All elections have consequences. This is not just a great result for Donald Trump and his team. It’s a life-changing result for the GOP. The Republican Party today is in a much better place than it was in 2012, when Mitt Romney lost to Barack Obama. The party is younger (JD Vance, the vice-president-elect, is only forty years old), more ethnically diverse, more regionally varied and a lot smarter today, having poached not only Elon Musk but a throng of builders and inventors from the Democratic Party. I believe this election would have been different without Elon’s all-in intensity and his purchase of Twitter, now X.

Incredibly, it is also the Republican Party of the working class, having once again persuaded unions and the Rust Belt to put their faith in Trump. If the GOP is capable of keeping this coalition together, its future is golden.

But I strongly believe that Trump’s victory is also good for the Democratic Party. It is time for the party to start the reckoning they put off after 2016, when they went down the rabbit hole of the Russian election-meddling hoax.

Today the Democratic Party is seen as an unlikely coalition of globalist oligarchs, tyrannical bureaucrats, Woke Socialists and Hamas-cheering Islamists. There are still decent, loyal and moderate Democrats who can and must reclaim the party from these anti-American forces.

And I see this election result as a good outcome, too, for what we used to call the mainstream media. Of all the institutions of America they command the least trust among the public. Perhaps now is the time for them to see that histrionic lying and fear-mongering may be profitable for a while, but the ensuing loss of credibility is too high of a price to pay. The public has found an alternative way of gathering, analyzing and otherwise processing news, information and forming opinions.

As far as policies are concerned—with the Republicans set to take the White House, the Senate and increase their House majority—this is a golden opportunity to reshape the future of America. Donald Trump closed his campaign with the promise of a new Golden Age.

If he uses this victory well, that promise is within reach. We need to drain the swamp. Elon can start his Department of Government Efficiency straight away, bringing back badly needed accountability to government spending. He needs to eliminate not only the waste but also DEI programs and other bureaucratic menaces to meritocracy. It’s also time to rescue the education system from the ideologues and anti-American propagandists.

No sane immigration policy is possible unless we withdraw from the Geneva Convention of 1951 and draw up a national refugee and asylum law that we control. The vast majority of migrants who seek asylum are simply people in search of a better economic future. We must put in place an immigration law that is a win-win for America and for the immigrants. That means getting rid of the complex system we have now, which incentivizes people smugglers, drug dealers and prostitution rings, not to mention the morally bankrupt NGOs that drain government resources to pursue their own ideological agendas.

We must once again make “Peace through Strength” the basis of our foreign policy. In addition to reducing our national debt, we must update and resource our defense capabilities, stand by our allies, and make it clear to our enemies not to mess with us. Goodbye “de-escalation,” welcome back, deterrence.

Today’s election victory is potentially a win for the rest of the West as well. America can show that, rightly understood, national self-interest is a worthy and noble foundation for policy.

Sadly, there are millions of Americans who don’t see this election result as a victory, but as an existential threat. They have been terrified by the mainstream media who told them that President Trump is the reincarnation of Hitler or Mussolini—a Nazi, a fascist.

It is absolutely necessary and urgent to reassure every American that they have nothing to fear. One important first step is to make clear to them that the justice system will no longer be used—as it has been for the past four years—to go after political opponents.

Remember due process and innocent until proven guilty? Democrats forgot those principles. They now have four years to re-learn them.