From the Back Forty: The Heartland Heaves a Heavy Sigh

Editor's Note: From the Back Forty is Liberty Nation's longest running and most popular weekly column. 

Former President Donald Trump is now president-elect, and the folks in the flyover states breathed a great sigh of relief. That light they saw at the end of the tunnel wasn’t the train, after all. President Biden had tongues wagging as he addressed the nation on Kamala Harris' stinging loss. Was that happiness America witnessed? Hmm. And let's not forget a Kennedy heading to the Swamp to Make America Healthy Again and a historic cabinet post.

An Election for the Ages

Donald Trump is one of only two American presidents who won the White House, lost it four years later, and then turned around and won again. The other was our 22nd and 24th president, Grover Cleveland. There were many moving parts on both sides of the political aisle that created the perfect storm for the comeback kid. But both Democrats and Republicans alike are handing the most praise to Susie Wiles, the architect of the GOP presidential campaign. She made history once on November 5, and then she did it again a few days later by becoming the first woman to be named a president’s chief of staff.

In Grand Chute, WI, Richard Mertens sarcastically queried: "Thought they all said trump hates women of power?"

Trump announced his first cabinet pick, saying: "It is a well-deserved honor to have Susie as the first-ever female Chief of Staff in United States history. I have no doubt that she will make our country proud. Susie is tough, smart, innovative, and is universally admired and respected."

Those who know Susie, the daughter of legendary sportscaster Pat Summerall, know the lady means business. Her nickname is Ice Baby. She learned how to handle the Donald way before his 2016 election win, and she has only gotten better at the skillset. She was interviewed in 2016 and told the naysayers:

"I will tell you this: The Donald Trump that I have come to know does not behave that way, and the lens that I look at him through, I don't see any of that. I see strengths, I see smarts, I see a work ethic that is unparalleled ... I blanch sometimes. But, again, it's not the Donald Trump that I have come to know."

In Montana, Brenda Sheperd remarked: "A Woman Chief of Staff & a Kennedy backing health & food. Definitely a start in a new direction."

The Election to Make America Healthy Again

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. teamed up with Donald Trump because he had an agenda: MAHA. It's a herculean task, but he is the perfect person for the job. And Bobby is ready to go. "There are entire departments, like the nutrition department at FDA, that have to go, that are not doing their job," he said in an interview with NBC News on Wednesday. "They're not protecting our kids. Why do we have Fruit Loops [in] this country that have 18 or 19 ingredients, and you go to Canada, and it's got two or three?"

"I'm so excited about this!" said Tammy Head Brewer in Oklahoma.

President-elect Trump has asked him to do three things, Kennedy explained: "One, clean up the corruption of the agencies, particularly the conflicts of interest that have turned those agencies into captive agencies for the pharmaceutical industry and the other, the food industry, the other industries that they're supposed to be regulating," he said. "Number two, to return those agencies to the gold standard, science, empirically based, evidence-based medicine that they were famous for when I was a kid. And number three, to make America to end the chronic disease epidemic. And President Trump has told me that he wants to see measurable, concrete results within two years in terms of a measurable diminishment and chronic disease among America's kids."

"Love Him being a Cabinet Member," stated Craig Barrows in Natchez, MS. "It shakes up the Narrative of Extremes. This pick blows their BS away. Just the beginning."

Hoosier Jim Cochran was all about it: "Clean house brother. Let's go!"

A Happy Joe?

Folks From the Back Forty also tuned into the post-election speech given by President Joe Biden. Whether or not they listened, they looked. And they all claim to have witnessed something spectacular. Joe was giddy. He grinned and even winked at the crowd. Biden didn't slur his words. He made sense. He had a skip in his step as he strode to the podium. Was he happy his VP had just lost?

He gave a decent set of remarks, hit a couple of applause lines, and skipped right back from whence he came. And that left viewers a tad baffled. In Jenks, OK, Janette Edwards had a thought: "I would bet he voted for President Trump."

And Edwards sparked another rumor of sorts – that Jill Biden also voted in Red. MAGA red. Did she cast a vote against the woman who unceremoniously bounced Joe to the curb? A Texan and diehard Astros fan, Butsie Liz Romero, pointed out: "Jill Biden went to vote in a red dress what does that tell you?" True, she generally wore a lovely shade of blue or purple.

But back to the president and his happiness. "Biden, with an ear-to-ear beaming grin while gleefully announcing his intra-party interloper's resounding defeat at the hands of his true opponent, Trump," crowed Tom Langsdon in Louisville. "Can't say I blame him, though, for indulging in a well-deserved sense of schadenfreude after his very shoddy treatment at the hands of dictatorially minded Democratic leaders such as Hillary, Pelosi, Obama, etc. who orchestrated this unprecedented coup."

The last words are given to another Texan, Janet Hatler Duff, who simply sighed and, in her best Harris-inspired, nasal voice, said: "He's been unburdened by what has been."