“Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day.” —Thomas Jefferson, 1816

As we approach the end of 2015, the good news for Liberty is that the disgraceful administration of Barack Hussein Obama has only 12 more months to advance his failed domestic and foreign policies. Indeed, there is a large and emboldened conservative congressional gauntlet in his way, especially in the House, which is under new management.

I note Obama’s “failed” policies only in the sense that his objectives have certainly harmed our nation and undermined Liberty. But the fact is, he has been very intentional and successful at advancing those destructive policies.

The model Obama is using to achieve his overarching objective of socialist parity between the U.S. and the rest of the world, particularly developing nations, is a global “affirmative action” plan. In effect, that plan cripples our economic and military standing while empowering other nations in order to create a “level playing field.”

Obama has endeavored to create domestic economic parity by implementing policies to disable free enterprise and weaken our economy — and the net effect of those policies, combined with international treaties and agreements related to “climate change,” will allow other economies to strengthen while ours declines. This is precisely what Obama promised just prior to his election in 2008, when he said to his minions, “We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America.”

Without question, he has made great strides to that end, and his adulterated vision for America is certainly not consistent with our founding or future.

Hillary Clinton’s plan to expand Obama’s policies poses the greatest threat to Liberty in my lifetime. As the father of a young military warrior who, with other American Patriots, will be tasked with rectifying the consequences of Obama’s disastrous foreign policies, that threat is very personal.

For the record, here is a chronological review of the major events of 2015 that I believe will have the greatest consequences in 2016 and beyond.

In January, the largest contingent of conservative Republicans in the past century took their oaths “to Support and Defend” our Constitution, and Republican House and Senate majorities of the 114th Congress picked up where the 113th left off. The first wave of the so-called “Tea Party” conservatives arrived in 2010, and the second wave landed four years later.

Additionally, Republicans decimated Democrats in gubernatorial and statehouse elections across the nation. This was a wide and deep victory for Republicans, and particularly conservatives.

In Obama’s 2015 State of the Union address, he mentioned “middle-class economics” five times, the new buzzword of his disastrous economic legacy. Framed in his deeply divisive class warfare rhetoric, Obama relaunched what I deemed his “middle-crush economics” plan, which included a $4 TRILLION budget. Thankfully, Republicans in Congress pushed back.

2015 began with our nation $18.1 trillion in debt — almost $8 trillion of that added by Obama in his first six years. That’s more than $151,000 per American taxpayer. It is ending with $18.8 trillion in debt — almost $160,000 per taxpayer.

As anticipated, Obama renewed his assault on the Second Amendment in March, this time with a regulatory back-door ammo ban. But the ruse drew the immediate attention of 238 House members, who signed a strong letter of protest to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BATFE). The agency backtracked, claiming the regulation as printed “was an error.” For Obama and his leftists, the “inconvenient truth” is that, by every objective measure, more guns equal less crime. Of course, the real motive behind the Left’s “guns and ammo” ban is to undermine the ability of today’s American Patriots to defend Liberty and Rule of Law.

In April, Obama, desperate for a foreign policy success story, set the terms for his “nuke deal” with Iran. The bottom line is not whether the Iranian mullahs can be trusted (they can’t be), but that Obama can’t be trusted. Clearly, Obama’s foreign policy malfeasance and his blinding Islamophilia pose the greatest threat to U.S. national security. A nuclear Iran will ensure that some Islamist surrogate will eventually light up an American urban center. We now know that Iran never actually signed the agreement, so while it stands to collect more than $100 billion in formerly sanctioned revenues, it has no obligation to abide by the terms of Obama’s “deal.”

In June, Baltimore became the latest of Obama’s disintegrating urban poverty plantations, with riots fueled by the deeply dishonest “Hands up, don’t shoot” campaign and the thoroughly polarizing “black lives matter” anti-cop crusade. It’s no coincidence that the 10 most dangerous cities in America with populations above 200,000 are all managed, top to bottom, by the Democrat Party. They are: Detroit, Oakland, Memphis, St. Louis, Cleveland, Baltimore, Milwaukee, Birmingham, Newark and Kansas City.

With significant implications for Clinton’s 2016 presidential aspirations, her email server subterfuge began unraveling, revealing more details of her politically motivated Benghazi cover-up, including the lies she repeated to the families of American Patriots killed there.

Indeed, the consequence of the Obama/Clinton deception that al-Qa'ida was “on the run” is, first and foremost, the rise of the Islamic State, which led to a catastrophic humanitarian crisis in the Middle East and the westward expansion of Islamic terror.

In November, just hours after Obama insisted that ISIL had been “contained,” Islamists slaughtered 130 civilians in Paris — to the cry of “allahu akbar.”** Four months earlier, an Islamist attacked a military reserve center in Tennessee, murdering four Marines and a Navy Petty Officer. Three weeks after the Paris attack, a Jihadist husband-and-wife team attacked a Christmas party in San Bernardino, California, murdering 14 civilians. That attack occurred just hours after Obama crowed, “ISIL is not going to pose an existential threat to us. … Our homeland has never been more protected.”

These attacks, and others under Obama’s watch, have made one thing tragically clear: Jihadists are here.

Last but certainly not least, the most notable political phenomenon with the greatest potential consequences in 2016 and beyond would be the rocketing rise of Donald Trump. His celebrity name recognition, contentious remarks and populist rhetoric have kept the blustering billionaire at the top of pop-presidential polls for months, and his performance in the most recent debate was no exception.

Trump’s support is a reflection of how dissatisfied millions of disenfranchised grassroots conservatives are with Republican “leadership.” The status quo represented by former Speaker John Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has, in effect, underwritten Trump’s rising stardom. Despite greatly increasing the numbers of conservatives in the House and Senate in the historic “Republican Wave” elections nationwide in both 2010 and 2014, the much-loathed “establishment types” held the House reins until Paul Ryan replaced Boehner, and they still control the Senate. GOP leaders continue to marginalize or ignore the concerns of the Republican base — grassroots conservatives — and we are rightfully outraged.

2016 will either provide an opportunity to begin restoring American exceptionalism in 2017 — the reinstatement of those principles that have made our nation great — or it will end with the election of Hillary Clinton and a more precipitous national and international degradation.

As Thomas Jefferson noted, enlighten the people and “tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish.”

To that end, in 2016, The Patriot Post will celebrate its 20th year online. We are among the first publications on the Web, and we remain one of the most influential today because our steadfast defense of Liberty is a touchstone for a large and growing audience of grassroots leaders. And you, our loyal readers, are the force multipliers of the unwavering advocacy for our Constitution and the Rule of Law it enshrines.

Your Patriot Post editors and staff are inspired by our Founders, and generations of Patriots since, who have devoted their “last full measure” in support of Liberty. Please sustain our tireless effort to keep the light of Liberty burning steady and bright.

And a final word from Jefferson about rancorous political debate: “I never consider a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as cause for withdrawing from a friend.” It is worth keeping those words in front of us in this Christmas season.

**For the record, all Islamist terror attacks in the West have been perpetrated by a global network of Islamofascist groups and individuals under the banner, “Allahu Akbar.” These include the al-Qa'ida network (the perpetrators of the 9/11 attack), and their contemporary manifestations, ISIL and the Islamic State. Point of clarification: “Allahu Akbar” translates “Allah is the Greatest.” The DemoMSM propaganda machine often reports the translation as something quiet different: “god is great.” As properly translated, Allahu Akbar claims only the god of Islam is great, and has been the violent warring cry of jihadi terrorists for generations, in their centuries-long effort to conquer infidels and establish a worldwide caliphate. Under those words, countless victims of Islamic supremacists – men, women and children – have been slaughtered. As such, it perilously dangerous to erroneously refer to contemporary Islamic terrorists in the West as “lone wolves,” because they are connected to worldwide jihad by way of the Qur'an, the foundational fabric linking all Islamist violence.

Pro Deo et Constitutione — Libertas aut Mors

Semper Vigilans Fortis Paratus et Fidelis