This, Too, Shall Pass

It seems as if this election has lasted a lifetime. I can barely remember a time in politics before Donald Trump. As an example, go back and watch the YouTube videos of Mitt Romney and Barack Obama at the 2012 Al Smith dinner, and compare their remarks to those of Clinton and Trump last week. Jarring, isn’t it?

But no matter how depressing, terrifying, or apocalyptic this election season might seem, remember: It is only a moment in time, and nothing lasts forever. Speaking in 1859, Abraham Lincoln said,

“It is said an Eastern monarch once charged his wise men to invent him a sentence, to be ever in view, and which should be true and appropriate in all times and situations. They presented him the words: "And this, too, shall pass away." How much it expresses! How chastening in the hour of pride! How consoling in the depths of affliction!”

We are almost to the end, of this season at least. There are only eleven more days until Election Day, when Hillary Clinton will likely be elected the 45^th President. After that, of course, the next phase, the hard work, begins. Conservatives across the country will need to help rebuild the Republican Party, if it can be rebuilt, and return it to its roots. We will need to push back the forces of Trumpism within the movement. And we will need to do all of this while opposing the far-Left agenda of Hillary Clinton.

But we will be able to start the process of rebuilding, of repairing the damage left by Trump’s nomination. And, I pray, with a defeat of significant magnitude Trump and his loyalists will be mortally weakened, and the alt-right will crawl back into obscurity. Either way, the extreme vitriol and division of this campaign season will be over. The divisions over fiscal cliffs and government shutdowns seem like simpler times.

This, too, shall pass.