AmericanEagle_34Volgarian8301 asks:  “I’m curious about something from the folks who have been here through previous elections. I have only been in the Treehouse a little over a year, so I have not experienced an election with a group like this.

How does the level of excitement, (or in my case nerves) compare with previous elections. Were you guys this excited and sure of the candidate in previous years? It feels like Christmas Eve when I was a child, like it will never get here, and the expectations…oh my!!

I never followed politics until this election and I have learned so much from this site. With that said, however, I’m going from anxious to elated, from completely sure to letting doubt creep in. We can’t get this one wrong!!

Just would like some insight on the feel of this year in comparison to past elections, from the members who have been here longer than I have.”...

This provides a great opportunity to jump into a great conversation, because there is actually a comparable.

The date was December 23rd 2009, the time was 1:38am Eastern; the place was Washington DC, the event was a Democrat controlled Senate voting to pass Obamacare – the fundamental transformation of the U.S. Healthcare System; 60-yea, 40 nay.  All sixty Democrats voting yea, all forty Republicans voting nay.

Harry Reid give us the fingerIn the weeks leading up to the vote the entire Senate was sequestered and held in session by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.   Reid knew if he allowed the Senate to go home for Christmas without a vote, the constituents would eviscerate the Senators for the duplicitous unconstitutional machinations which were well known outside the DC Beltway.

“The Corn-husker Kickback” (Ben Nelson), “The Louisiana Purchase” (Mary Landrieu), “The GatorAid deal” (Bill Nelson)….

…. all manipulative political schemes and vote purchases within the larger bill ObamaCare.  If the Senators went home without a vote, there was little hope it would ever pass.  So Reid kept the senate in session against their will and, more importantly, against the will of the people.

On December 26th 2009 Sean Hannity had a little known senate candidate on his show named Scott Brown from Massachusetts.  Brown was trying to win the open seat of recently deceased Ted Kennedy.  Brown said if he could win the election he would stand as the 41st vote against ObamaCare.  He gave out the address of his website on air.

Within HOURS hundreds, then thousands, then tens-of-thousands, then hundreds-of-thousands, recognized this was a possible way to stop the usurpers in DC who were defying the will of 72% of the electorate.

Grassroots Americans began scrambling to reach out via phones, emails, websites, etc.  Links to Scott Brown’s social media were shared, donations were sent, and thousands of Americans stopped everything they were doing to mobilize toward Massachusetts.

The Tea Party grassroots coalition was about a year old and activated their contacts with notifications of Scott Brown’s opportunity.  The Democrats were caught completely off guard and flat footed.  The election was January 19th 2010, and Scott Brown won the biggest U.S. election upset in modern history.

2010_01-19-can-you-hear-us-nowscott brown he did it

The energy today, within the movement that is the Trump campaign, is very similar to the energy in those months which led to the Scott Brown victory.

The 2009/10 assembly of patriotic Americans was similarly invisible to the professional political class and media as it is today in 2016 with Donald Trump.  Ordinary, generally non-political and comfortably invisible Americans, rising up to respond to an urgent need.

When Americans are pushed too far, we respond to the challenge.

Almost no-one in 2009 supported Scott Brown because they saw him as a harbinger of all that are conservative or in alignment with their own personal political perspectives.  Most saw Brown as a necessary candidate to get an urgent need corrected – a worthy endeavor.

There is a deliberate and common-sense instinct within Americans that activates when needed.

An “in-the-event-of-crisis-break-glass” sensibility, if you will….

…..A return to competence !

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