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    The Great American Awakening: Two Years that Changed America, Washington, and Me
    The Great American Awakening: Two Years that Changed America, Washington, and Me
    The Great American Awakening: Two Years that Changed America, Washington, and Me
    Ebook297 pages4 hours

    The Great American Awakening: Two Years that Changed America, Washington, and Me

    By Jim DeMint

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    About this ebook

    Following his New York Times best seller, Saving Freedom, U.S. Senator Jim DeMint's The Great American Awakening chronicles two tumultuous years from the presidential election of 2008 through the mid-term elections of 2010. Untold insider views of the controversial stimulus bill passage, corporate takeovers, and lesser-known executive actions that epitomize political paybacks and moral decay will further motivate DeMint's fellow citizens to reclaim their government and country in 2012. 

    Just as fascinating, the South Carolina official talks openly about his seized upon high profile moments—from that "Waterloo" comment regarding health care reform to becoming known as "Senator Tea Party." He also addresses close-to-home disappointments such as the infidelity of Christian friends like Governor Mark Sanford and Senator John Ensign, and shares personal spiritual insights that came from being part of such public battles. 

    But more than anything, The Great American Awakening champions the American people who now feel a powerful stirring in their souls to take on Washington and realign politics in this nation. DeMint tracks grass-roots developments, and new movements like the Freedom Congress, fully expecting a fundamental sea change for the better to happen soon.

    Acclaim for The Great American Awakening:

    "I have Senator DeMint on my show often because Americans know he'll tell the truth about what's wrong in Washington. His latest book is a riveting account about the fight for fiscal sanity in Congress. It's essential reading for anyone who wants to understand why so many Americans clued in and got involved with the Tea Party Movement in the last election. Senator DeMint was a huge part of this and I only hope he is as involved in the 2012 race for the White House as he was this past election."

    Sean Hannity, host of the nationally syndicated Sean Hannity Radio show and "Hannity" on Fox News

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBH Publishing Group
    Release dateMay 31, 2011
    ISBN9781433673603
    The Great American Awakening: Two Years that Changed America, Washington, and Me
    Author

    Jim DeMint

    Jim DeMint was elected senator of South Carolina in 2004 and then chairman of the Senate Steering Committee in 2006. For standing up against wasteful spending in Congress and saving Americans about $17 billion, Wall Street Journal editor Steve Moore called DeMint the “taxpayers’ greatest ally.” DeMint was also recently ranked as the Senate’s most conservative member by National Journal and as the No. 1 senator voting for responsible tax and spending policies by the National Taxpayers Union. The senator and his wife, Debbie, have four grown children, are doting new grandparents, and live in Greenville, South Carolina.

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      Book preview

      The Great American Awakening - Jim DeMint

      freedom.

      Chapter 1

      Becoming an Outcast

      November 4, 2008—January 20, 2009

      On Election Day 2008, the polls showed John McCain would lose badly to Barack Obama and Republicans would lose many more seats in the U.S. House and Senate. I was at home in Greenville, South Carolina, hoping for a miracle but preparing myself for the worst. The Democrats had been in control of both chambers of Congress for two years, and now they would have even larger majorities with a Democrat president in the White House.

      The hardest part about losing for me was the belief among many that Republicans didn't deserve to win. Even after suffering major losses in 2006, the Republican Party did little to convince Americans we heard their message. Voters didn't like our Democrat-lite agenda. They didn't like our expansion of the federal role in education (No Child Left Behind) or health care (prescription drugs for Medicare), and they didn't like the way President Bush and the Republicans were managing the war in Iraq. Americans were especially upset about the growth of spending and debt under Republican leadership, represented by wasteful earmarks such as the infamous multimillion-dollar Bridge to Nowhere in Alaska.

      Many Republicans denounced the explosion of government interventions into the private sector, but our leaders in Congress supported more spending and the Wall Street bailouts and were not willing to admit they made any mistakes. The Republican failure to respond to a clear message of no from the American people would now put our country under the control of liberals who neither understood nor respected the principles of freedom.

      Since this was an election year, Congress had adjourned in early October so members could go home to campaign. My reelection was still two years away, so the early adjournment gave me time to finish my book Saving Freedom and to travel the state. Saving Freedom was my attempt to remind Americans of the principles that made America the most free, the strongest, and the most prosperous nation in history with commonsense principles like limited constitutional government, individual responsibility, free markets, and Judeo-Christian values. The book exposed how bad federal policy had caused the financial meltdown and how the bailouts expanded the government economy rather than save jobs and help the economy recover.

      On the Sunday before the 2008 election, I enjoyed a brief timeout from politics. Wade Hampton High School, my alma mater, inducted me into their inaugural class of the Legion of Honor. Other inductees included former U.S. Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell, theologian and best-selling author John Piper, award-winning newscaster Jane Robelot, and world-renowned opera singer Myra Cordell. After my mediocre performance in high school, I had to smile at God's sense of humor. I was humbled to appear on the same stage as these great people. Not even in my wildest dreams did I ever imagine returning here as a United States Senator.

      I grew up less than a mile from the school in a family with a divorced mother, two brothers, and a sister. Our home sometimes seemed like boot camp because to survive as a single parent my mother enlisted all four of us for daily duties beginning at 6:00 a.m. She ran a ballroom dancing school in our home, and we were always on call if someone needed a dance partner. At age fourteen, I had two paper routes. At sixteen, I talked my way into an early-release work permit from my high school so I could leave after lunch to bag groceries at a local store. On weekends I made a little extra money playing drums in a rock-and-roll band.

      My high school career was less than stellar. Had my senior class given an award for least likely to succeed, I may have won it. But now I was being honored as one of their most accomplished graduates. I guess that's why 1 Corinthians 1:27 is one of my favorite verses: God has chosen the world's foolish things to shame the wise, and God has chosen the world's weak things to shame the strong.

      Still savoring my recovery from high school, I watched the less-than-savory election results at home with my high school sweetheart and wife, Debbie. The local Republicans were holding a victory party in Greenville, but we didn't attend because we feared it would be more a wake than a celebration. Within an hour of the polls closing on the East Coast, the election was all but over. For McCain to have any chance to win the election, he had to win at least one of the battleground states of Florida, Virginia, Pennsylvania, or Ohio. When all of these states fell to Obama, he clearly would be our next president.

      By the end of the night, we lost four incumbent Senate Republicans and three open seat races. And we were in danger of giving up the crucial sixtieth vote to the Democrats. Sixty out of one hundred senators are required to pass controversial legislation. True, only fifty-one votes are needed for passage, but sixty votes are needed to end debate before moving to a final vote. Sixty votes in one party makes them essentially filibuster-proof. If the Democrats controlled the White House, a large majority in the House, and sixty votes in the Senate, all checks and balances of two-party government would be gone. Nothing could stop

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