Tuesday Nov. 5, 2024 should be marked down in our history books as the day the American people saved what remains of their republic.

This election should bring to a screeching halt the agenda of those who wanted to see Trump lose. At the very least, Donald Trump’s return to the White House along with Republicans retaking the Senate and possibly retaining the House of Representatives will act like one of those spike strips police use to burst the tires of criminal vehicles. Presidential candidate Kamala Harris had already proposed a “pathway to citizenship” for the untold millions of illegal immigrants now living in the United States. That proposal, which would also have drawn millions more into our country, would have forever changed the political landscape, thereby giving the Democrats a permanent upper hand in every subsequent election. In essence, America would have become a one-party state.

This election also stands as a rebuke of the rich and the powerful who aim to control the “deplorables” and the “garbage” they so disdain, the working class Americans who keep the lights on in this country despite the heavy hand of government, the citizen defenders of the Constitution and natural rights like free speech and freedom of religion, and the parents who want to have charge of their children’s education and moral upbringing.

This election put one more nail into the coffin of a corporate media that so often scorned these same Americans. In an Oct. 28 statement in which he explained why his newspaper would not endorse a candidate, Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos acknowledged this long-standing media bias:

We must be accurate, and we must be believed to be accurate. It’s a bitter pill to swallow, but we are failing on the second requirement. Most people believe the media is biased. Anyone who doesn’t see this is paying scant attention to reality, and those who fight reality lose. Reality is an undefeated champion.

This election created an historic realignment of American politics. The Republican Party of old no longer exists. It has been replaced by a truly big tent welcoming all sorts of people who are tired of being bullied and who value freedom. Blacks, especially males, Hispanics, independents, and even many Democrats are finding a home in that tent. The prominent figures who joined Donald Trump in his fight for reelection—J. D. Vance, Elon Musk, Tulsi Gabbard, Robert Kennedy Jr. and his running mate Nicole Shanahan, and others—are a diverse but brilliant set of allies determined to restore American freedoms. We don’t have to agree with all their ideas—they don’t necessarily agree with each other—but they clearly love liberty enough to risk their reputations and their fortunes to throw in with Donald Trump.

This election should inspire a refusal to bend a knee to the neo-Marxism, gender extremism, and Critical Race Theory that have plagued our country for so long. These pernicious ideologies  have thoroughly abetted and increased racism and spoiled the relationships between men and women. Admittance to the big tent of real diversity has nothing to do with race, religion, or sex. Instead, it is the home of that old-fashioned idea, liberty and justice for all.  

Finally, this election is a victory for America, but we must bear in mind the fight is only beginning. The Biden-Harris administration has another 75 days in office, and will doubtless use that time to keep pushing programs already rejected by the majority of voters while setting up as many stumbling blocks as possible for Trump before Inauguration Day. This triumph of Nov. 5 is not, then, a Battle of Yorktown victory. It is Lexington Green and Concord Bridge, the first shots fired in a long war—a perpetual war, really—to secure and maintain the rights given us not by government, but by God. Like those long-ago patriot rebels who sought to overthrow an oppressive regime and govern themselves, we are seeking to do the same.

Rights necessarily entail obligations. The Nov. 5 election was won by each of us casting a ballot and so fulfilling both a right and an obligation. Now comes the next step, our obligation to keep moving forward. The next weeks, months, and years will require that we maintain our vigilance over our rights and do all within our power as individuals to keep the flag of freedom flying. We can do so by living virtuous lives, by involving ourselves in local politics, by intentionally building communities, by restoring the home as a sanctuary of goodness and light, and by teaching our children American history and the precious commodities bestowed by liberty.

In November 1942, with the British finally winning victories in North Africa against German forces, Winston Churchill said, “Now this is not the end. It’s not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”

We, too, are at the end of a beginning. Onward and upward.