At dawn a week ago, I was driving on an overhead connector in San Antonio, several stories taller than most of the thrill-rides at our local theme parks. Only barely awake after watching the election returns, I listened as a radio announcer played the song the victorious Trump election team sang to celebrate the victory confirmed only moments earlier. To my utter amazement, they sang, “How Great Thou Art,” a traditional evangelical hymn I heard performed by my first-generation Swedish grandparents. At that same instant, a brilliant sunrise peaked over the edge of the horizon, the heavenly light demonstrating that grace might still be spreading to Texas as well as our sister-states.

Or at least some of them since the only ones in which Kamala had gained a clear plurality appeared to be those few which routinely fail to enforce voter standards –and so counting naturally takes longer. But those were the exceptions as the red wave swept inexorably toward the astounding total of over 300 electoral votes. Unlike four years ago, this election had been too big to lie about! Having suffered from a very Protestant skepticism that, all other things being equal, the electorate will usually choose Barabbas, it was hard to believe when TV cameras showed Amish villages enthusiastically hosting Trump caravans. And even died -in-the-blue New Jersey neighborhoods were now featuring Orthodox Jews proudly waving Trump banners. In the end a single pregnant fact underlined the Democratic debacle: Even in the familiar precincts of his home county, Governor Tim Walz had failed to achieve a win.

As regular readers may remember, I have long pondered the possibilities of civil war, those cleavages in our society reminding me both of our own history and my left-over nightmares from Bosnia. The Balkans hung together under the Ottoman Empire, Stalinism, the Cold War and, for a while, even the break-up of the USSR. But when separatism, historical revisionism and fratricidal agendas took over, 800 years of Bosnian unity shattered into three desperately warring factions. My treks over and through that shattered country continuously replayed themselves during what certainly seemed like the summer of our discontents. I have loathed Joe Biden’s reckless rhetoric about “MAGA Republicans” for a long time, his nefarious suggestions seemingly matched by the lawfare campaign organized under White House tutelage. The attempted assassinations mounted against Donald Trump were deeply shocking but not in the least surprising. History provides too many examples of what can happen after an assassination, the murder of Arch-Duke Ferdinand in Sarajevo becoming a proximate cause of World War I. Was something like that in our future as well?

Because so much was unknown and un-knowable, I avoided making firm plans until after the election – which suddenly came, went and we won! All through Veterans Day, I have been profoundly at peace, careful to pray as hard after those events as before, now combined with simple gratitude that maybe, just maybe, we might be spared the worst of all outcomes. As a former soldier, I know only too well what those outcomes could be: watching the steady erosion of our forces and their arms caches; and desperately contemplating those ten million illegals let in by Kamala as a Fifth Column of potential adversaries. Would you seriously expect the Russians, Chinese or Iranians to ignore their potential should push come to shove?

With the prospects for World War III seemingly growing daily, I certainly would not, which was why my day perceptibly brightened when the news arrived that our friend Governor Mike Huckabee will be our next ambassador to Israel, and that another governor, Kristi Noem, will shortly become the head of DHS. And then, later in the day, came the trifecta: Pete Hegseth appointed as SECDEF!

I turned immediately to CNN for a fresh demonstration of the legacy media’s institutional dereliction of duty. Sure enough, there was Erin Burnett, practically in tears as she related the dread tidings of these latest appointments by Donald Trump. Commiserating with a Democratic congressman (naturally enough), she even alluded to a secret plan by the incoming president to dismiss senior generals who were “too woke” to meet his standards. And wasn’t an unqualified Fox analyst like Pete Hegseth the perfect choice for such a scurrilous task? https://www.telegraph.co.uk/us/politics/2024/11/12/trump-woke-generals-warrior-board-executive-order/

Nonsense, Erin! For the record, Pete Hegseth is an exquisitely experienced junior Army officer and distinguished author. A generation apart, I only wish him Godspeed as he sets out to trim the Pentagon bureaucracy with the nearest axe that might be handy!

Colonel (Ret.) Ken Allard is a former West Point professor, Dean of the National War College and on-air military analyst for NBC News.