Give Thanks for ‘the End of the Beginning’

In the days after the election of Donald Trump, and the decisive defeat of Hillary Clinton and her Far-Left anti-constitutional agenda, we received a flurry of emails to the effect of “Thank goodness, America is saved.”

We wish we could share that sentiment, but to quote Winston Churchill, “Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.” 

Defeating Hillary Clinton did not defeat the plans of the Progressive Left and their fellow travelers in the Wall Street—Washington—Silicon Valley Axis; it merely defeated one vehicle by which they aimed to accomplish their goals. 

The election of Donald Trump is a beginning, not the end, of a great struggle to re-establish constitutional government in America and to defeat the anti-constitutional forces of Progressivism that for the past 29 years have run largely unchecked through the government and the major cultural, religious and academic institutions of this country. 

Electing Donald Trump gives limited-government, constitutional conservatives the opportunity, not the guarantee, that we can roll back the damage Progressivism has done to our culture and national fiber. 

So far, the results of the election look promising. 

Donald Trump has made a truly outstanding choice for attorney general: Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama. 

Sen. Sessions, who we know well, is a man of towering integrity, a patriot and a public servant who truly is a servant-leader—and someone whom we should lift up in our prayers of thanksgiving on Thanksgiving Day. 

President-elect Trump has also announced key members of his White House team, among whom is Steve Bannon.  

Mr. Bannon is another patriot we know well and for whom we have a deep and abiding respect, not only for his business and political acumen, but for his deep and abiding commitment to the interests of his fellow Americans and maintaining and defending the Judeo-Christian principles upon which Western civilization was founded and that made America and American exceptionalism a reality. 

And so we give thanks and lift up Steve Bannon in our prayers this Thanksgiving, grateful that God has put next to our president-elect a man who asks, “What is the purpose of whatever I’m doing with this wealth? What is the purpose of what I’m doing with the ability that God has given us, that divine providence has given us to actually be a creator of jobs and a creator of wealth?” 

And perhaps most importantly of all, we should give thanks for the patriotic Americans who turned out in their millions to take their country back from the anti-constitutional forces that have been let loose for the past eight years. 

It was no small thing that each of those voters who voted for Donald Trump did.

They braved the opprobrium of the media, the contempt of opinion-leaders in the great institutions of culture and academia and the vicious mob thuggery of the Progressive Left to take their country back. 

They ran a gantlet of Robert Creamer’s paid anti-Trump thugs to attend Trump rallies, where they were threatened, egged and beaten. 

They had their cars vandalized for sporting a Trump bumper sticker. 

They had their homes vandalized for displaying a Trump yard sign. 

They were told in a steady drum beat of media lies that they were losing and losers who had no business demanding a voice in today’s politics. 

And in their millions, they refused to be intimidated. 

After George Washington took the oath of office as the first president of the United States of America, he began the tradition of delivering an inaugural address.  

Washington opened his Inaugural Address with this prayer:

“It would be peculiarly improper to omit in this first official Act, my fervent supplications to that Almighty Being who rules over the Universe, who presides in the Councils of Nations, and whose providential aids can supply every human defect, that His benediction may consecrate to the liberties and happiness of the People of the United States, a Government instituted by themselves for these essential purposes.” 

And:

“No People can be bound to acknowledge and adore the invisible hand, which conducts the Affairs of men more than the People of the United States. Every step, by which they have advanced to the character of an independent nation, seems to have been distinguished by some token of providential agency. And in the important revolution just accomplished in the system of their United Government, the tranquil deliberations and voluntary consent of so many distinct communities, from which the event has resulted, cannot be compared with the means by which most Governments have been established, without some return of pious gratitude along with an humble anticipation of the future blessings which the past seem to presage. These reflections, arising out of the present crisis, have forced themselves too strongly on my mind to be suppressed. You will join with me I trust in thinking, that there are none under the influence of which, the proceedings of a new and free Government can more auspiciously commence.” 

And finally:

“Since we ought to be no less persuaded that the propitious smiles of Heaven, can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right, which Heaven itself has ordained: And since the preservation of the sacred fire of liberty, and the destiny of the Republican model of Government, are justly considered as deeply, perhaps as finally staked, on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people.” 

The American people who defeated Hillary Clinton and elected Donald Trump have accomplished, through what George Washington called “providential agency” a revolution every bit as surprising as Washington’s victory over the British. But defeating the British and establishing a new government was not the end, it was merely the end of the beginning. 

We stand in a similar situation today. On this Thanksgiving let us, to paraphrase Washington, offer fervent supplications to that Almighty Being who rules over the Universe, who presides in the Councils of Nations, and whose providential aids can supply every human defect, that his benediction may consecrate to the liberties and happiness of the People of the United States, once again, a government instituted by themselves. {eoa}

This article was originally published at conservativehq.com. Used with permission.