Our long national nightmare is over! And that describes my feelings about the election season. But it’s also how I feel about 4 years of an administration that opened up our borders like it was the doors of Walmart on Black Friday, called us garbage, Nazis, racists, sexists, transphobes, fascists, a threat to Democracy, uneducated. It’s the relief of seeing a landslide election both in the electoral college and the popular vote across all racial, gender, socio-economic, and geographical lines to elect a man that has been harassed, impeached twice, charged with ludicrous criminal and civil acts of lawfare by a justice system determined to stop him, and pursued by agents of the government to try and bankrupt him. And a man who was left largely unprotected by the government and twice survived assassination attempts. He had his home raided at dawn by soldiers of the current administration who weaponized federal agencies not only against Donald Trump, but people who supported him or his policies. He overcame the never ending lies the media repeated about him including thoroughly repudiated claims that he said nice things about white supremacists or bad things about those who serve us in the military. Neither was true, but those lies were repeated by the media and his political opponents right up until the votes were counted.

My faith in the American people has been greatly restored. People who were black knew he wasn’t a racist and voted for him. People who were Hispanic knew he wasn’t really xenophobic and voted for him. Women knew he wasn’t misogynist and voted for him. Working class men and women knew that unlike his opponent, he truly understood them and they voted for him. Younger people saw that despite expectations that they would automatically vote for the Democrat, they knew their future was dismal if the policies of the current administration were left in place and they voted for him.

But the election was always about far more than Donald Trump. It has been about what kind of country we will leave for our children and grandchildren. Will free speech survive? Will we again punish violent criminals instead of the victims of rape, theft, and murder? People were disgusted with the mismanagement of an economy that doubled the cost of eating out, made groceries and gasoline almost unaffordable, and doubled the cost of a home making the American dream of home ownership out of reach for younger Americans.

But what happened this week represents a dramatic political re-alignment unlike anything in my lifetime and maybe in US history. The old versions of both the Democrat and Republican parties have been shattered and I say “good riddance.” The Democrats moved so far to an indefensible and irrational radical left that people still holding on to a modicum of common sense said, “ENOUGH!” Putting boys in girls’ sports and even locker rooms and leaving veterans to sleep on the streets and park benches while housing illegal immigrants with luxury hotels became a bridge too far. Conspiring with social media giants like Facebook and Google to suppress ideas that challenged the government has caused people to say “NO MORE,” and putting 75 year old grandmothers in prison for praying and singing during a protest at an abortion factory while looking the other way as rioters burned and looted Minneapolis, Portland, Seattle and dozens of other cities and set fire to police cars. Americans are generally patient, and even forgiving, but they aren’t stupid. They were struggling to pay electric bills but were being told the economy was great. They were told that crime was going down, but they knew by their own neighborhoods their streets weren’t safe anymore. And they were told we would stand with Israel, but ultimately put more pressure on Israel as it sought to defend itself than with Hamas and Hezbelloh and their radical funders in Iran. We all knew that didn’t make sense.

Sure, some old-line Republicans left the party. Good. They pushed favors for the elites and looked down their noses at people who worked all day lifting heavy things and standing on concrete floors. When I ran for President in 2008, I was harshly criticized for talking about the working class and the struggles of Americans in farming or factories. The official GOP line was that the economy was fine. It wasn’t, and the collapse in the fall of 2008 proved I was right. In 2015, as I prepared to run again, I wrote a book titled “God, Guns, Grits, and Gravy” that I think still best explains Donald Trump’s popularity and victory in 2016 and again this year. Read it for yourself and I think you’ll agree. I didn’t have the funds or the fame to get that message past the establishment media and the ruling class elites in the spheres of power in Washington, New York, Hollywood, and Silicon Valley, but Donald Trump did. He carried the message like no one else could have. And he showed a grit and resilience and tenacity to fight back when most all of us would have given up.

This week was not Donald Trump’s victory. It was the victory for every mom who goes to a school board meeting. For every guy driving a pickup truck who works on your furnace or your Ford. For every legal immigrant who waited years to become a citizen and who proudly loves being an American. For every pastor who doesn’t want the government telling him what he can or can’t preach. It wasn’t HIS victory—it was YOURS!