About a week before Election Day on November 5, my wife and I participated in early voting. After filling out our ballots and placing them into the machine, I noticed the name on the side of the box belonged to a company that had sparked concerns during previous elections.

I turned to the attendant and asked, “Did our ballots get processed properly?” She laughed and replied, “Yes, everything is good. But if you’re worried, you can always come back tomorrow and vote again.” I shook my head and said, “No, we can’t. We’re Republicans.”

Remember that the deep state remains entrenched, so men and women of good will still need to keep up the fight through Inauguration Day.

A week later, we learned that everything had indeed worked as it should. While New York State, where we voted, predictably turned blue, Donald J. Trump secured an impressive number of electoral votes and won the popular vote by a healthy margin.

To borrow the title of an old gospel song: “Oh, Happy Day!”

However …

Many of us on the right have friends and family members on the left who struggle to cope with Trump’s election victory. Some have chosen to shun us simply because our candidate delivered a resounding win on election night. They had fully expected a different outcome. After all the impeachments, slander, Justice Department weaponization, assassination attempts, and the $1 billion Democrats poured into campaigning against him, they were certain Trump’s defeat was inevitable, and his goose was properly cooked.

The Democrats threw everything at him, yet nothing stuck. For many of us, Trump’s victory wasn’t about him being “Teflon Don” but rather a sign that God isn’t done with America. It seems the Almighty intends to use Trump to steer this nation back toward righteousness. Proverbs 14:34 comes to mind: “Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin condemns any people.”

This victory was a collective effort. Whether people fasted and prayed earnestly or engaged politically as awakened citizens, everyone played a role — from “the greatest to the least.” Across the country, the battle raged. Key figures like Tulsi Gabbard, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Elon Musk, and Vivek Ramaswamy hit the campaign trail to support the Trump-Vance ticket. Influential voices on X.com, such as Jack Posobiec and even the satirical account Catturd, added to the momentum. Together, they rocked the deeply entrenched deep state until the giant refrigerator toppled over with a mighty crash.

Kamala Harris proved to be the worst candidate in at least half a century, projecting an even less favorable image than Michael Dukakis riding in a tank. Her candidacy floundered under its own weight, but Joe Biden’s influence didn’t help either.

Biden, battling the effects of senility, repeatedly undermined the Harris-Walz campaign. He appeared to emerge from his fog at the worst moments, throwing shade on the ticket. The image of Biden in a MAGA hat, paired with his habit of rambling incoherently like an out-of-control Slip ’n Slide, further eroded the Democrats’ credibility on a near-daily basis.

But the last-minute awakening of the church cannot be overstated.

The Democrats’ allegiance was unmistakable throughout the campaign, and it became painfully clear during a Harris rally in La Crosse, Wisconsin, in mid-October. When two pro-lifers shouted, “Jesus is Lord!” and “Christ is King!” from the crowd, Kamala’s knee-jerk reaction was to dismiss them, saying, “You’re at the wrong rally!” One wonders what David French and the “Evangelicals for Harris” crowd would have to say about that.

Scripture encourages Christians with the words, “Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.” Perhaps, the Great Political Awakening has helped to allay a heavenly judgment on this country.

One must also be reminded of the Prodigal Son, specifically, the verse that tells us “when he came to his senses.” It is as if the church writ large, Catholics and Protestants alike, came to its senses and congregants rose out of their pews and poured into the voting booths. The religious faithful could no longer be oblivious to the evil of a runaway government — the destruction of our society and culture had become all too palpable, something I point out clearly in my book “Obvious: Seeing the Evil That’s in Plain Sight and Doing Something About It.”

So now something has been done about “the evil in plain sight,” but it is only the beginning. We must not return to a state of slumber. America’s “Happy Day” is still quite a number of years down the road.

Remember that the deep state remains entrenched, so men and women of good will still need to keep up the fight-fight-fight right on through Inauguration Day. President Trump’s triumphant return to the White House is just the beginning of the long, hard road to uprooting a bloated bureaucratic regime and returning America to the glorious constitutional republic we were always meant to be.