As a center-leaning conservative, I am seeing what I hope are encouraging signs from both sides after our recent election.

I guess I need to preface what I’m about to say with a clarification for those who may not know my political stance. I am a firm believer in balance, and that our government is healthiest when that balance – along with healthy checks – is in place. Now I realize the election has swung overwhelmingly toward the conservative side, and while conservatives across the nation are standing on the mountaintop crowing about the arrangement, there are a lot of people on both sides of our political spectrum, myself included, who wish that balance were a little more in place.

So, with all that said, what exactly do I see to be encouraged about?

First, it is very clear that those with more liberal-leaning philosophies politically are having to step back and do a recalibration. The message from the election from the American voters seems to be very clear: Democrats, you have swung far too far left. Liberal pundits from Bill Maher to Bill Scarborough are saying exactly as much. Maher commented last week that “…Democrats went about this election almost as if the American voters weren’t even there.“

If you go back and look at many of the commercials that were run by some Democrats late in the race, many of them did their best to separate themselves from that way too far-left agenda, with candidates saying “I didn’t want to defund the police…”, “I don’t support gender reassignment or sex-change surgery for children”, etc. Of course, by the time those upside-down flags were hoisted on the flag poles signaling an emergency, it was too late.

It pretty well comes down to this: if Democrats want to be a viable force again in American politics, they are going to have to find some way – any way – to move toward the center far more than anymore toward the left.

And then you have what we are observing from Donald Trump. There has been a wave of eyebrow-raising nationwide concerning many of his cabinet choices. In fact, someone sent me a photograph last week. It simply stated, “We are about three minutes away from the My Pillow Guy being named Surgeon General.“

I have to say, though, there is something inside me that is at least a little bit encouraged by what at least appears to be happening here. Instead of going with tried and true, dyed-in-the-wool old-school politicians to fill those positions (which is what normally seems to happen), Trump seems to be making a concerted and focused effort to get non-Washington types into those positions.

I do not have a problem with that. Now I know a lot of my liberal-leaning friends, probably ready to challenge my sanity there but hear me out.

If anything should be clear to all of us, the one thing that should stand out like Trump’s glowing tan is that what we have had going on in Washington for now almost two decades simply is not working. You can slice, dice, puree, or mold it any way you want from your particular view, but it just isn’t. So, how do you take a step toward making things change? You have to shake things up and do things very differently.

Remember: one definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.

If you will remember, back in 2016 Trump ran (and won) largely on a platform of being “the non-politician”, the guy who would “drain the swamp”. The fact that he still simply comes off as being that Washington outsider who is there to shake things up is much of the reason he was elected in ‘16 and a large part of his appeal in 2024.

And, it must be said that a vast majority of the people Trump is choosing for his cabinet are much younger than he is – and we all know we are in desperate need of younger leadership for the future of our nation. Again, I see that as a good thing.

So, you add it all together and what do you get? One side has been sent a deafeningly loud message that it must move more toward the center to make itself viable again, and the other side seems to be dedicated to bucking the norm of Washington D.C. to help throw off the constraints of “that’s just the way we’ve always done it” regarding our federal government.

I don’t know about you, but through this set of right-of-center eyes, I find the possibility to be one that at least has some hope for a win-win all around.

And again, a man can still hope – can’t he?