All I Want For Christmas Is A Republican Party That Actually Cares About Saving The Country
If Republicans keep focusing on performative politics, they're going to lock themselves out of government.If Republicans keep focusing on performative politics, they're going to lock themselves out of government.Tennessee’s 7th Congressional District Stays Red In 9-Point Win For GOP
'Running from Trump is how you lose. Running with Trump is how you win,' Republican Matt Van Epps said after his special election win.The cost-of-living panic sparks a bipartisan rush to bad ideas
Welcome to Sesame Street. The word of the day is “affordability.”
Democrats have treated it as a magic spell ever since their 2024 collapse drove the party’s approval to historic lows. New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani and governors-elect Abigail Spanberger of Virginia and Mikie Sherrill of New Jersey ran very different races, yet all credited their wins to a relentless focus on the cost of living. Mamdani in particular used the term like an incantation to bury a record full of extremist statements and friendly nods toward terrorist movements.
Turning ‘affordability’ into a political idol guarantees policies that cannibalize the future.
Democrats also see the “affordability” push as an opportunity to turn Republicans’ most effective weapon against them. Joe Biden’s low approval ratings on the economy dogged him throughout his entire term, and his constant insistence that things were improving did not cut the (suddenly expensive) mustard.
Republican anxiety grows
On his first day back in office, Donald Trump ordered “all executive departments and agencies to deliver emergency price relief.” But Democrats’ stronger-than-expected showing in the 2025 elections has GOP strategists wondering whether that relief is moving too slowly to blunt the message.
Trump, who dominated the 2024 campaign by hammering prices, sounds irritated that his best issue has turned into a liability. He avoids the word “affordability,” though it has begun sneaking into his teleprompter.
“We’re making incredible strides to Make America Affordable Again,” he told the U.S.-Saudi Investment Forum. “Democrats had the worst inflation in history. They had the highest prices in history. The country was going to hell. ... We’re bringing prices down.”
A political arms race
Both parties now talk about the cost of living as their top priority, and struggling families need the attention. But a politics built around “affordability” can easily turn into a race to the bottom — an auction of quick fixes that burn next year’s seed corn for a bump in the polls.
Plenty of shortcuts tempt politicians. Mamdani floated the most obvious one: freezing rents across one million rent-stabilized apartments in New York City. If he pulls it off — a big “if” — tenants will enjoy short-term relief. Yet the move will also choke new construction and allow existing homes to deteriorate as landlords lose the revenue needed to maintain them.
Beware of quick fixes
Even Republicans flirt with shortcuts. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) teamed up on a bill capping credit-card interest rates at 10%. Cheaper interest sounds great until you follow the consequences. A hard cap would force lenders to reject more applications, denying low-income Americans the credit they often need to escape poverty or cover emergencies.
Republicans face their own affordability temptation as well. AI data centers, which consume enormous amounts of power, are driving up electric bills faster than increased energy production can offset. Slowing or freezing data-center construction could save households money for a year or two. It would also cripple America’s position in the AI race with China and cost the country trillions of dollars in long-term economic growth.
RELATED:If conservatives will not defend capitalism, who will?
Tariffs under fire
Trump’s tariffs have become a favorite target for Democrats claiming to champion affordability. The administration recently eased tariffs on food imports such as bananas and coffee. But gutting the entire tariff regime — if the Supreme Court allows it to remain in place — would be a profound mistake.
Tariffs have pushed some prices upward, but the Harvard Business School tariff tracker estimates that only 20% of tariff costs reach consumers. Foreign companies and foreign governments absorb the rest.
Meanwhile, tariff revenue strengthens the government’s financial footing, and trillions of dollars in investment continue to flow into new and expanded U.S. manufacturing. Reverting to the failed neoliberal free-trade dogma in the name of “affordability” might give politicians a quick approval boost. It would gut the industrial base, weaken the budget, and destroy the very blue-collar jobs voters were promised.
Our marshmallow test
Blaming the other party for rising prices works because it taps into real pain. But it also encourages the kind of policymaking you would expect from the child in the famous experiment who couldn’t wait 15 minutes for a second marshmallow. He ate the first one instantly and lost the reward.
The cost of living in America (to say nothing of thriving) is far too high. Families need real relief. But turning “affordability” into a political idol guarantees policies that cannibalize the future. Prosperity demands discipline. A country that chases quick fixes will never escape its long-term economic traps.
Team Mace hits back at former top adviser for bashing governor hopeful over Trump disloyalty: 'Didn't raise a dime'
Republican Rep. Nancy Mace's South Carolina gubernatorial campaign set its sights on a former consultant after he took to social media to air his grievances.
Austin McCubbin, a longtime Republican operative and former adviser to Mace's campaign, dramatically exited her team on Monday, accusing the candidate of being disloyal to President Donald Trump. In a lengthy post on X, McCubbin claimed Mace "decided to turn her back on MAGA" only to "hug the political cactus that is the Rand Paul + Thomas Massie wing of the Party."
'When he demanded $10,000 a month for "services" and was told no, he ran straight to X.'
"My name has been used publicly, while going back on her word to pay me, to trade on my Team Trump status and to work on her behalf with the White House, and I am 100% breaking with her campaign out of loyalty to the President," McCubbin said.
Mace's campaign strongly pushed back and painted a much different picture than what McCubbin was claiming.
"Mr. McCubbin didn’t raise a dime for the campaign or, better yet, never even bothered showing up," a spokesperson for Mace's campaign told Blaze News. "When he demanded $10,000 a month for 'services' and was told no, he ran straight to X. Good luck with that."
RELATED: 'You're a piece of s**t': Nancy Mace and Cory Mills clash in heated exchange after failed censure
"Nancy Mace has stood with President Trump since Day ONE. Mr. McCubbin said it himself: 'Nancy Mace will be the most pro-Trump and America First Governor in the country.'"
Mace reiterated this narrative on social media, calling McCubbin "tone-deaf" and "out of touch."
"The feeling when a political 'consultant' demands $10k per month to give you bad advice you'll never use... and they cry on social media when you turn them down..." Mace said. "Those who rely on the elite. The powerful. The establishment. Are completely out of touch. Tone Deaf. To the needs of the powerless."
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What Does The Republican Party Even Stand For?
Unlike Democrats, Republicans have no unified vision of what they view as success for the country.The imperial judiciary strikes back
So far, more than 100 federal court judges have ruled against the Trump administration in hundreds of lawsuits filed by states, unions, nonprofit organizations, and individuals.
While some of these rulings are fairly grounded in the Constitution, federal law, and precedent, many are expressions of primal rage from judges offended by the administration and moving at breakneck speed to stop it.
Trump sometimes exceeds his authority. Activist judges substitute ‘frequently’ for ‘sometimes.’ The Constitution and the Supreme Court disagree.
According to a Politico analysis, 87 of 114 federal judges who ruled against the administration were appointed by Democratic presidents, and 27 by Republicans. Most of the lawsuits were filed in just a few districts, with repeat activist judges leading the opposition.
Lawsuits against the administration may be filed in the District of Columbia and, often, also in other districts. Initially cases are randomly assigned. Plaintiffs focus on districts with predominantly activist, progressive judges. Because related cases are usually assigned to the same judge, later plaintiffs file in districts in which related cases were assigned to friendly activists.
Conservative judges generally believe they should interpret the law and avoid ruling on political questions, while liberals tend to see themselves as protectors of their values. After 60 years of domination by activist liberals, the Supreme Court and conservative appeals court judges are finally demanding that district court judges respect the Constitution. The Supreme Court is also re-evaluating precedents established by far-left justices who substituted their values for the words and intentions embodied in the Constitution.
To date, the Supreme Court has reversed or stayed about 30 lower court injunctions blocking the administration, and appeals courts have reversed or stayed another dozen. Even Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson imposed an administrative stay on a district court decision requiring the immediate resumption of SNAP payments.
Federal judges who oppose Trump’s agenda are openly opposing the Supreme Court. In April, D.C. Chief Federal Judge James Boasberg sought to hold administration officials in criminal contempt for violating an order the court had vacated. In May, Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge James Ho criticized the court’s demand that district courts act promptly on administration requests. In a September ruling, Boston Federal Judge Allison Burroughs challenged the court for expecting lower courts to treat its emergency orders as binding legal precedent.
Ten of 12 federal judges interviewed by NBC News in September, and 47 of 65 federal judges responding to a New York Times survey in October, thought the court was mishandling its emergency docket. They described orders as “incredibly demoralizing and troubling” and “a slap in the face to the district courts.”
Deservedly so. Though the Supreme Court and appeals courts judges have rebuked district court judges for ignoring higher courts and abusing their authority, they continue to do so with rulings focused on identity politics and a progressive lens on the woes of immigrants, minorities, women, and workers. They likely expect to be reversed on appeal, but they secure wins by causing delay and creating fodder for progressive activists to rally their supporters.
There is little that can be done about these judges. Removal requires a majority vote in the House and a two-thirds vote in the Senate. With Democrats supporting these judges, those votes are unrealistic.
RELATED: Who checks the judges? No one — and that’s the problem.
Just a few of the dozens of examples of politicized judicial decisions:
In May, Myong Joun, a Biden appointee in Boston, enjoined layoffs at the Department of Education in a decision featuring an encomium to its anti-discrimination mission. The Supreme Court stayed his injunction.
Despite this precedent, Susan Illston, a Clinton appointee in San Francisco, issued a nationwide injunction barring the administration from firing union employees during or because of the government shutdown. Ignoring settled law, she bemoaned the “trauma” of workers who had been under “stress” ever since Trump’s election. Illston gambled correctly that the shutdown would end before her order could be reversed.
Indira Talwani, a federal district court judge in Boston, went further. Declaiming her fear that defunding Planned Parenthood would deprive women of access to abortions, she elided Article I of the Constitution, which requires all federal spending to be approved by Congress, nullifying a duly enacted statute that suspended funding of large abortion providers for a year. By the time she is reversed, the suspension will have expired.
In June, after San Francisco Federal Judge Charles Breyer enjoined Trump from federalizing the California National Guard, a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit unanimously stayed his order, explaining that on military matters, the president’s judgment stands unless it is dishonest. Nonetheless, Oregon Federal Judge Karin Immergut subsequently blocked deployments in Portland, substituting her assessment of the situation for the president’s.
An Obama-appointed judge recently interviewed by NBC explained, “Trump derangement syndrome is a real issue. As a result, judges are mad at what Trump is doing or the manner he is going about things; they are sometimes forgetting to stay in their lane.”
Trump sometimes exceeds his authority. Activist judges, who self-reverentially believe progressive technocrats and judges are democracy’s guardians, substitute “frequently” for “sometimes.” The Constitution and the Supreme Court disagree.
Big Tech’s AI boom hits voters hard — and Democrats pounce
Wouldn’t it be a bitter irony if Republicans lost the midterms — maybe even in conservative red states — because Democrats outmaneuvered them on the dangers of the AI data-center boom? The left now warns voters about land seizures, rising electric bills, water shortages, and Big Tech’s unchecked power. Meanwhile, Republicans stay quiet as Trump himself champions the very agenda voters increasingly fear.
During the Biden years, Republicans attacked Big Tech censorship, digital surveillance, Agenda 2030 land-grabs, and the artificial online culture reshaping young Americans. Every one of those concerns now intersects with the data-center explosion — energy demands, land use, power monopolies, and the rise of generative AI — but the political right barely whispers about it.
Republicans can channel AI toward focused, beneficial uses and away from a dystopian model that erodes civic life. Voters already want that shift.
Democrats don’t make that mistake. They see a potent electoral weapon.
Georgia hadn’t elected a Democrat statewide since 2006. Yet Democrat Peter Hubbard defeated a Republican incumbent on the Public Service Commission by 26 points by hammering “sweetheart deals” GOP officials granted hyperscale data centers. Voters in the state face repeated rate hikes linked to the massive energy demands of Big Tech facilities.
“The number-one issue was affordability,” Hubbard told Wired. “But a very close second was data centers and the concern around them just sucking up the water, the electricity, the land — and not really paying any taxes.”
He wasn’t exaggerating. In 2022, Georgia’s Republican legislature passed a sales-tax exemption for data centers. In 2024, a bipartisan bill attempted to halt those tax breaks, but Gov. Brian Kemp (R) vetoed it. Voters noticed — and punished the GOP for it.
Georgia now surpasses northern Virginia in hyperscale growth. Atlanta’s data-center inventory rose 222% in two years, with more than 2,150 megawatts of new construction under way. It’s no mystery why Democrats flipped two PSC seats in blowouts.
Republicans lost because they defended crony capitalism that inflated energy bills, devoured land, and fed an AI industry conservatives once warned about. If Kamala Harris had pushed the data-center agenda as aggressively as Trump now does, Republicans would be in open revolt. But Trump’s support silences the conservative grassroots and leaves Democrats free to define the issue.
Virginia tells the same story. Democrat John McAuliff flipped a GOP seat by attacking Big Tech’s land-grab and the rising utility costs tied to data-center expansion. He blasted his opponent for profiting while family farms vanished under the footprint of hyperscale development. He became the first Democrat in 30 years to carry the district.
At the statewide level, Democrat Abigail Spanberger won the governor’s office by arguing that AI data centers must pay their “fair share” of soaring energy costs. She framed the issue as a fight to protect families from Big Tech’s strain on the grid.
New Jersey voters heard similar warnings as they faced a 22% electric rate increase. Democrat Mikie Sherrill defeated Republican Jack Ciattarelli by double digits after blaming part of the spike on hyperscale energy demand. She pledged to declare a state of emergency to halt increases and require data centers to fund grid upgrades.
This pattern repeats in reliably red states.
Indiana saw dozens of new hyperscale proposals, yet not a single Republican official pushed back. Ordinary citizens blocked one of Google’s planned rezonings near Indianapolis. Liberal groups — like Citizens Action Coalition — filled the leadership vacuum and demanded a moratorium on new data centers, calling it a fight against “big tech oligarchs that are calling all the shots at every single level of government.”
RELATED: Stop feeding Big Tech and start feeding Americans again
Republican leaders, meanwhile, worked to ban states from regulating AI at all. This summer they attempted to insert a sweeping prohibition into the budget reconciliation bill that would bar states from regulating data-center siting or AI content for 10 years. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) now seeks to attach the same language to the FY 2026 defense authorization act. President Trump backs the provision.
Instead of ceding the issue to the left, Republicans should correct course. They can channel AI toward focused, beneficial uses and away from a dystopian model that erodes civic life. Voters already want that shift. A new University of Maryland poll found residents believe — by a 2-1 margin — that AI will harm society more than it helps. More than 80% expressed deep concern about declining face-to-face interaction, the erosion of education and critical thinking, and job displacement fueled by AI.
Capital expenditures cannot sustain the current pace of expansion, and public patience with Big Tech’s demands is running out. The political party that recognizes these realities first will earn the credit. Right now, the party that once defended property rights, community values, and human-centered technology is getting lapped by the party that partnered with Big Tech oligarchs to censor Americans during COVID.
Republicans still have time to lead. But they won’t win a fight they refuse to join.
The 2026 map tilts left if Republicans ignore what voters just told them
The Associated Press told us a partial truth after the November 4 elections: Republicans delude themselves when they brush off their losses. AP then added its usual spin, claiming GOP leaders deny that “affordability” drove their defeat. According to AP, soaring costs and economic uncertainty explain why Republican candidates collapsed across several high-profile races.
Republicans did not simply underperform. They were routed. GOP candidates lost in the marquee races in New Jersey and Virginia, and Democrats came within striking distance of a supermajority in the Virginia legislature. Democrats even clawed back ground in places like Luzerne County, Pennsylvania — a longtime working-class stronghold that had tilted red for decades.
The left treats politics as a total struggle. Republicans cannot keep treating it as a polite debate.
The GOP took a real shellacking.
AP captured only part of the story. Republican leaders keep denying the obvious, insisting the mid-cycle results followed the usual pattern for a party out of power. That excuse collapses when measured against the magnitude of the losses.
In New Jersey, a scandal-scarred, aggressively pro-LGBTQ Democrat crushed a strong Republican challenger by more than 14 points — in a state battered by high taxes, rising crime, and deep voter frustration. Jack Ciattarelli was supposedly running neck-and-neck with Mikie Sherrill. The final tally proved otherwise.
Virginia delivered an even starker picture. A hyper-progressive Democrat won the governor’s race against a conservative black Republican woman. The new attorney general prevailed despite revelations that he sent violent, disturbing text messages expressing rage toward a Democratic opponent and his children. Voters shrugged and voted for him anyway.
This election was not routine. It was a decisive, unmistakable rejection of the party in power. The results cannot be explained away by economic anxiety. Voters responded to ideology and identity — not affordability indexes.
Democratic voters turned out as a unified bloc against what they have been conditioned to believe is a dangerous, authoritarian movement. Media outlets, universities, Hollywood, and most major cultural institutions spent years drilling that narrative into the public. The left absorbed it fully and voted accordingly.
It’s hard to square AP’s affordability argument with the fact that voters rewarded Biden’s economically disastrous administration in the 2022 midterms — and continued to do so in these off-year races. By every major metric, economic conditions have improved dramatically since Trump returned to the White House. Inflation fell. Energy prices dropped. Markets hit record highs. Food and housing costs remain problems, but they remain high largely because the Federal Reserve refuses to cut rates — something Trump intends to fix when he replaces the current chair.
Meanwhile, Biden’s border catastrophe flooded the country with roughly 10 million illegal migrants, burdened taxpayers, and fueled a surge of crime. Yet he paid little political price. Voters did not punish him or his party.
To understand why, look at a recent Atlanta Journal-Constitution poll. Georgia Republicans list inflation and the economy as their top concerns. Georgia Democrats list something else entirely: a “tougher response” to Trump and MAGA Republicans. They rank economic issues and even abortion behind their desire to defeat an ideological enemy. For them, politics is a moral crusade.
RELATED: Mamdani sells socialism — and Republicans peddle the Temu version
This reveals the central mismatch. Republicans speak the language of policy: inflation, taxes, energy, spending. Democrats speak the language of existential struggle. They believe they are at war with a malevolent force, and that belief animates them far more than grocery bills or mortgage rates. Trump derangement syndrome is very much alive and well with these voters.
Republicans just want to return to normal politics — debates over issues, clean contests, and sportsmanlike disagreements. Their media allies keep telling them nothing has changed since Trump beat a ditzy, verbally inept opponent in 2024.
Wrong. Everything has changed.
Republicans face a massive, highly motivated voting bloc determined to strip them of power. Democrats aim to defeat and humiliate their opposition, not negotiate with it. Their rhetoric against ICE, their nonstop attacks on Trump, and their saturation campaigns across media and education paid off. They fought harder. They fought longer. And they won nearly everywhere that mattered.
The GOP cannot afford to treat this moment as another cyclical setback. The left treats politics as a total struggle. Republicans cannot keep treating it as a polite debate. Until the GOP grasps the scale of the conflict, election nights will keep looking like this one.
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