There’s an old military dictum, usually attributed to Sun Tzu: always leave your enemy a path of retreat. Build him a golden bridge, the saying goes, and he’ll use it to leave the field instead of fighting to the death. I suppose there are worlds where that still makes sense. Wars between kings. Border skirmishes. Disputes among people who share some baseline agreement about how the game ends.
We do not live in that world. Not anymore.
So let me offer a few modest predictions about what happens when the dust settles after November 3rd…and the traps awaiting credulous Democrats.
The Great Awakening of 2026
First, we’ll witness a miracle right after the election: a mass conversion event on a scale not seen since the tent revivals of the Second Great Awakening. People who spent the last two years, and in many cases the last decade, as Trump’s cheerleaders, his fluffers, his apologists, and his enablers will suddenly discover their consciences.
They’ll emerge blinking into the light with a dewy innocence and a look of profound, soul-deep remorse, like a man who wakes up in a Motel 6 with a new tattoo, a hooker rifling through his wallet, and no memory of how he got there.
You know these people. I know these people. Don’t let any of it fool you.
It is all a damnable lie and if Democrats fall for it, MAGA will stab them in the back at the earliest possible opportunity.
You’ll see a parade of contrition.
The senator who “always had concerns,” which he expressed so privately that not one of them ever reached a microphone, a reporter, or a witness, and certainly never got recorded in a roll call vote. The podcaster who spent 2024 telling his audience that January 6th was an FBI psyop, and who will now discover that the Constitution is, in fact, a quite good thing.
The MAGA influencers who say that the party has lost its way and needs a post-Trump vision. The consultant who billed MAGA campaigns at full rate and will soon be on cable explaining that he was actually a moderating influence. The corporate donor who wrote the checks and will now write op-eds about healing and a new era of national unity.
They will come to us wearing sackcloth and ashes, and they will ask for grace.
The temptation, dear friends, is to give it to them. To say “you are forgiven, go forth and sin no more.” To welcome the prodigal sons home and kill the fatted calf. It comes from decency. It’s a very American impulse. We like redemption stories. We like second acts.
That instinct is as natural as it is fatal to the republic.
So here’s the answer to them all: No. Absolutely fucking not.
