Red Wave, Blue Wall

by Jim Buckley

The “Blue Wall” Comes Tumbling Down

It may (or may not) have come four years too late, but the elusive and much-touted Republican “Red Wave” finally did appear, most definitely in the American heartland. Although the Blue Wall of California, Oregon, and Washington prevented the wave from cresting onto the shores of the Pacific, it did wash over the more important waves: the fabled “waves of grain” so nobly referenced in a favorite song:

“America the Beautiful

O beautiful, for spacious skies,

For amber waves of grain,

For purple mountain majesties

Above the fruited plain!

America! America!

God shed His grace on thee

And crown thy good with brotherhood

From sea to shining sea!

O beautiful for heroes proved

In liberating strife,

Who more than self their country loved

And mercy more than life!

America! America!

God shed His grace on thee

And crown thy good with brotherhood

From sea to shining sea!”

Just so you know, this song is taken from a poem written by Professor Katharine Lee Bates, who taught English at Wellesley College in Massachusetts. She wrote it in the late 1800s, after a long train trip from Wellesley to Colorado Springs, Colorado, where she was scheduled to teach. The music was later added and composed by Samuel A. Ward, an organist and choir director at Grace Church in Newark, New Jersey.

The two never met.

My favorite version of “America the Beautiful” – and there are many – was recorded by Ray Charles. There is not a better version anywhere. Sung with Charles’s raspy and emotional intensity, it’s a pleasure to listen to any day and every day.

But I digress.

The Red Wave I speak of washed most notably over the “battleground” states of Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan, and even trickled into the formerly (and only recently) blue states of Arizona and Nevada.

But.

None of the states that encompass the beaches of the West Coast experienced a Red Wave (they split the difference on the East Coast). The Rocky Mountains apparently held the wave back. Instead, it was the Blue Wall that came crashing down in the pejoratively labeledMidwestern “Rust Belt” but held in California, Oregon, and Washington, and in all New England states (except forone district in Maine).

Why that should be is fodder for another column.

However, we have a new president and I believe the impassioned words of Martin Luther King, Jr., are appropriate here:

“Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are[almost] free at last!”

Free finally from DEI (Diversity! Equity! Inclusion!) mandates and madness.

Free from the idiotic fad of “personal pronouns.”

Free from the crushing instability of a wide-open southern (and northern) border, as President Trump (aah, the soothing sound of that honorific warms the ventriclesof my heart… say it again, President Trump!), will finally and securely shut U.S. borders until order is restored, maybe even by a beautiful red, white, and blue wall.

Free at last to put the border patrol back into the business of defending America’s frontier rather than taking names, soliciting a promise of showing up five years hence for a “hearing,” then sending those intruders(some of whom are really bad people) into the interior with promises of free goodies for all.

Free at last to ignore the persistent whine of debtors who’d borrowed hundreds of billions of dollars to attend colleges whose presidents and professors earn a million dollars a year and more by milking those now heavily indebted “students” eagerly earning their oftenmeaningless “degrees” in arcane and useless subjects.

Free once again from burdensome bureaucratic regulations heaped on small businessmen and women across the fruited plain.

Free from paying taxes on tips, maybe even overtime and Social Security.

We’ll see.

Free at last to insist that boys and men have no business or right to invade traditionally female spaces.

Free at last (and unburdened by what has been) from incessant warnings from smarmy actors, actresses, singers, TV talking heads, late-night “entertainment” hosts, Democrat politicians, and pontificators of all persuasions,who’ve hectored us – the unwashed and unconvinced masses – about “doing the right thing” by voting for Kamala Harris and her hyperactive running mate Tim Walz.

Well, we’ve done the right thing.

We have re-elected Donald J. Trump to serve another four years as Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. armed forces and as President for all who enjoy life on the fruited plains of the United States of America.

And to that, please join me in offering a hearty “Hail to the Chief!”