It’s been more than 60 years since Ronald Reagan’s famous speech about freedom never being more than one generation away from extinction.  I thought about Reagan’s words this morning after witnessing yesterday’s miracle that saw Donald Trump, determined Republican operatives, and millions of fed-up voters succeed in slowing the momentum of the Dems’ determination to establish an authoritarian dictatorship that would give them permanent power over the garbage class.

No question about it, today is a day of celebration for those who cherish liberty.  Tomorrow, however, all of us would be wise to cut our celebrations short and act on Ronald Reagan’s words.  While citizens of any democracy or constitutional republic can never be totally free from government tyranny, our minimum goal should be to get the United States back to where it was, say, 40 or 50 years ago, long before government had grown into an out-of-control leviathan that caters to the desires of donors and the deep state rather than the needs of the people it is supposed to represent.

The harsh reality is that the Democrats’ war against Donald Trump and his followers will just be warming up when he takes office on January 20.  Is anyone naïve enough to believe that Democrats are going to surrender and cooperate with “Hitler” just because he has taken up residence in the White House?  Or that they are suddenly going to embrace the fascists who voted for him?  This is a war like no other, because it will determine whether the United States survives and flourishes or whether it perishes into the dustbin of history.

For those with short memories, I remind you that the headline in The Washington Post on Inauguration Day 2017 was “The campaign to impeach President Trump has begun.”  Not exactly subtle, but today’s Democrat Party, their deep-state warriors, their legacy-media propagandists, and their army of radical-left college professors are infinitely more angry, more hateful, more mentally disturbed, and more demonic than they were in 2017.

Destroying Donald Trump is no more than an appetizer for them.  They will not be satisfied until every last person who voted for him is vanquished as well.  Their pain is so severe that it can be mollified only by inflicting much greater pain on their enemies.  Their goal is straightforward:  Get rid of the deplorable voters and replace them with illegal immigrants who can be counted on to vote Democrat.  Or, in simple terms, create a permanent Democrat majority.

In anticipation of Trump defeating the latest fake candidate they installed to run against him, Democrats have continually ramped up their reverse-psychology campaign as an insurance policy to protect them and their allies from accountability for their crimes.  By shrieking endlessly about Trump’s plan to “get revenge on his political enemies,” they are hoping that he will be determined to prove to those on both the right and the left that he will not engage in the kind of tactics that Democrats routinely use against Republicans.  This is one of Trump’s greatest weaknesses.  It’s a first cousin to his insatiable desire to be loved, a trait that makes him especially vulnerable to sycophants.

President Trump desperately needs to surround himself with hard-nosed types like Kash Patel, Stephen Miller, Peter Navarro, Ric Grenell, Byron Donalds, and Vivek Ramaswamy, all of whom have openly called for Democrats to be held accountable for their misdeeds.  Boasting about the fact that he did not prosecute Hillary for her massive crimes and saying that he would consider pardoning Hunter Biden sends a terrible message to the evildoers in D.C.  If Trump believes it will soften the hearts of those who want to see him penniless, imprisoned, and, preferably, dead, he is sorrily mistaken.

Tuesday’s election was about much more than Republicans versus Democrats.  It’s time to get serious and face the reality that the United States is at a crossroads between relativism, lawlessness, and dictatorial rule on the one hand and a return to the principles of liberty that made America the freest, wealthiest, most exceptional country in the history of mankind on the other.  No country can survive when millions of its own citizens hate everything it stands for and are determined to destroy it.  What made the United States so special for more than 200 years was that the vast majority of its citizens were in general agreement on the certitudes needed to sustain and nourish a civilized society.

Democrats have long been preparing for Donald Trump’s return to the White House and are ready to pull out all stops to punish him and his supporters for having the audacity to remove them from power.  That’s a given.  The only question is, are Republicans and private citizens who revere liberty committed to standing up to them?

If so, the first step is for Republicans to go on offense and make an ironclad commitment not to cooperate with Democrats and their poisonous, anti-American, anti-human agenda in any way, shape, or form.  Forget about “bipartisanship,” because it’s nothing more than a euphemism for letting Democrats have their way.  If Speaker Mike Johnson doesn’t understand that, the solution is for Trump to demand that Congressional Republicans elect a new speaker who does.

Ronald Reagan was right when he said that freedom must be fought for, protected, and handed on for our children to do the same, which is why it’s imperative to think of the fight for freedom as an eternal war that is an ongoing, integral part of life.  No single election will ever change that fact, so don’t make the mistake of celebrating too long.  Kumbaya feels good and all that, but it tends to be short-lived.  Now, may the Force be with Donald Trump.