One If By Land...

I drink Jim Beam because it's a cheap, serviceable bourbon and, well, I pour a pretty stiff glass most nights. I went out today and bought something better: If Trump wins, as I hope and expect, then I'll open this and toast to the Republican victory. If he doesn't, then the bottle will go back on the shelf until that happy day when Democrats are out of the White House.

My brother John is one of those hearty morning people. He's a Trump enthusiast, whereas I'm merely a Trump supporter, but he'll nonetheless turn in at his usual 8:30 or 9 Tuesday night, not knowing what, if any, decision he'll wake up to when his freakishly wholesome habits propel him out of bed at 5 am for his single cup of coffee.

I'm the opposite: I rarely go to bed before 1 am, and Tuesday night I'll be up as long as there's any serious prospect of a verdict being reached before the sun rises.

In the event that Trump is credibly declared the winner tomorrow night, my brother will be greeted Wednesday morning by a photograph of my glass of bourbon raised in toast to the 47th President of the United States. If the worst happens and Harris wins, he'll find a picture of the good stuff sitting unopened on the shelf.

Win or lose, America will survive. We remain a fundamentally conservative country, as I've argued many times before, and the progressive left remains tone-deaf and unable to restrain itself. In power they will bring hard times, and hard times, as they say, build strong men. Win or lose, it will be no cakewalk: Our bloated, overweening federal government is on the brink of precipitating a fiscal crisis that will bring hard times to whoever is in office. Hard times are surely coming; common sense suggests we try to fend off the worst of them.

With that in mind, I'll be voting for Trump.

Good luck, America.