? Please retire Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and the late Antonin Scalia is smiling.
“On Tuesday,” a client who owns a successful gun business in the South told me, “When I showed up the parking lot was full of cars.”
“On Wednesday,” pause, “Not one single car was in the lot. We did a third of the business compared to Tuesday.”

On the Ground Intelligence

Another client emailed this: “Although I thought it would be close (esp when Obama and his wife started campaigning for a person they loathe), I certainly didn’t expect Trump to win. Then I read Dick’s ‘polling by driving around’ and reconsidered. Sort of like the Detroit auto executives in the 70s/80s that never noticed the influx of Japanese cars because their employees all drove American cars.”

More on the ground intelligence was gathered by Dick and Debbie Young during their trek southward along the East Coast in the days leading up to the election. Dick Young wrote:

Well it’s over. Debbie and I are in Key West ready to head out to vote, with our five-day Rhode Island to the Florida Keys road trip behind us (Read here, here, here and here). Along our entire trip we conducted, as we did on six other occasions this fall and summer, a not very scientific yet informative poll of East Coast voters.

The final day of what was 20 total days on the road ended as it began, with a resounding if muted victory for Donald Trump. Here are our three most interesting takeaways.

In Amherst Mass, the most wildly leftist enclave on the planet, we saw not a single Clinton sign.

By far the biggest run of road signs for either candidate, and not surprisingly for Trump, came in a 20 or so mile stretch in the greater Lynchburg, VA area. As an aside, we rate exploding Lynchburg far and away as the East Coast place we would feel most comfortable in starting a new business, regardless the business. The driver for Lynchburg? Liberty University

The total lack of enthusiasm for either candidate along the 135-mile stretch of the Florida Keys. Mile after mile there was nothing for Trump or Hillary.

Ann Coulter on Trump’s first 100 Days

To paraphrase Ann Coulter writing here:

Day 1: Start Building the Wall.
Days 2-100: Continue Building the Wall.

Pat Buchanan: “Action this Day!”

Pat Buchanan added this to the national discussion of Trump’s victory:

“In victory, magnanimity!” said Winston Churchill.

Donald Trump should be magnanimous and gracious toward those whom he defeated this week, but his first duty is to keep faith with those who put their faith in him.

The protests, riots and violence that have attended his triumph in city after city should only serve to steel his resolve.

As for promptings that he “reach out” and “reassure” those upset by his victory, and trim or temper his agenda to pacify them, Trump should reject the poisoned chalice. This is the same old con.

Richard Rahn, Peggy Noon, and Becky Smith

Peggy Noonan: What Comes After the Uprising

On the way home Wednesday morning I thought of my friend who runs the neighborhood shoe-repair shop. He is elderly, Italian-American, an immigrant. I had asked him last winter who would win the Republican nomination and he looked at me as if I were teasing. “Troomp!” he instructed. I realized at that moment: In America now only normal people can see the obvious. Everyone else is lost in a data-filled fog.

That was true right up to the end.