Republicans are leading the field in the California governor race



Steve Hilton, the leading candidate for governor of California despite his status as an unapologetic Republican, called it a perfect metaphor for the state’s spate of recent failures.

After the University of Southern California abruptly canceled its televised gubernatorial debate less than 24 hours before it was set to take place, Democrats scrambled to come up with an alternative forum. Despite the frantic reaction, the crowded field of Democratic candidates couldn’t agree to the proposed ground rules.

As candidates scrambled to regroup after USC canceled the debate, the large field of Democrats still couldn’t agree on a commitment to continue including all the candidates in future debates.

The debate implosion and the subsequent failure to quickly reorganize played right into the leading GOP contender’s hands.

“This is just so symptomatic of everything that's wrong with California,” Hilton told RealClearPolitics on Tuesday in the aftermath of the debate’s cancellation. “Everything is broken, from the high-speed rail, where they haven't laid any tracks. Then last week we saw that $100 million butterfly bridge to nowhere. Nothing works. Everything’s broken. It’s all a shambles. They can’t even organize a debate.”

Decades ago, USC was considered a conservative alternative to public academic institutions across the state. More recently, the private university has become indistinguishable from the rest — at least when it comes to cancel culture.

All of the candidates the university had decided to invite to participate in the planned debate, hosted by Univision and KABC, are white. All of the candidates left out are minorities who also happened to be polling in the single digits: California Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond (D), former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa (D), and former California State Controller Betty Yee (D) were not invited after the university said they had not met their debate criteria.

Those invited included former Fox News host Steve Hilton (R), Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco (R), Rep. Eric Swalwell (D), former Rep. Katie Porter (D), businessman Tom Steyer (D), and San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan (D).

“We recognize that concerns about the selection criteria for tomorrow’s gubernatorial debate have created a significant distraction from the issues that matter to voters,” the university said in a statement. “Unfortunately, USC and [debate co-sponsor] KABC have not been able to reach an agreement on expanding the number of candidates. ... As a result, USC has made the difficult decision to cancel tomorrow’s debate and will look for other opportunities to educate voters on the candidates and issues.”

The university would not commit to a new date for the debate.

Hilton and Bianco have been leading the crowded pack of candidates for months, stirring up panic amid veteran Democratic Party operatives that they could both emerge from the June 2 primary to run against one another and shut out Democrats entirely. Swalwell and Porter have been polling around 10%, with Steyer, despite spending tens of millions of dollars, a few points behind.

Under California’s “top-two” primary system, only the two candidates with the most votes, regardless of party, will advance to the general election. Democrats are concerned that Hilton and Bianco are poised to do so if the field of Democratic candidates doesn’t narrow down quickly.

It was Mahan’s invitation, however, that really stung among those sidelined from the stage. A white Democratic centrist candidate, Mahan had only recently entered the race and was polling in the single digits along with those excluded from the debate.

Still USC explained his inclusion by citing a new debate-inclusion criteria that valued intensive fundraising. The Democrats complaining about being left out didn’t buy the rationale and instead cited Mahan’s USC ties as evidence of special treatment.

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Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu/Getty Images

Mike Murphy, co-director of the USC Dornsife Center for the Political Future, which was hosting the debate, had been, on a voluntary basis, advising an independent expenditure committee supporting Mahan. Yet Murphy claimed to have nothing to do with organizing the debate and pledged to temporarily step down from his university role if he decided to accept a paid position from any entity backing Mahan.

Over the weekend when Xavier Becerra (D), Thurmond, and others started complaining about Mahan’s inclusion, top Democratic legislators decided to weigh in.

The speaker of California’s Assembly, Robert Rivas, and the leader of the state Senate, Monique Limon, joined the leaders of the legislative Latino, Black, Asian and Pacific Islander, Native American, LGBTQ, Jewish, and women’s caucuses in writing a letter to USC President Beong-Soo Kim demanding that they change their “biased criteria.”

“The outcry over this debate is deafening and includes legal demands from the excluded candidates’ attorneys, public calls by elected leaders across the state, concerns from the included candidates’ own campaigns, and growing alarm from California voters,” the legislators wrote. “Instead of responding to these valid concerns by expanding the debate, USC has doubled down.”

The debate was supposed to take place at a critical time — with two Republican candidates consistently running ahead of their Democratic counterparts, none of whom has broken out of a crowded field. It also was set to occur less than two months before the state planned to send ballots to every registered voter.

In early March, California Democratic Party Chair Rusty Hicks published an open letter urging Democratic contenders to consider dropping out if they didn’t see a realistic path to a primary victory.

“If you do not have a viable path to make it to the general election, do not file to place your name on the ballot for the primary election,” Hicks wrote just days before the March 6 filing deadline. But no candidate decided to heed Hicks’ call, and the letter drew a scathing response from Thurmond, who asserted that it was aimed at pressuring “candidates of color” to end their gubernatorial bids.

“Our political system is rigged,” Thurmond said. “The California Democratic Party is essentially telling every candidate of color in the race for governor to drop out.”

Hicks rejected that criticism, noting the letter did not name any specific candidate.

As candidates scrambled to regroup after USC canceled the debate, the large field of Democrats still couldn’t agree on a commitment to continue including all the candidates in future debates.

Part of the group wanted all parties to abide by a pledge to participate in future debates only if all Democratic candidates are invited. But that idea fell apart when they couldn’t get a commitment from fellow Democratic candidates.

Still Becerra, one of the candidates who was not invited to the USC debate, celebrated the decision to quash it entirely in a post on X:

We fought. We won! We stood up against an unfair candidate debate set-up that prematurely chose winners and losers. Tonight USC made the right decision to cancel their March 24 gubernatorial forum ... so hopefully next time it’s done right. Thank you to everyone who stood up, raised hell and demanded justice. Never give up when you’re fighting for fairness!

The Democratic disarray on rescheduling handed an opportunity to Hilton and Bianco. Instead of taking the night off, Hilton held an X.com space with more than 300 people participating. Meanwhile Bianco spoke to supporters at an event in Los Angeles.

A Bianco campaign social media post crossed out the words “debate watch party” and blamed Democrats for the abrupt change.

“The Ds got the debate canceled, but we’re showing up anyway!” the post said. “See you tonight @sheriffbianco will be there.”

Hilton, who has been campaigning for roughly a year and has led in the polls for months, shared an X space forum with Elaine Culotti, an independent candidate for governor who is running under “NPP” — no party preference.

Culotti, a California real estate developer and interior designer who starred in the Discovery+ reality series “Undercover Billionaire,” appears poised to throw her support to Hilton if he wins the primary, even though she argues that her current participation in the race takes votes away from Swalwell.

The two more ideologically aligned candidates continued to criticize Democrats for blowing up the debate while laying out their own visions for reforming California, by not only stopping the U-Haul exodus of those moving out to find more affordable places to live but attracting more businesses to the state. Culotti said she would do so by reducing taxes to attract more than 100,000 businesses, leading to more jobs and more tax revenue.

Hilton said he would address affordability and businesses’ exodus from the state by opening up more oil and gas exploration, something he said could be done by executive order and by “kicking out all the climate fanatics” that California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) placed in key positions in the government.

“Right now, they are denying the industry permits for every aspect of [oil and gas] operating in California, whether that’s maintaining existing wells or expanding them, or drilling new ones — all of that,” Hilton said.

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Jonathan Raa/NurPhoto/Getty Images

Hilton and Culotti also discussed the positive aspects of having a governor in Sacramento who could work with the Trump administration to implement a forest management plan that would help prevent devastating wildfires while providing billions more in federal funds to help the Palisades and Eaton wildfire victims rebuild.

“Whatever happens in the 2028 presidential election, we know we’re going to have two years where the next governor will overlap with the Trump administration,” Hilton said. “And that’s one of the things I'm most excited about. I’ve got good, good relationships with, you know, half the Cabinet.”

No one asked Hilton how he will contend with deep animosity toward Trump in a state where the number of registered Democratic voters outnumber Republicans nearly two to one.

Instead Hilton said he would prefer that Bianco drop out so he could consolidate the Republican support while working to turn out independents and Republicans in November in an election that includes ballot initiatives to institute voter ID and to maintain Proposition 13, a state constitutional amendment that imposes strict limits on property tax increases.

"You’ve got people in charge now who just don't think like this, and as we saw with the debate nonsense and raising the race card ... they’re just on a different planet," Hilton said. "But the underlying answer to how you deliver all of these things is just to take a sledgehammer to the massive, bloated nanny-state bureaucracy that is making everything so expensive and so difficult."

Editor’s note: This article was originally published by RealClearPolitics and made available via RealClearWire.

Georgia Court Says Democrats Can Ignore Republican Election Board Members

A Georgia court effectively granted the Fulton County Board of Commissioners' partisan majority broad discretion to reject GOP nominees.

The TSA showdown reveals a brutal truth about our politics



America’s newest political battlefield runs through one of the most miserable places in the country: the airport.

Democrats have held up funding for the Department of Homeland Security amid their ongoing war over ICE, and after a month without pay, TSA employees have started refusing to come to work. The result has been crippling delays at major airports, with waits stretching four hours or more and turning an already degraded flying experience into something closer to a public humiliation ritual.

The GOP theoretically holds the levers of power, but in practice it remains terrified of disturbing the status quo.

The brutal truth is that one political party is willing to disrupt travel across the country to protect illegal immigrants and preserve a future voter pipeline. Even after assassination attempts, lawfare against political opponents, and an open push for demographic replacement, conservatives still hesitate to admit that our political battles have become existential.

In theory, the United States remains the wealthiest and most powerful nation on earth. In practice, basic air travel now is a dysfunctional disaster. Seats are cramped, service is miserable, fellow passengers are often feral, and airlines charge extra for every scrap of convenience in the hope of squeezing one last dollar from exhausted travelers.

For a while, the indignity at least purchased speed. Flying still got you from one place to another faster than anything else. But incompetence, cost-cutting, and crumbling infrastructure have made significant delays routine. Travelers now regularly build an extra day into both ends of a trip because same-day arrival has become an increasingly reckless assumption.

Adding four-hour TSA lines to that ordeal is more than just another inconvenience. It’s simply insulting.

To his credit, President Trump has moved ICE officers into airports to assist with screening. It is less satisfying than watching those officers execute deportation raids, but early signs suggest the move has worked. Atlanta reportedly went from nearly five hours of screening delays to roughly five minutes. ICE officers appear to be in good spirits, and the agency itself seems to be recovering some badly needed public goodwill. Tom Homan has even said ICE agents will continue deportation operations while helping with TSA duties. It is not an ideal arrangement, but Trump has once again found a way to turn executive action into a political win.

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Blaze Media Illustration

Still, the TSA mess raises a larger strategic question, one that extends well beyond airports.

During the COVID lockdowns, public schools across the country shut their doors. Conservatives had spent years correctly describing government education as a progressive propaganda machine and a patronage network for Democratic clients. Yet when the system buckled, the right did not use the opening to challenge the legitimacy of the whole structure. Republicans begged for schools to reopen as quickly as possible. Faced with a rare chance to dismantle an atrocious institution, conservatives instead demanded a “return to normal.” But normal was already a disaster.

The same pattern now applies to the TSA.

The agency did not even exist before 2001, and it has performed badly almost from the start. Most contraband still gets through screening. The TSA has not stopped a single terrorist attack. Like the public school system, it functions largely as a jobs program for Democrat clients while draining billions from taxpayers and making ordinary life demonstrably worse.

Republicans still act as though enduring a few nasty New York Times editorials is too high a price to pay to save the country.

Rather than using this crisis to argue for dismantling the TSA, Republicans have rushed to prove that it is indispensable. The short-term political benefit is obvious enough. No administration wants to own airport chaos. But every such rescue reinforces a deeper assumption shared by both parties: Any government program, once created, becomes permanent. No one is going to vote himself into a smaller state. The incentives do not allow it. America is far more likely to watch the regime collapse than to see it willingly scale itself back.

That failure of imagination points to a larger problem.

Republicans control both chambers of Congress and the presidency while holding a friendly Supreme Court, yet they still appear terrified to govern. Only Trump, in his early burst of executive orders, showed much appetite for using the moment. Even that momentum slowed once the administration ran into the courts and Congress refused to codify any serious part of the MAGA agenda. The GOP theoretically holds the levers of power, but in practice it remains terrified of disturbing the status quo.

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Blaze Media Illustration

Democrats behave very differently. Even from a minority position, they are willing to shut down travel across the country for the explicit purpose of keeping illegal immigrants here. Members of the Democratic Party understand that their coalition depends on dissolving the old American nation and distributing its assets to clients in exchange for votes. That agenda is not particularly popular with the historic American population, but it is attractive to new arrivals who did not build the country and feel no inherited obligation toward it.

To remain electorally viable, Democrats need an ever-expanding pool of imported voters dependent on public wealth transfers to cancel out the votes of the native population. If they can replace enough of the country, they can govern it indefinitely. Progressives celebrate that possibility whenever they are not dismissing it as a conspiracy theory.

If one party is willing to grind national air travel to a halt to preserve its electoral advantage while the other will not pass basic legislation for fear of offending someone, the country has a big problem. Trump has pressed Congress to pass the SAVE America Act to strengthen election integrity and give Republicans a tactical advantage, yet the GOP continues to drag its feet. One party behaves as if politics actually matters. The other behaves as if politics is an embarrassing chore.

Democrats are willing to hold the nation hostage in airport security lines to secure victory. Republicans still act as though enduring a few nasty New York Times editorials is too high a price to pay to save the country. A movement that fears bad press more than national dispossession has surrendered the habits of self-government and forgotten what political power is for.

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Ohio GOP Supreme Court candidate claims she was ‘never’ appointed by any Democrat — but official record says otherwise



An Ohio Republican Supreme Court candidate is facing scrutiny after claiming on the campaign trail that she was never nominated by a Democrat, despite evidence to the contrary.

Former Franklin County Common Pleas Judge Colleen O'Donnell's comments have raised questions about her transparency and credibility in a crowded May primary. The upcoming race offers Republicans the chance to unseat the state's last Democratic justice, Jennifer Brunner, and secure a 7-0 conservative majority on the court.

'Ohio voters deserve clear, factual information about the record of anyone seeking a seat on the Supreme Court of Ohio.'

Former Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R), who refused to vote for either presidential candidate in the 2016 election and announced his endorsement of Democrat Joe Biden in the 2020 election, appointed O'Donnell in May 2013 to fill a vacancy on the Franklin County Common Pleas Court. She lost her re-election bid to a Democrat in 2022. In August 2023, the Biden administration appointed O’Donnell as a U.S. immigration judge in Laredo, Texas.

"In Laredo, I faced the worst of the worst — drug traffickers, human smugglers, and violent gang members," O'Donnell stated when announcing her Ohio Supreme Court run in October. "I was proud to protect our communities from dangerous individuals, but I was also frustrated by how broken the system was. Too often, laws weren't enforced. That lawlessness still echoes across our courts today."

During a January interview, O'Donnell stated that she was "assigned to serve" in Laredo, which she noted was "about 1,500 miles from my home and my family here in Columbus."

"I was presiding over asylum cases day after day after day. And I honored my oath and obligation to interpret the immigration law with impartiality and with integrity and resolve those asylum cases as efficiently as I could," she said.

O'Donnell explained that she left the Laredo position "after six or eight months," adding that the travel and time away from family were "pretty difficult."

Her campaign website describes her as "a constitutional conservative with extensive judicial experience at every level of government." It notes that as a U.S. immigration judge, she "handled illegal entry and asylum cases during the height of the border crisis."

O'Donnell's website claims that she "enforced the law as written," "never once granted asylum," and "consistently ordered the removal of illegal aliens from our country."

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Photo by BRYAN R. SMITH/AFP via Getty Images

In early March, the Ohio Conservatives PAC accused O'Donnell of lying to voters about her immigration judge appointment.

The PAC shared an audio clip of O'Donnell's speech from a March 2 lunch with legislators event for the Greene County Republican Party, during which she accused her opponents of "mischaracterizing" her background and qualifications.

"Because I value transparency and the truth, I want to be crystal clear: I was never appointed by Joe Biden, or any other Democrat, to serve as an immigration judge, or in any other role I've ever had in my career," O'Donnell stated in the clip.

Two event attendees confirmed the authenticity of the audio to Blaze News.

One of those individuals, Setys Kelly, who is running for State Central Committee, told Blaze News, "I’m thankful that the Republican Club of Greene County has these meetings that give you a chance to ask these questions of the candidates. And more people should take advantage of that because that’s how you find out the things that you want to know, instead of somebody repeating it on Facebook or social media — you never really know if it’s true. But you can ask the question here and hope to get a final answer.”

A Department of Justice notice from August 2023 confirmed that the Democratic administration of then-President Joe Biden appointed O'Donnell.

"Today, Attorney General Merrick B. Garland officially appointed the following individuals as immigration judges," the DOJ notice reads, listing 38 names, including "Colleen O'Donnell."

The PAC further highlighted O'Donnell's claim that she never granted asylum.

"O'Donnell claims she never granted asylum one time. Well, that could be because she only served for a handful of months and quit before she completed her entire training program and probationary period," the PAC stated, contending that it was unlikely she oversaw any case from start to finish.

"For the last eight months Colleen O'Donnell has lied to Republicans about her appointment to the Biden Department of Justice," Cameron Brady, a spokesman for Ohio Conservatives PAC, told Blaze News. "The record shows that during her very brief stint for the Biden administration, she wasn't a tough on the border judge, but rather just another Biden flunky taking marching orders to catch and release dozens of illegal immigrants into the interior of our country. O'Donnell's forced to lean on her four-month stint as an immigration judge because unlike her three opponents who are actually judges, O'Donnell has been unemployed for going on three years."

Immigration judge record

A Department of Justice Executive Office for Immigration Review dataset of O'Donnell's decisions as an immigration judge shows that in roughly 25% of the hearings in which the person appeared, O'Donnell ruled in their favor, allowing them to remain in the country rather than be deported.

In two of the 14 credible fear review cases she ruled on, O'Donnell overturned immigration officers' decisions that the individuals lacked credible fear. Doing so allows individuals to pursue asylum or other forms of deportation protections.

In nine cases, she granted relief from removal, enabling those individuals to remain in the U.S. through some form of approved protection or status change. The available judicial datasets do not specify the exact type of relief granted; however, they may include options such as asylum, cancellation of removal, adjustment of status, or other forms of relief.

In one case, where the individual may not have been eligible for full asylum, O'Donnell ruled that deportation to his or her home country would pose a danger, thereby permitting the individual to stay in the U.S.

Two other cases were terminated without a deportation order, which can occur when the government withdraws charges, the charges are defective, or the individual qualifies for legal status through an alternative pathway.

O'Donnell's campaign declined requests to clarify these rulings, only insisting that she never granted asylum.

"Colleen O'Donnell had a distinguished career as a Common Pleas Court judge and federal immigration judge, where she never once granted asylum. Our campaign team will not dignify these kinds of allegations. We have no further comment on this matter," Amy Natoce, O'Donnell's campaign adviser, told Blaze News.

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Photo by Mostafa Bassim/Anadolu via Getty Images

Ohio Republicans react

In the Republican primary for Ohio Supreme Court, O'Donnell is running against three other candidates: Andrew King, Jill Flagg Lanzinger, and Ronald Lewis. The election is scheduled for May 5. The winner will face off on November 3 against Brunner, who currently holds the seat.

Lewis, a judge on Ohio's Second District Court of Appeals, told Blaze News, "Although I am not in a position to make a judgment on the truthfulness of this particular statement from Ms. O'Donnell, I do believe it would be valuable for Republican primary voters to receive a thorough explanation from O'Donnell on how she was appointed to the position, how her tenure as an immigration judge went, and how she arrived at the decisions she made while serving in that role."

"The enforcement and application of immigration law was certainly different in 2023 than it has been since the inauguration of President Trump, and voters deserve to know O'Donnell's role in immigration enforcement during her time as an appointee in the Department of Justice during Merrick Garland's tenure as director," Lewis added.

King, a judge for the Ohio Fifth District Court of Appeals, said in a statement to Blaze News, "The next justice needs to be rock solid in their judicial background and philosophy. I am the type of constitutional conservative judge Trump would appoint. We need a judge who the Trump administration would appoint, not a judge that the Biden administration did appoint."

State Rep. Meredith Craig (R), who has endorsed King, told Blaze News, "Ohio voters deserve clear, factual information about the record of anyone seeking a seat on the Supreme Court of Ohio. It's a matter of public record that Merrick Garland, serving as Attorney General under Joe Biden, appointed Colleen O'Donnell."

"And the facts don't stop there. According to available case data, Colleen O'Donnell presided over 110 immigration cases, transferring 35 into the interior of the United States. Of those, 28 involved individuals who were never detained or were released. This aligns with what has commonly been described as 'catch-and-release' policies during the Biden administration," Craig continued. "These are facts voters can and should consider as they evaluate candidates for one of the highest courts in our state."

Flagg Lanzinger and the Ohio Republican Party did not respond to a request for comment.

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The left says it loves democracy — so pass the SAVE Act



By requiring proof of U.S. citizenship to vote in federal elections, the SAVE America Act reinforces a basic principle — that the right to vote in American elections is reserved solely and specifically for American citizens.

President Trump is right to prioritize the passage of this critical legislation, which is currently being debated in the U.S. Senate after earlier passing the House.

Indiana’s photo ID law treats everyone equally, without regard to race, color, or ethnicity. So does the SAVE America Act.

And nothing about this proposal should be controversial.

The nonsensical resistance to the SAVE America Act reminds me of similar opposition we faced in Indiana when — in 2005 — our legislature became the first in the nation to pass a law requiring that voters show photo IDs before casting ballots.

As Indiana’s secretary of state at the time, I championed the legislation from its inception. Once it passed, I was responsible for implementing it. And finally, I helped defend Indiana’s photo ID law over the course of four lawsuits — including one that wound up at the U.S. Supreme Court, where we prevailed in Crawford v. Marion County Election Board.

My question to the foes of the SAVE America Act is the same one I posed to opponents of our photo ID law 20 years ago. Namely: What don’t you like about secure, trustworthy elections?

The photo ID law treats everyone equally, without regard to race, color, or ethnicity.

So does the SAVE America Act.

The photo ID law simply makes sure that voters are who they say they are.

The SAVE America Act simply makes sure that voters are U.S. citizens.

Few factors are more essential to the survival of American democracy than popular confidence among the people in the fairness of elections and the veracity of their outcomes.

The left claims to revere democracy. Leftists remind us of their deep affection for government of, by, and for the people every time they baselessly claim that we conservatives are out to destroy it based on our supposedly unquenchable jonesing for dictatorial authoritarian rule.

If the leftists love democracy as much as they say they do, then why aren’t they the loudest and most enthusiastic supporters of safeguards like photo ID requirements or the SAVE America Act?

RELATED: The SAVE Act is the hill voters will die on

Nathan Posner/Anadolu/Getty Images

Instead, they despise these common-sense measures.

To explain away their recalcitrance toward protecting the integrity of elections, critics say rules such as requiring photo IDs or proof of citizenship tend to disenfranchise certain voters — especially minority voters.

If they truly believe that certain demographic groups lack the necessary intelligence or resourcefulness to produce photo IDs or proof of citizenship — such as birth certificates or passports — then quite possibly they are racist to their core. And that’s reprehensible.

If they know better than that but are just plucking such concepts out of the air to rhetorically justify their stance, then they are disingenuous.

The charade should stop.

The Senate needs to pass the SAVE America Act now.

It’s a recipe for stronger election integrity, better standardization of rules nationwide, increased public confidence in elections, and better accountability for election officials.

“The people are demanding it,” President Trump recently said at a House GOP event. They’re right.

The case against ‘principled conservatism’



Frank Meyer’s fusionism combined free-market libertarianism and religion-friendly traditionalism to create the modern conservative movement. As a political alliance against the threat of communism, the movement served its purpose. But the principles that undergirded Meyer’s synthesis were not an adequate basis for attaining and sustaining national power.

The difference between the defeated Barry Goldwater faction and the victorious Ronald Reagan coalition was the vote of white Catholic Democrats alienated from their former party by its anti-anti-Communism and embrace of the three A’s: amnesty (for draft evaders), acid, and abortion.

We need a clearer, more uncompromising articulation of a pure MAGA doctrine that distinguishes our agenda from the libertarians and so-called principled conservatives.

Those former Democrats did not want smaller government, so Reagan preserved, for them and the country, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, along with generating ever-larger deficits.

Meyer’s synthesis, however, was not as new as is often claimed: In important respects, it represented 19th-century Bourbon Democracy spruced up for the post-World War II era. What distinguished the Bourbons from the Republicans (and from the populist Democrats) was their commitment to smaller government, free trade, and cheap labor. That meant unfree labor in the 1850s and more-or-less free labor once the South was successfully “redeemed” from Republican rule and black civil rights enforcement after the Civil War.

What America needs today instead is fissionism. We need a clearer, more uncompromising articulation of a pure MAGA doctrine that distinguishes our agenda from the libertarians and so-called principled conservatives.

MAGA in foreign and security matters means using American power to secure American interests. Foreign policy is not the application of abstract principles, which are worse than useless in international relations. What were Franklin Roosevelt’s principles or Andrew Jackson’s or Teddy Roosevelt’s? Their guiding star in foreign policy was not principle but the ruthless pursuit of results.

As for draining the swamp, the trench warfare over DOGE and U.S. attorney appointments proves that deconstructing the administrative state requires a pro-Trump Senate. But the current Senate remains beholden to the uniparty. If you are happy with your “principled conservative” senator obstructing the president, then you are on the other side.

Against those screaming for lower taxes and less government at all costs, protective tariffs are core to MAGA — and for that matter, core to the Republican Party before it was taken over by Reagan, a former Democrat and fusionist. MAGA demands an economic policy geared toward national greatness. It means an end to regulations engineered to cripple the U.S. economy in the name of DEI, apocalyptic climate alarmism, or the latest elite neurosis.

Targeted regulations and tariffs to onshore our supply chains and rebuild the American industrial base? Absolutely. That has been Donald Trump’s consistent agenda since he first started commenting on public affairs in the 1980s. If the “principled conservatives” fail to recognize this, that exposes their own ideological blindness, not a flaw in the MAGA platform.

RELATED: Will Republicans fight for the SAVE Act — or fold again?

Photo by ROBERTO SCHMIDT / AFP via Getty Images

Fundamentally, “principled conservatives” don’t want America to be stronger and freer if it means traditional Republican governance. They prefer Bourbon Democracy: small government, cheap goods, cheap labor (citizens and noncitizens alike), and dependence on others — once Britain or the North, now China — for industry, including vital defense-related manufacturing. As for the world, China can do what it wants. Anything else would require the old guard conservatives to compromise their precious “principles.”

People who don’t want the United States to be reliant on China, as Mississippi was on Manchester in 1850, or Manchester, New Hampshire, in 1890, should see “principled conservatives” as political opponents — allies of the Democrats. They are helping to destroy Trump and everything the president stands for.

Does drawing clearer partisan lines mean shedding potential support required for electoral victory? That is a very real risk. The compensating benefit is that once we know what we want, we can accurately identify our allies and band together to address the crises of our time.

A “principled conservative” administration would have preferred Big Pharma to RFK Jr. and MAHA. A “principled conservative” administration would make no room for a Tulsi Gabbard, an Elon Musk, or any other heterodox defector who wants to restore American foreign and security policy and advance American power, national honor, and national freedom.

Fissionism means drawing clear battle lines, dividing what was once the “conservative movement.” The “principled conservatives” can keep their pristine — and currently useless — “principles.” I am on the side of America, which means the side of Trump.

Editor’s note: A version of this article appeared originally at the American Mind.

Lawmakers Fail To End Second Longest Shutdown In History

‘The Democrats will never agree’

Texas Democrats just gave Republicans a gift-wrapped hypocrisy story



After nominating James Talarico for the Senate in Texas, are Democrats now racists and misogynists?

It’s a reasonable question. Democrats chose James Talarico, a white man, over Jasmine Crockett, a black woman. That choice also collides head-on with what Democrats told the country after Kamala Harris lost the presidency: that racism and misogyny decided the outcome.

Democrats can’t keep changing the rules depending on who wins.

In Texas’ recent Democratic Senate primary, Talarico, a member of the Texas House since 2018, faced Crockett, a two-term member of Congress from Texas’ 30th District. On paper, Crockett looked like the stronger Democrat brand: a young, outspoken black woman with far left-wing views and national visibility.

Yet Talarico won handily, 53% to 45%, after a primary season marked by intraparty drama — including fights that centered on race.

If identity politics commands the party, the result looks odd. Even sympathetic Democratic observers described the two candidates as ideologically similar. MSNBC analyst John Heilemann said Talarico is “not a moderate” and that he and Crockett held “basically the same positions on almost every issue.” In other words, voters didn’t choose a centrist over a firebrand. They chose one firebrand over another — and they chose the white male.

Democrats will reply that the answer is “electability.” They’ll say Talarico gives them a better shot in November. Maybe that’s what many primary voters believed. But Democrats have spent years insisting that “electability” talk is often a cover for bias, a way to push women and minorities aside while keeping the old hierarchies intact.

That’s why the question won’t go away.

Democrats routinely portray themselves as the party most attuned to race and sex. The 2024 numbers underline that self-image: Exit polls showed Harris won overwhelming support from black voters and strong support from women, including black women. Democrats treat those blocs as moral proof of the party’s mission.

They also treated Harris’ loss as moral proof of the country’s failure.

Former President Joe Biden blamed the 2024 defeat on sexism and racism, saying voters “went the sexist route” and wouldn’t accept “a woman of mixed race.” When candidates for DNC chairman were asked whether racism and misogyny played a role in Harris’ defeat, all eight raised their hands. David Axelrod said bluntly that the campaign included appeals to racism and that “anybody” who thinks bias didn’t affect the outcome is wrong.

Rank-and-file Democrats echoed the claim. NBC News’ post-election interviews featured Democrat voters attributing Harris’ loss to the country’s unwillingness to elect a woman, with race layered on top. “Regardless of race,” one black Democrat from Pittsburgh said, “they didn’t want her to win.”

RELATED: James Talarico found a verse — and twisted the meaning

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So Democrats have made this argument, loudly and repeatedly: When a woman loses at the top of the ticket, the country’s sexism and racism bear much of the blame.

Then Texas Democrats faced their own test. They could nominate the black woman — especially in a race where ideology wasn’t the separating line — and they didn’t.

Democrats might point out that Harris flamed out early in the crowded 2020 presidential primary and that the party still elevated her to vice president and then the 2024 nomination. That’s true. But that history cuts both ways. It suggests Democrats will showcase race and sex when it serves the coalition — and set it aside when it doesn’t.

And this time, they aren’t even pretending they didn’t set it aside.

Talarico’s profile rose fast, aided by a national media moment. Stephen Colbert posted an interview online after CBS declined to air it over “equal time” concerns, and the clip drew millions of views. The controversy boosted Talarico’s visibility and fundraising — and helped turn a state primary into a national narrative.

Democrats are now framing their choice as pragmatic. They’re saying: We picked the candidate who can win.

Fine. But Democrats don’t get to treat “electability” as an illegitimate dog whistle when Republicans use it — then invoke it as a clean, neutral justification when Democrats do.

Here’s the bottom line: When America chose Trump over Harris in 2024 — in a race with major policy contrasts — Democrats blamed racism and misogyny. When Texas Democrats chose a white male over a black woman in 2026 — in a race Democrats say offered little substantive contrast — the party expects everyone to treat it as smart strategy.

That double standard is the point.

Either identity is decisive and bias explains outcomes — or voters, including Democrat voters, sometimes make other calculations and deserve to be treated like adults.

Democrats can’t keep changing the rules depending on who wins.