As Christmas of 2016 approached, I was feeling very positive. Unbelievably, the Clinton Machine had ground to a halt, and a most unlikely individual had been elected to our highest office.  Donald Trump had struck a chord which resonated throughout Middle America.  Incredibly, he had garnered enough votes from formerly solid working class Democrats to fight off inevitable defeat.  These voters were mainly blue collar white men, who had watched their hopes and dreams come crashing down after decades of racial preferences and uncontrolled immigration, mainly from south of our border.

The sad thing was that in the main, the black minority community had not been able to take advantage of the opportunities they were given in the civil rights legislation because the welfare state had already destroyed the cohesion of the black family unit, which was necessary for any real progress.  At the same time, the massive influx of low skilled workers that flooded across our border with Mexico just took the low end entry level jobs away from American citizens and legal aliens, and at the same time flooded the skilled trades with poorly trained workers, who were willing to work for lower wages, frequently paid off the books.  These skilled trades, such as plumbers, electricians and carpenters, were typically where hard working Americans had been able to rise into the middle class on their own.

By Christmas of 2017, it was already apparent that the Democrats, led by Barack Obama in their announced “Resistance” effort to the incoming administration, were being aided by the “Never Trump” faction of the Republican Party to prevent the reforms that President Trump and the Republican Party had been promising since his election.  They hadn’t replaced “Obamacare”, and more importantly they hadn’t provided the funding to build the “Wall”.   What would 2018 bring? It didn’t look good.

The Democrats “Resistance Movement” succeeded in changing the focus from what needed to be done, at home and overseas.  The “Mueller Probe” and the continued harangue about alleged Russian “collusion” with the Trump campaign to defeat Hillary Clinton, was on every newspaper masthead and opening segment of the major media channels.  They beat that dead horse until it got up and walked right into the minds of white suburban college educated women, and the traditionally impressionable “independent” voters.  With the help of those groups they succeeded in putting the Democrats back into control of the House of Representatives effective January 3, 2019.   All funding for any of the Trump initiatives, including the border wall, will end at that time, for at least the next two years.

So where is the upside in all this?  For the life of me, I can’t find one.  If it’s there, please feel free to enlighten me.  As It stands, retiring Republican Senators Bob Corker, and the aptly named Jeff Flake, have truly been the Grinch which stole Christmas 2018 by refusing to vote for the spending version passed in the house, which included just under 6 billion dollars for continued border security measures, including more wall in appropriate places.  Just to make this plain, that equals less than one percent of one percent of the bloated 4 TRILLION dollar federal budget.  Thanks Bob & Jeff.  I hope that “Grinchy Suit” fits real well.