The difference between red and blue states is a winning message for Republicans



Affordability is consistently rated voters’ number one concern in the midterms, but you don’t hear much about it from Republicans.

There is good reason for this. Messaging on the economy and cost of living is tricky: The administration and this Congress have an impressive record to run on and statistics that show people are better off now than they were two years ago. However, making that case risks alienating voters who are dissatisfied with their own economic circumstances and frustrated by easily observable metrics — like the price of gas and groceries — that suggest the economy is treading water at best.

Blue states show what happens when governments are free to make democratic socialist policies reality.

Yet conservatives should not give up and let Democrats sell their half-baked socialist ideas as the real path to great affordability. The opposite is true. Conservatives know that those policies contributed to the economic misery of the Biden administration and that if they gain power, they will only make economic recovery harder.

That’s why conservatives must first acknowledge that geopolitical energy shocks are eroding good progress on prices and then lean into showing where the cost of living in the United States remains the biggest problem and explain why.

This new ad by Independent Women’s Voice and Unleash Prosperity Now does just that. It zeroes in on a chart built from data from the American Presidential Project and World Population Review, exposing the relationship between high cost of living and areas that voted for Kamala Harris in the 2024 election.

What it shows is that the higher the concentration of Harris voters, the higher the cost of living — while red areas that most supported Trump enjoy the greatest levels of affordability.

Voters should recognize that those relationships aren’t an accident: States like California, New York, New Jersey, and Massachusetts have pursued high regulation, high tax, high spending policies, and those Democratic policies make life more expensive.

Of course, Americans generally are frustrated by the price of gas and blame U.S. actions in Iran. Yet federal policy and the international scene don’t explain why gas is $6.28 on average in California and just $3.84 in Texas. Nor does it explain why gas prices under Democrats when there was no war were nearly as high as they are now.

Electricity prices tell a similar story, with California residents paying $27.04 per kilowatt-hour while Texans pay $9.79.

Same with housing: The average California house costs a jaw-dropping $761,538 compared to $296,424 in Texas. Sure, part of that is attributable to California’s unrivaled natural beauty, but it also reflects policy decisions that have made the state uniquely and needlessly expensive.

Blue states embrace restrictionist policies not just on energy, but on housing and business climates that make it more expensive for businesses to operate and citizens to live. Heavy regulations, high minimum wages, and union rules make everything cost more.

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Blue states tax their citizens more and have bloated government bureaucracies that discourage innovation and slow everything down. Blue states have also disproportionately tolerated fraud, crime, and illegal immigration, which burden state governments and taxpayers, as well as diminish the quality of life.

That’s why affordability is such a big problem, particularly in blue states. And it’s those same policies — and worse — that Democrats running for Congress and governorships are proposing today, and which would inevitably send America in the wrong direction.

In contrast, this administration and Congress have advanced policies designed to make life more affordable for everyone. Every taxpayer benefits from the provisions in the Working Families Tax Cuts that enabled people to keep more of what they earn, whether it was tips, overtime shifts, Social Security benefits, or higher child tax credits and lower overall rates. This administration has made herculean efforts to eradicate waste, not just by ending fraud but by ripping out departments, programs, and systems that made waste and fraud systemic.

While Americans are just starting to see the benefits of such efforts, the media works to obscure how these reforms will pay dividends for years to come. But most voters know that these efforts are worthwhile, especially compared to how Democrats who had a choice either chose to turn a blind eye to this waste, or were themselves corrupt or incompetent.

Affordability is a messaging battle the GOP should be fighting now and must continue to fight to prevent Democratic policies based on promised freebies without any sound way to pay for them or any thought to the harms they would trigger. Those promises are a gift-wrapped box filled with poisonous snakes: appealing on the outside, but dangerous once opened.

Blue states show what happens when governments are free to make democratic socialist policies reality — and far from advancing affordability, it’s a road that leads to skyrocketing costs and less livable communities. The GOP should ensure voters recognize this reality.

This article was originally published by RealClearPolitics and made available via RealClearWire.

The cost of living is coming for Congress



I have spent more than two decades working in politics and have been involved in roughly 50 campaigns, from local races to presidential contests. If there is one lesson I have learned, it is this: Never tell voters that what they are experiencing isn’t real.

With the midterm elections eight weeks away, too many campaigns risk making that mistake. Washington wants to talk about foreign policy, economic indicators, and political strategy. Voters are looking at receipts, and those receipts tell a different story.

Voters can forgive difficult circumstances. What they will not forgive is being told those circumstances don’t exist.

In the week ending September 7, the national average for diesel reached a record $5.97 a gallon. That matters far beyond truck stops. Farmers, contractors, freight carriers, and delivery networks all depend on diesel.

When those costs rise, they move through the supply chain. Fuel becomes part of the grocery bill, the restaurant bill, the cost of construction, shipping, and nearly everything else Americans buy. The consumer ultimately pays.

The line between foreign policy and affordability is not always clean. Wars, sanctions, and instability abroad can raise oil prices and transportation costs at home. But voters experience those events through household economics: the price on the pump, the supermarket receipt, and the balance in the checking account.

Politicians love macroeconomics. Voters live in microeconomics.

A candidate can talk about GDP, job creation, or the stock market, but those figures do not erase what a family pays for groceries, housing, insurance, and energy. The voter's checking account gets the final vote.

As much as it pains me to admit it, Democrat strategist James Carville got at least one thing right. During Bill Clinton’s 1992 presidential campaign, Carville drove home a simple message: “It’s the economy, stupid.” More than three decades later, Republicans would be wise to remember the lesson.

I have seen campaigns become consumed with the issue they want voters to care about rather than the issue voters actually care about. Those are not always the same thing.

The evidence this year is hard to miss. A July Pew Research Center survey found that voters most wanted congressional candidates to discuss economic issues, especially prices and affordability. In a companion survey, 66% said they were very concerned about food and consumer-goods prices, 64% about housing costs, and 56% about gasoline prices.

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Foreign policy and national security still matter. China, Russia, Iran, and America’s place in the world cannot be dismissed. No single issue will decide every race. But elections are personal, and voters usually encounter national policy through its effect on daily life.

A parent in a supermarket aisle is not conducting a geopolitical analysis while comparing grocery prices. A driver filling the family SUV is watching the numbers on the pump. Both are asking the same question: How much is this going to cost me?

They are thinking about the mortgage, electric bill, car payment, insurance, groceries, gas, child care, and credit cards. They are wondering why an income that once felt comfortable now seems barely sufficient. That is affordability, and it will decide November.

Economic frustration helped return Donald Trump to the White House. Republicans cannot assume that the issue automatically works in their favor now. They cannot tell families struggling with grocery and fuel bills that everything is fine or insist that distant events matter more than household finances.

That does not require Republicans to abandon foreign policy or the administration’s agenda. It requires candidates to acknowledge what voters are experiencing and explain what they intend to do about it. There is an enormous political difference between saying, “The economy is great,” and saying, “We’ve made progress, but prices are still too high, and here is what we’re doing next.”

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Democrats should not celebrate, either. Economic frustration does not automatically translate into support for Democratic policies. Voters will judge which candidates understand their financial situation and offer credible solutions. That gives both parties an opportunity, but neither a guaranteed victory.

Campaigns succeed when candidates understand what voters are feeling. They fail when consultants persuade candidates that voters should care about something else. After roughly 50 campaigns, I have found that voters can forgive difficult circumstances. What they will not forgive is being told those circumstances don’t exist.

The question in November will not be whether Washington can produce statistics showing that parts of the economy are strong. It will be whether Americans believe they can afford their lives.

When they enter the voting booth, they will not be carrying economic charts. They will be carrying their grocery receipts.

Immigrant business coalition takes Mamdani to court over city-run grocery stores



A first-of-its-kind legal challenge seeking to block New York City Democrat Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s city-run grocery-store initiative has been filed by a coalition representing hundreds of immigrant-owned bodegas and grocers.

The Multicultural Business Coalition filed two separate lawsuits Monday in New York State Supreme Court seeking to derail Mamdani’s plan for five city-run grocery stores, which the group argues would place small, minority-owned markets at an unfair competitive disadvantage.

'Many minority members of the MBC cannot compete with the municipal grocery stores, and therefore, will be put out of business.'

The legal action comes after weeks of attempts to resolve the dispute outside court and follows the city’s announcement that the city-run grocery stores would sell items — including fresh produce, meat, seafood, and “20 other essential items like cheese, milk, and bread” — at 30% below market rates.

The first lawsuit, a class-action civil rights complaint, alleges the program violates New York Civil Rights Laws and the Equal Protection Clause of the New York State Constitution. The MBC contends the city has “unduly discriminated against” minority-owned grocers by subsidizing grocery stores that can offer discounts private businesses cannot match, thereby denying them equal protection.

The second lawsuit seeks to block the stores from operating unless the city conducts what the coalition says are necessary studies and analyses of their economic impact. The MBC claims there is “no existing evidence” that officials undertook “any studies and/or any serious analysis” of how the competition would affect existing businesses.

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In the filing, the coalition asserts that “many minority members of the MBC cannot compete with the municipal grocery stores, and therefore, will be put out of business.”

“The respondents’ running of five municipal grocery stores is arbitrary and capricious, in bad faith, and exceeds the scope of municipal authority,” the MBC added.

Mark Jaffe, the group’s general counsel and president of the Greater New York Chamber of Commerce, argued the city is setting small grocers up to fail by forcing them to compete against the city-run stores.

“You cannot expect hardworking small business owners to compete with a supermarket that isn’t going to pay rent, won’t have to pay an electric bill, and won’t have to buy their products at full price,” Jaffe told CNN. “They cannot possibly compete because no one will be subsidizing them.”

When asked about the lawsuits during an unrelated press conference in Queens on Monday, Mamdani said he was “confident both in the legality of this, that it will stand up in court, and in the importance of delivering it.”

“We are talking about a reflection of a cost-of-living crisis that has seen grocery prices increase by about 30% over the last few years, and we’re also talking about delivering five city-run grocery stores in a city of 8.5 million people that has more than a thousand grocery stores," the mayor responded.

Mamdani also pointed to Essex Street Market and Moore Street Market, two existing public markets directly administered by the New York City Economic Development Corporation, arguing that the model has not had a negative impact on surrounding businesses. They have been in operation since the 1940s, along with La Marqueta starting earlier, and were established under Mayor Fiorello La Guardia.

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Founded earlier this year, the MBC represents roughly 65 business organizations, with strong representation in the New York-New Jersey region, spanning Hispanic, Asian, Caribbean, African, Middle Eastern, Jewish, and South Asian communities.

To address concerns that the initiative could undercut privately owned stores in neighboring areas, Mamdani said the city-run grocery stores would not sell cigarettes, alcohol, lottery tickets, or hot food — items that typically generate some of the highest profit margins for bodegas and convenience stores.

“My grandfather opened up one of the first bodegas in the late 1960s when East Harlem was burning and the A&Ps and Waldbaums were leaving,” said MBC Chairman Frank Garcia.

“He established the first Latino Grocery Association to protect the rights of immigrant store owners. I am proud to be following up in his tradition because what Mayor Mamdani is doing is disgracing his memory.”

As currently filed, the MBC itself is the only named plaintiff in the lawsuits, though the coalition has said it plans to add individual grocery store owners as plaintiffs later this week.

The first of the five publicly owned grocery stores is anticipated to open in the Hunts Point neighborhood of the Bronx by the end of 2027, with the remaining four storefronts slated to be operational by the end of Mamdani’s four-year term, including one in East Harlem.

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If Trump Wants To Reduce Beef Prices, He Should Help Struggling Farmers Grow Their Herds

Instead of looking for short-term Band-Aids to mask the beef price problem heading into the mid-terms, the Trump admin should instead focus on ways to incentivize heifer retention in order to increase long-term cattle supply.

Yes, groceries are more expensive. Now what?



Inflation. Everyone's discussing it these days, at least on X.

Is it bad? Is it fine? Are our perceptions skewed by virtue of living in 2026 which makes accurate evaluation of prices in 1996 impossible?

Going to McDonald’s was an occasion back then. There weren’t 35 different kinds of IPAs in the grocery store. Arugula didn’t exist until sometime around 2009.

It’s hard to know. Different people have different ideas on all of this and it’s hard to say one is more right than another. Sometimes there are multiple right answers.

Socialism starter

Matt Walsh wrote:

Grocery prices are insane. They’re still rising. Addressing this problem should be the number one priority of every elected leader. End the stupid foreign wars and focus on this issue. It’s one of the main reasons socialists are gaining power.

He’s not wrong. Grocery prices are higher than I ever remember. Most families I know are acutely aware of the situation. When you're feeding growing kids, you can’t skimp the way you skimped when you were 21. You can’t feed them junk because it’s cheaper; you have to feed them nutritiously, and so you end up feeling those higher prices pretty sharply.

Burrito-nomics

Jeremy Kauffman wrote:

“So far as I can tell, it's simply not true that food has gotten more expensive in real dollars in the United States. Why are people so convinced this is true? What's the evidence?”

Below his post he shared a graph detailing the fact that grocery prices have only risen in nominal terms, not real terms, essentially saying prices are higher but so are wages.

In response to claims of $20 burritos being prohibitively expensive for young people, Kauffman detailed the hard numbers for feeding burritos to a family of eight with ingredients from Wal-Mart. The total price was $18.38

Kauffman isn’t wrong either. Although my wife handles the food in our house, I do know we buy our groceries from Meijer, Aldi, and Walmart. I know there are absolutely affordable prices to be found if you don’t buy your ingredients at Whole Foods and you make your food at home rather than going out. A gallon of milk from our local Walmart is $3.17; a gallon of milk from the nearby Whole Foods is $6.69.

To his point about prices rising nominally but not in real terms, I’m not an economist or a statistician, so I don’t know all the ins and outs of how these numbers are calculated, but I do know we tend to really notice in passionate and negative terms when the prices swell at the store but we don’t really notice or account for our paycheck swelling in our bank account. It’s a sad fact that we tend to focus on the bad more than the good.

Passion for premium

Lomez wrote:

Short answer is that post-boomers became accustomed to premium/boutique brands. These things do, in fact, cost a lot more than generics. No seed oils. All organic. Cage free. Etc. Etc. My family spends a lot more on groceries in *real* dollars than my parents did because, like just about everyone posting online about this, we over-extend and buy the$20 dollar bottle of nice Vermont maple syrup and $8 fancy French butter and do this across the board for almost every category [choose your own indulgence/health fixation]. I know we're not alone in this. I've seen your pantries.

The longer answer is that other categories of spending have gone significantly up — housing, childcare, insurance — and so there's less slack in the average person's budget. Grocery prices might be flat as a general matter, but the belt can still feel — and actually be — a lot tighter.

He is certainly correct, and like most other very correct answers to complex questions, the people don’t want to hear it.

In the 1990s, before the foodie revolution, our parents fed us very plain food. We rarely went out to eat, and it was a big event when we did. There were no cans of sparkling water. We never had pop in the fridge. We didn’t even really stop at fast food when traveling; we packed sandwiches in a cooler full of half-melted ice bags at the bottom.

Going to McDonald’s was an occasion back then. There weren’t 35 different kinds of IPAs in the grocery store. Arugula didn’t exist until sometime around 2009. The children of 2026 have no experience with the iceberg lettuce salad of 1996 — you know the one, with bland white crispy lettuce, large tomatoes that aren’t even close to ripe, and three fat cucumber slices.

Our kids eat guacamole, sushi, organic eggs, copious amounts of raspberries with Greek yogurt in the morning, and a bunch of other stuff I didn’t even encounter until I was in my 20s.

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Fancy feasts

It’s a fascinating story about class and taste. How even though our society is, in many ways, more classless and lowbrow than ever, many people are eating food that really only very wealthy and very health-conscious individuals ate back in 1996, and that fact plays some role in how we perceive prices.

The thing about shifting expectations after the foodie revolution is that it doesn’t feel like any of those things that were fancy and expensive in 1996 are elite in 2026. Fresh guacamole is now the Kraft American cheese single, and now no one would eat the Kraft American cheese single, and this skews our perception.

Of course, it goes without saying that someone does eat the Kraft American cheese single. Millions of people do, just like we did. Actually, in fact, we didn’t eat the Kraft American single at the Root house in 1996 because they were considered kind of fancy and more expensive than buying a block of cheese and cutting it yourself.

Reality bites

The truth about inflation is that whether it’s real bad, pretty normal, or the end of the world as we know it, we can’t do anything about it. You, dear reader, have no way to meaningfully change the global financial system or the American economic situation at this time. These things are too big for an individual citizen to have any control over. You can’t make the prices lower, you can’t stop the bleeding, you can’t do anything other than buy what you need to buy while doing your best to stay within your budget.

We humans have a terrible tendency to focus very heavily on things we can’t really change. I don’t know why it is, but it is. Is it because we are naturally malcontent? Or is it because we are whiners with no strength? Or maybe we are masochists? Obsessing endlessly about something you view as terrible and painful when you have no way to change it seems like a form of masochism, doesn’t it?

Whatever it is, it isn’t good. We can’t focus all our energy or emotional firepower on being angry about inflation. Maybe we should be angry; maybe we shouldn’t be angry. I don’t know. But I do know that all we can do is acknowledge the reality of the world as it is, whether it be good or bad, and do our best to adapt to the current situation, live the best life we can in the meantime, and hope for the best.

That’s how it was in 1996 and how it is in 2026.

Data centers are a hidden tax on your burger



Last September, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins warned that the United States has “offshored our food, our beef cattle, our citrus.” She put the problem plainly: “If we can’t feed ourselves, this is a national security issue.” Fair enough. So why does so much of government land-use policy push projects that devour farmland — hyperscale data centers, utility-scale solar farms, and the sprawling infrastructure that comes with them?

If Washington wanted to drive up land prices, make farming harder, and funnel a generation of acreage into non-agricultural uses, it couldn’t improve on the current playbook. The uniparty does this everywhere, and red states often lead the charge.

Data centers: The ‘cloud’ that drains the water

Texas is suffering through a long drought. Yet Amarillo has approved an 18 million square-foot data center on what used to be cattle country. Land-grabs tell only part of the story. Data centers also drink water — and they don’t act like the kind of clouds that bring rain.

Reports indicate the Amarillo facility alone could use 912 million gallons of water per year. Large data centers can guzzle up to 5 million gallons per day, matching the daily use of a town of 10,000 to 50,000 people. That kind of demand crowds out ranchers and farmers who already operate under tight margins and tight water allocations.

If food security is national security, then farmland is strategic territory. Let’s start acting like it.

Texas data centers used roughly 49 billion gallons of water in 2025, rising to 399 billion gallons by 2030 — enough to lower Lake Mead by more than 16 feet annually. Meanwhile, ranchers face reduced access, higher pumping costs, and deeper draws from shrinking aquifers. Less water means smaller herds, smaller harvests, and more pressure to sell.

That’s how the cycle locks in. Water becomes scarce. Ranching becomes less viable. Landowners get squeezed. Tech developers show up with wads of cash and tax incentives. Grazing land disappears for good.

On what planet does it make sense to trade the beef and food we need for speculative gains from chatbots and cloud-based generative AI?

Maybe Elon Musk has the right idea when he suggests building data centers in space. Texas doesn’t need them planted on top of its ranches.

Some red states now treat these projects as untouchable “economic development,” even when they wreck local quality of life. Ohio offers a telling example. An Ohio EPA draft permit for a data center states: “It has been determined that a lowering of water quality … is necessary to accommodate important social and economic development in the state of Ohio.”

That sentence says everything. Regulators will sacrifice water quality to accommodate the newest corporate appetite. Families and landowners can adapt.

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Photo by Kyle Grillot/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Solar ‘farms’ crushing farmland

President Trump has criticized the solar agenda from day one. He has called utility-scale solar inefficient and ugly — and he’s right about the aesthetics. Yet the administration now treats solar as a power source for data centers, while some MAGA influencers and pollsters try to sell the right on the plan. Pairing solar with hyperscale AI facilities accelerates the transfer of land out of food production.

Utility-scale solar typically requires five to 10 acres per megawatt. A solar build meant to feed a one-gigawatt hyperscale facility can swallow 5,000 to 10,000 acres. Supporters respond with percentages: Solar uses only a small share of total farmland. That dodge ignores where developers build. They don’t chase scrub. They target flat, well-drained, high-quality fields with cheap and easy access to transmission.

Follow the incentives. In states such as Indiana and Illinois, solar leases reportedly offer $900 to $1,500 per acre annually — far above the average return from corn and soybean ground. Landowners take the deal. Young farmers get priced out. Rural communities lose working land and the local economies that depend on it.

Reuters reported that in Indiana counties such as Pulaski, Starke, and Jasper, solar projects have secured 4% to 12% of some of the most fertile cropland. That’s not “marginal land.” That’s the kind of ground America needs to keep producing.

Tax breaks pour gasoline on the fire. Federal and state subsidies for data centers, solar farms, and battery installations push up land values and rents. In Pulaski County, Indiana, cropland rents reportedly jumped 26% since 2020 amid solar growth, outpacing state and national averages. Young families trying to farm don’t compete with subsidized megaprojects.

Indiana Republicans have compounded the damage by greasing the skids for carbon capture pipelines and special regulatory favors tied to the “Mid-States Corridor,” which will take even more farmland out of service.

Indiana’s own Department of Agriculture reports the state lost roughly 345,000 acres of agricultural land between 2010 and 2022. Residential sprawl drives much of that loss. Industrial conversion is accelerating — and data centers paired with solar build-outs speed it up.

So what exactly are these conservatives conserving?

Imports keep climbing. In 2023, imports supplied 59% of fresh fruit availability and 35% of fresh vegetables — up from 50% and 20% in 2007. America has the land to feed itself and then some, yet policymakers keep nudging production overseas. Mexico alone accounts for over half of imported fruits and vegetables, valued at more than $20 billion.

God gave this country an abundance of fertile land. He gave sun and rain to grow food. Our leaders now treat that ground as a blank canvas for industrial build-outs that don’t feed anyone.

If food security is national security, then farmland is strategic territory. Let’s start acting like it.

Mamdani sells socialism — and Republicans peddle the Temu version



New York City has elected a self-professed socialist as mayor. Critics worry about Zohran Mamdani’s inexperience, his approach to law and order, and his views on Israel and Islamic radicalism. But the most urgent issue inside the walls of City Hall is his economic agenda.

Mamdani promises “free” bus transit, a freeze on rent increases, a $30 minimum wage, government-run grocery stores, free child care, and higher taxes in a city already crushed by some of the nation’s highest tax burdens. His brand of socialism isn’t subtle. It’s explicit — and guaranteed to fail.

A movement confident in free enterprise can beat socialism — first in the arena of ideas, then at the ballot box. But only if we choose clarity over imitation.

Many on the right treat Mamdani’s victory as cosmic justice for a deep-blue city that keeps moving left. Others welcome his rise, convinced that showcasing a hard-left mayor will repel voters nationwide. That might be true. It might also be fantasy.

New Yorkers didn’t elect Mamdani so conservatives could score a talking point. His win advances ideas — and conservatives must decide whether they still believe ours are better.

When the right copies the left

Mocking government-run grocery stores is easy. Yet national Republicans just embraced government ownership in Intel — a massive corporation that dwarfs any Manhattan supermarket. Some even support a federal sovereign wealth fund to buy equity across private industry, handing Washington the power to pick winners.

Mamdani demonizes Wall Street and high earners who keep the city solvent. Republicans respond by demonizing “big pharma” and pushing policies that treat major U.S. innovators as villains.

Mamdani wants to redistribute income with New York’s already-extreme tax code. Some on the right now call for $2,000 government checks to lower-income households — financed with borrowed money and paid back by business owners already hit with $350 billion in new tariff taxes this year.

Mamdani would freeze rents because, in his telling, landlords “make a killing.” His economics ignore taxes, insurance, utilities, and maintenance costs that devour margins across New York’s rental market. Yet GOP proposals on health care routinely blame insurers for “making a killing while the little guy suffers.” The overlap with left-wing rhetoric isn’t coincidence. It’s drift.

High grocery prices fuel Mamdani’s push for government-run grocery stores. He blames “capitalistic greed.” Republicans answered high beef prices by accusing meat companies of “price fixing.” Again, the same logic — just delivered with a different logo.

Resurrecting failed policies

Mamdani’s worldview mirrors the same interventionist thinking that powered the Affordable Care Act. Subsidies, mandates, and price controls promised relief. They delivered higher premiums, higher costs, and lower-quality care.

Conservatives should highlight that failure. Instead, too many mimic the left’s solutions — regulation dressed up as populism, government expansion sold as “tough on corporations,” and class warfare renamed as “standing up for workers.”

If Mamdani’s win teaches anything, it’s that conservatives must draw a bright line: free enterprise or the road to socialism. Blurring that line weakens the argument and cedes the moral ground socialism feeds on.

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The real fight

The conservative movement faces serious internal debates — debates worth having. But Mamdani’s election exposes one fight we cannot dodge: the fight for limited government and competitive markets.

We cannot counter socialism with lighter versions of the same policies. We cannot attack Mamdani’s economic program while pushing our own price controls, government takeovers, and redistribution schemes. A movement that refuses to defend free enterprise won’t defeat socialism. It won’t even understand the threat.

Mamdani comes into office with plenty of flaws. New Yorkers will feel the consequences soon enough. But conservatives face a choice: defend our own principles or mimic the left and call it “the new right.”

A movement confident in free enterprise can beat socialism — first in the arena of ideas, then at the ballot box. But only if we choose clarity over imitation.

The right needs bigger ideas than tax cuts



New York City voters last week elected socialist Zohran Mamdani as their next mayor. It wasn’t an isolated win. Across the country, progressives dominated key races, including the gubernatorial contests in New Jersey and Virginia.

In race after race, conservative, moderate, and establishment Democrats were swept aside by aggressive, hard-left challengers. The message could not be clearer: Conservative messaging — and in some cases, conservative policy — is failing to connect with ordinary voters.

Socialists like Mamdani promise utopia through government control. Conservatives cannot counter that with spreadsheets and slogans.

Mamdani and his progressive allies succeeded because they campaigned on issues that hit home for millions of Americans: the cost of housing, food, personal debt, and the lack of good jobs.

Ironically, those were the very same issues that powered Donald Trump’s 2024 victory and brought working-class voters back to the Republican fold. Now those same voters are drifting back toward socialism, and the reason is painfully simple: It’s still the economy, stupid.

Economic pain drives voters left

Conservatives have not convinced enough Americans — especially voters under 40 — that their policies will improve daily life. Consumer prices remain high, grocery bills keep climbing, and inflation continues to outpace wage growth.

Housing costs are near record levels. The average home now costs seven times the median income, compared to roughly 5.5 times during Trump’s first term. Total household debt has topped $18 trillion for three consecutive quarters — another all-time high.

Millions of Americans feel trapped. And when voters are desperate, they make disastrous choices — like putting a socialist in charge of the nation’s largest city.

What Trump got right

The Trump administration has taken important steps to fight rising costs. Promoting affordable, domestic energy — especially natural gas — has reduced reliance on foreign suppliers. Cutting regulations has also delivered real savings.

In January, Trump ordered federal agencies to repeal 10 rules for every new one adopted. The White House estimates that his deregulation push avoided more than $180 billion in costs in 2025 alone.

He has also pledged to ease housing regulations to increase the supply of affordable homes, while Republicans in Congress have fought to preserve the 2017 tax cuts — a major victory for middle-class taxpayers.

These are important wins. But they lack the sweeping vision that socialists like Mamdani are offering to voters who want transformation, not tinkering.

Socialism’s empty promises

Mamdani’s platform reads like a socialist wish list: 200,000 city-built apartments, a citywide rent freeze, universal childcare, and even government-run grocery stores. It’s a fantasy financed by taxpayers and destined to collapse under its own weight — but it sounds big. It sounds bold.

Conservatives, by comparison, often sound procedural. Deregulation is important but abstract. Tax cuts matter but feel distant. To compete, conservatives must present a clear, moral vision — one that shows how free markets can improve life for working families faster and more permanently than socialism ever could.

So what can conservatives do to counter socialism’s siren song? Here’s a start.

1) Make housing affordable again
Congress should require states and cities to open up millions of lots for homebuilding as a condition of receiving federal funds. Vast stretches of usable land sit idle while housing prices explode. Opening that land to development would lower prices without touching national parks or sensitive ecosystems.

2) Reinvent higher education
The cost of college has soared because of government-backed student loans that inflate tuition and trap young people in debt. Washington should phase out federal lending and restore market discipline to higher education.

In the meantime, Congress can lower loan caps, expand skilled-trade training in high schools, and require public universities that receive federal loan funds to offer extremely low-cost online degrees. That would give students a path to higher education without lifelong debt.

3. Cut taxes — and waste
Lowering sales, gas, and business taxes would immediately ease the cost of living. But real fiscal discipline requires cutting government waste, not inflating the money supply.

The Biden administration admits the federal government has lost $2.4 trillion over the past two decades through payment errors alone. That’s not “spending” — it’s hemorrhaging. Conservatives should treat it as proof that vast savings can be achieved without touching vital programs.

RELATED: Explaining Mamdani’s appeal to the young, with polling

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Competing with the socialist vision

Socialists like Mamdani promise utopia through government control. Conservatives cannot counter that with spreadsheets and slogans. They must meet grand promises with grander purpose — rooted in freedom, self-reliance, and opportunity.

America needs a new conservative economic agenda that speaks to the anxieties of working families, not just to Wall Street or Washington. Deregulation and tax reform are essential, but they must serve a larger story: rebuilding an economy that rewards work, expands ownership, and restores faith in the American dream.

Until conservatives reclaim that moral high ground, voters will keep turning to the false hope of socialism.

Jamie Dimon’s ‘cockroach’ economy is eating Main Street alive



Jamie Dimon has been running JPMorgan Chase for nearly two decades. The business press still hails him as the man who steered the bank through the 2008 financial crisis.

I’m less impressed. It’s easy to look steady at the helm when you’re floating on a $29 trillion sea of taxpayer bailouts.

This is what half a century of bipartisan corruption produces: a crony capitalist system that privatizes profit, socializes loss, and lets the rest of us drown.

Yes, Dimon saw the 2008 crash coming and made some smart adjustments ahead of the collapse. Credit where it’s due — barely. But once the dust settled, JPMorgan rewarded itself handsomely for surviving the storm.

JP Morgan said yesterday that its earnings "fell short" of their potential last year — but it still felt able to hand its investment bankers a 22 per cent increase in their bonuses.

Kicking off what could be a stormy reporting season, America's second-largest bank paid them $9.3bn, compared with $7.7bn in 2008. Total pay for its 222,315 employees came in at $26.9bn — 18 per cent from $22.7bn the year before — largely because of a sharp increase in bonuses paid throughout the bank. The announced sparked outrage among critics who described the figures as "obscene."

"Obscene" doesn’t begin to cover it.

So when Dimon made headlines a couple of weeks ago with his “cockroaches” comment, I didn’t rush to celebrate another round of supposed insight.

“When you see one cockroach, there are probably more, and so everyone should be forewarned of this one,” Dimon told analysts, referring to the bankruptcies of subprime auto lender Tricolor and auto-parts maker First Brands.

Dimon’s metaphor was awkward enough — he mentioned two cockroaches while warning about seeing just one. But worse, he got caught by the same kind of subprime rot that tanked the global economy in 2008.

“Dimon said that JPMorgan is reviewing its controls after the Tricolor bankruptcy and said the $170 million loss is ‘not our finest moment.’”

No kidding. His “cockroach detector” still doesn’t work.

Now Dimon is back in the headlines again for another round of supposed “foresight.”

“JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon warned in an interview that the stock market could be in line for a significant correction within the next few years amid heightened uncertainty. Dimon told the BBC that there is an elevated risk of a stock market correction in the next six months to two years, saying, ‘I am far more worried about that than others.’”

Glad to meet you, Mr. Dimon. Some of us have been worried for decades.

RELATED: America’s debt denial has gone global

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Back in 1989, when my high-school history teacher asked the class to name America’s biggest problem, I said “the federal debt.” Not just because debt is bad, but because Washington was pretending deficits didn’t matter — and voters let them.

Nearly 40 years later, nothing has changed. The numbers are bigger. The lies are the same. Ignore a problem long enough, and it grows until it devours you.

Our economy isn’t a Mr. Potato Head toy, where government spending sits neatly apart from everything else. It’s one big pile of money — and the federal government keeps shoveling from the productive side to the wasteful side.

Every dollar borrowed for political vanity projects is a dollar you can’t use to start a business or buy a home. As the federal machine consumes more and more of the pool, it’s not the elites who get crowded out. It’s everyone else.

Poor people’s home mortgages are down 46%. Rich people’s art-collection loans are up 30%.

This is what half a century of bipartisan corruption produces: a crony capitalist system that privatizes profit, socializes loss, and lets the rest of us drown.

Look at Walmart. The company pulls tens of billions of taxpayer dollars a year through the SNAP program — the same program many of its employees rely on to eat because Walmart won’t pay them enough to live.

Independent research confirms it: Thousands of Walmart workers depend on Medicaid and food stamps.

Big government lets big business pocket our tax money on both ends — profits in private, losses in public. Even their labor costs get offloaded to us.

So when politicians wail about a “government shutdown” disrupting SNAP payments, remember who they’re really worried about. It’s not the families at the grocery store. It’s the corporations cashing in.

RELATED: Trump admin blames Senate Democrats for SNAP debacle: ‘The well has run dry’

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A system this warped can’t last. You can call America the greatest nation in history if you like, but greatness doesn’t square with more than $38 trillion in government debt and record levels of personal debt.

Household debt, credit-card debt, mortgage debt — all at historic highs. Nearly a quarter of Americans are buying food on layaway. And 42% have zero emergency savings.

Meanwhile, Washington keeps inflating Wall Street’s floaties.

Main Street drowns while Big Government keeps Big Business comfortably above the surface.

Jamie Dimon thinks he’s just spotted the first cockroach. But the infestation started long ago — right inside the marble halls of Washington, D.C.

And if no one finally fumigates the place, the rot will force-condemn the entire country.

Stop feeding Big Tech and start feeding Americans again



America needs more farmers, ranchers, and private landholders — not more data centers and chatbots. Yet the federal government is now prioritizing artificial intelligence over agriculture, offering vast tracts of public land to Big Tech while family farms and ranches vanish and grocery bills soar.

Conservatives have long warned that excessive federal land ownership, especially in the West, threatens liberty and prosperity. The Trump administration shares that concern but has taken a wrong turn by fast-tracking AI infrastructure on government property.

If the nation needs a new Manhattan Project, it should be for food security, not AI slop.

Instead of devolving control to the states or private citizens, it’s empowering an industry that already consumes massive resources and delivers little tangible value to ordinary Americans. And this is on top of Interior Secretary Doug Burgum’s execrable plan to build 15-minute cities and “affordable housing.”

In July, President Trump signed an executive order titled Accelerating Federal Permitting of Data Center Infrastructure as part of its AI Action Plan. The order streamlines permits, grants financial incentives, and opens federal properties — from Superfund sites to military bases — to AI-related development. The Department of Energy quickly identified four initial sites: Oak Ridge Reservation in Tennessee, Idaho National Laboratory, the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Kentucky, and the Savannah River Site in South Carolina.

Last month, the list expanded to include five Air Force bases — Arnold (Tennessee), Davis-Monthan (Arizona), Edwards (California), Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst (New Jersey), and Robins (Georgia) — totaling over 3,000 acres for lease to private developers at fair market value.

Locating AI facilities on military property is preferable to disrupting residential or agricultural communities, but the favoritism shown to Big Tech raises an obvious question: Is this the best use of public land? And will anchoring these bubble companies on federal property make them “too big to fail,” just like the banks and mortgage lenders before the 2008 crash?

President Trump has acknowledged the shortage of affordable meat as a national crisis. If any industry deserves federal support, it’s America’s independent farmers and ranchers. Yet while Washington clears land for billion-dollar data centers, small producers are disappearing. In the past five years, the U.S. has lost roughly 141,000 family farms and 150,000 cattle operations. The national cattle herd is at its lowest level since 1951. Since 1982, America has lost more than half a million farms — nearly a quarter of its total.

Multiple pressures — rising input costs, droughts, and inflation — have crippled family farms that can’t compete with corporate conglomerates. But federal land policy also plays a role. The government’s stranglehold on Western lands limits grazing rights, water access, and expansion opportunities. If Washington suddenly wants to sell or lease public land, why not prioritize ranchers who need it for feed and forage?

The Conservation Reserve Program compounds the problem. The 2018 Farm Bill extension locked up to 30 million acres of land — five million in Wyoming and Montana alone — under the guise of conservation. Wealthy absentee owners exploit the program by briefly “farming” land to qualify it as cropland, then retiring it into CRP to collect taxpayer payments. More than half of CRP acreage is owned by non-farmers, some earning over $200 per acre while the land sits idle.

RELATED: AI isn’t feeding you

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Those acres could support hundreds of cattle per section or produce millions of tons of hay. Instead, they create artificial shortages that drive up feed costs. During the post-COVID inflation spike, hay prices spiked 40%, hitting $250 per ton this year. Even now, inflated prices cost ranchers six figures a year in extra expenses in a business that operates on thin margins.

If the nation needs a new Manhattan Project, it should be for food security, not AI slop. Free up federal lands and idle CRP acreage for productive use. Help ranchers grow herds and lower food prices instead of subsidizing a speculative industry already bloated with venture capital and hype.

At present, every dollar of revenue at OpenAI costs roughly $7.77 to generate — a debt spiral that invites the next taxpayer bailout. By granting these firms privileged access to public land, the government risks creating another class of untouchable corporate wards, as it did with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac two decades ago.

AI won’t feed Americans. It won’t fix supply chains. It won’t lower grocery bills. Until these companies can put real food on real tables, federal land should serve the purpose God intended — to sustain the people who live and work upon it.