During a recent interview on MSNB, the ever-nasty Tom Brokaw exclaimed that President Trump and “some people on the right” want “to destroy the prevailing culture in this country.”

I hate to rattle your cage, Tommy, but of course Donald Trump and “some people on the right” want to destroy the prevailing culture in America.  Given that the prevailing culture is the antithesis of the culture the Founding Fathers envisioned — the culture that laid the groundwork for a new nation — why wouldn’t everyday Americans want to destroy it?  The groundwork I’m referring to is set forth in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, and it defined the American way of life for nearly 200 years.

Today’s prevailing culture began emerging in the turbulent sixties and was forced upon traditional Americans for eight painful years by the first American-hating president in history.  To make certain there was no doubt in anyone’s mind as to his intentions, he clearly warned us, prior to taking office, that he fully intended to “fundamentally change the United States of America.”

As America’s culture deteriorated into a moral cesspool, to millions of people who longed for a return to the America they grew up in, the nostalgic lyrics of Simon and Garfunkel — Where have you gone Joe DiMaggio?  A nation turns its lonely eyes to you. — brought back pleasant memories.

Today, however, anti-Americanism is firmly entrenched in our “prevailing culture,” a culture that Radical Leftist like Brokaw want to make us believe is the true culture of America.  It is not.  Traditional values that were once embedded in America’s moral compass are anathema to a new generation that has been taught to hate free speech, Judeo-Christian ethics, the sanctity of life, the right to self-defense, and much more.

Thus, when young people hear about the wholesomeness of the “good old days,” they dismiss it as unenlightened gibberish by old timers whom the death panels should eliminate post haste.  How can someone who can’t even sync up a smartphone to a computer possibly know anything about life?  After all, the very meaning of life is to be proficient with digital gadgets; everything else is just passing time.

Which brings me to Laura Ingraham’s new book, Billionaire at the Barricades.  It’s the first book in years that I’ve been able to read all the way through without getting bored.  In a delightfully simple but profound way, Ingraham explains the Trump phenomenon that has had establishment folks in a state of apoplexy for nearly two and a half years.

The underlying theme of Ingraham’s book is that populism is now the most powerful force in the political narrative in this country.  It began with the inspiring presidential bid of Barry Goldwater in 1964, followed by Richard Nixon’s remarkable political comeback in winning the 1968 presidential election.  While there’s no question that Nixon was an immensely flawed man, his appeal to the “silent majority” was clearly a populist theme.

Unfortunately, Nixon’s Watergate demise opened the door for establishment dunce Gerald Ford, which in turn opened the door for leftwing dunce Jimmy Carter, which in turn threw the door wide open for populist Ronald Reagan.  As Donald Trump would do thirty-six years later, Reagan astonished his establishment critics by riding his populist message all the way to the White House.

Unfortunately, though Reagan’s intellect and rhetoric were conservative, his policies often veered off course (e.g., amnesty for 3 million illegal immigrants).  Even so, his tax cuts and pullback on government regulations were enough to explode the economy, proving once again that given the slightest opening, the free market always produces vibrant economic growth and a better life for all those who are willing to work.

Following Reagan, the U.S. muddled its way through George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush before Americans got diverted by the excitement over a half-black presidential candidate with a Marxist-riddled, community-organizing background.  While Barack Obama failed to totally destroy the U.S. economy as he had hoped, he did succeed in entrenching the anti-American culture of the Radical Left.

What Obama never expected, however, was a counter-revolutionary populist movement led by, of all people, a blue-collar billionaire.  Just as Jimmy Carter’s breathtaking incompetence and hardline socialist views opened the door for populist Ronald Reagan, so, too, did Barack Obama’s attempt to bring down America open the door for populist Donald Trump.

Now, here we are in 2017, and Obama, Hillary, and their hate-fueled Radical Left supporters have never recovered from the 2016 election.  The good news is that, through sheer stubbornness and stupidity, they are doing more to irrevocably harm the Democratic Party than Trump is.  They really and truly have no clue.

Unfortunately, establishment Republicans hate Trump even more than the Radical Left, chiefly because he is not wedded to an ideology.  They simply cannot accept the fact that he’s a populist who is driven by common sense rather than a set of ideological principles.  The establishment finds this to be a terrifying situation, because if Trump is successful, it could put the business-as-usual good life in Washington on hold for decades to come.

The strength of the populist movement will be clear for all to see after the Republicans’ landslide victories in 2018, but it’s critical that rank-and-file populists remain vigilant and not fall asleep at the wheel after each triumph.  The rise, then silence, of the Tea Party movement is the most recent example of this danger, and it almost led to the death knell for America, first with the election of Barack Obama, then with the candidacy of Horrible Hillary.

When you think about the destruction Hillary would have brought about had she been elected, it’s pretty scary.  Can there be any doubt she would have made the vile new culture that Tom Brokaw so warmly embraces an irreversible fact of life for Americans through laws banning everything from gun ownership to free speech for conservatives?  She is living proof of why populists cannot afford to take naps.

Whatever complaints you may have about Trump’s egomaniacal ways, verbal clumsiness, and lack of ideological principles, he likely is America’s last, best hope for destroying, at least for decades, the cancerous policies of the Radical Left and the resistance of the Republican establishment.

As Trump famously said during his campaign, “What have you got to lose?”