California’s next political war will be blue on blue, not red



At the risk of stating the obvious, the sky is blue, death and taxes are inevitable, and California is a very liberal state. At the risk of angering my readers, I have even worse news: California isn’t secretly Republican.

We don’t need last week’s gubernatorial election to prove my point. And the results up and down the Golden State merely buttress it. Of course, as I write, we don’t have the final results for every race. We don’t need them, either. We have the bulk of the tally, plus the benefit of elections and public opinion polling from the past 20 years. Time flies, even when you’re losing.

The voters have been telling Republicans who they are for a generation. Republicans might begin to rebuild by believing them.

Xavier Becerra won roughly two-thirds of the vote against Republican Steve Hilton. The other Republican candidates for statewide office are doing about as well — or as badly. The margin isn’t 52-48, the sort of close result that can sustain a thousand theories about stolen elections and a few million bucks’ worth of fundraising appeals.

It’s about 66-34. Across the ballot. No cheating required.

The grim reality for California Republicans is that they haven’t won a statewide office since 2006. In the latest registration report, Democrats make up 44.96% of the electorate, Republicans 24.69%. If a secret Republican majority exists somewhere, it has maintained extraordinary operational security.

A toxic brand

Something more fundamental is going on. The Republican brand is politically radioactive in California. I don't mean merely that its candidates lose. I mean that the name itself discourages people who might agree with Republicans on taxes, crime, regulation, or any number of other issues from voting for its candidates.

Polls bear this out. A June 2025 Public Policy Institute of California survey found that 70% of likely voters viewed the Republican Party unfavorably. Among independents, the figure was 73%. A September PPIC poll found that 44% of California adults thought the Republican Party had almost no good ideas. Only 23% said the same about Democrats. These are opinions about the parties, not just candidates in a particular election.

The damage didn’t begin with Donald Trump. He arrived long after it was under way.

It’s hard to believe now, but California was once central to Republican national politics. Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan came out of this state. George H.W. Bush carried it in 1988. Pete Wilson won re-election as governor in 1994, when Republicans represented a little more than 37% of registered voters. By 2006, they were down to about 34%. In 2018, voters with no party preference outnumbered registered Republicans for the first time. Republicans have yet to recover.

The customary explanation begins and ends with Wilson’s embrace of Proposition 187, the 1994 ballot initiative to deny certain public services to illegal aliens. The proposition passed with nearly 59% of the vote. Its opponents nonetheless built an organizing movement, and the battle left a durable mark on the GOP’s standing among Latino voters. Political scientists have documented the shift.

But a single ballot measure cannot explain 30 years of demographic change, political miscalculation, and the collapse of Republican strength in mostly white suburbs that once kept the party competitive.

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It would be just as foolish to blame all this on Trump. He inherited the damage. He also became its most recognizable contemporary emblem. California gave him 31.6% of the vote in 2016, 34.3% in 2020, and 38.3% in 2024. His numbers improved. The party’s statewide prospects did not.

But whatever Trump’s appeal to his supporters, his identification with the party gave California Democrats a ready-made target. Becerra emphasized his opposition to Trump’s policies, and he tied Hilton, who had Trump’s endorsement, to the president.

The latest PPIC registration analysis shows how difficult it is to replenish the ranks: Among Californians who registered for the first time after January 2025, only 18% registered Republican. Among new registrants under 35, it was a paltry 15%. A party cannot live indefinitely on the voters it already has.

By Wednesday afternoon, the disaster had spread far beyond statewide races. Politico’s California Playbook reported that five Republican Assembly incumbents had lost to Democrats. Republican state Sen. Tony Strickland conceded. An open Senate seat being vacated by Republican Minority Leader Brian Jones just turned blue. More races remain uncalled as I write this. But California Target Book projected that Republicans could end up with just 12 seats in the 80-member Assembly. That would be the smallest Republican caucus since 1875.

Oof.

Consider Alexandra Macedo. Only months after Assembly Republicans chose her as their leader, she was trailing Democrat Hipolito Angel Cerros by 325 votes in a Central Valley district that Trump carried two years ago by nearly 19 points. Republican state Sen. Roger Niello was running an unexpectedly close race against a Democrat whose party reportedly hadn’t spent a penny to help him. These are not simply hopeless districts Republicans had no business contesting. And yet!

Republican consultant Dave Gilliard offered Politico a memorable diagnosis: “Each of those candidates ran with an R after their name, but what voters saw was a T for Trump.” He may be right. But the party was in trouble long before Trump descended the escalator; now Republicans have to contend with both battered brands.

Policies aren’t candidates

Here’s a wrinkle: Californians do not reflexively vote for every progressive idea put before them. They’re perfectly capable of discriminating among policies, even while seemingly voting “blue no matter who.”

Take taxes. (Please.) Voters approved higher income taxes on upper earners in 2012 and extended them in 2016. This year, they approved making those rates permanent, while rejecting Proposition 40's one-time tax on billionaires. They have left the central protections of Proposition 13 intact since 1978, despite modifying some of its provisions. In 2024, they rejected a proposal to make certain local bonds easier to approve.

Or consider voter ID. In April, a Berkeley IGS survey found 56% initial support for a ballot initiative mandating identification at the polls. Good news, right? But after respondents heard competing arguments about the proposal, including who backed it, support fell to 39%.

Proposition 39, sponsored by Republican Assemblyman Carl DeMaio, lost by roughly 60% to 40%. The survey does not prove that hearing DeMaio’s name alone caused the decline. The measure’s requirements and its opponents’ campaigning also played a part. But the pattern should discourage anyone from treating abstract support for a policy as votes available to a Republican candidate.

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I’ve seen DeMaio lately described as a “Republican firebrand,” which is weird because I remember when he was a socially liberal, ride-or-die-gay-marriage Log Cabin Republican. Whatever has happened to DeMaio, something rather more consequential has happened to the Republican brand.

The last conspicuous exception, Arnold Schwarzenegger, proved less about Republican vitality than his admirers wanted to believe. Arnold was a celebrity with crossover appeal and typically Hollywood liberal views. In 2006 he won a second term, and lukewarm Republican Steve Poizner won the insurance commissioner’s race. Neither victory produced a lasting GOP revival. How could they? Near the end of Schwarzenegger’s tenure, I wrote in the Sacramento Bee about his “legacy of disappointment.” He was his own brand. That was his edge and, ultimately, part of the problem.

The farm-team advantage

The California Republican Party, or what remains of it, too often looks like ladies who lunch. This isn’t a swipe at the loyal volunteers who keep showing up, God bless them. It’s an indictment of the people who have failed to build an effective political apparatus around them.

Democrats understand politics down to the neighborhood block. They organize through unions, clubs, school boards, city councils, county governments, and campaigns that train the people who will run the next ones. Their state party advertises year-round canvassing and volunteer training. Elections are one phase of the operation. Republicans too often behave as though six-month election campaigns are the whole story.

Democrat Hipolito Cerros, who may yet unseat the Assembly Republican leader, illustrates what a proper farm team looks like. He was mayor of Lindsay, a small agricultural town in California’s Central Valley, and once interned for Democrat state Sen. Melissa Hurtado. Local offices aren’t just places where Democrats win elections. They’re where prospective candidates learn the day-to-day, build relationships, and prepare for the next opening for higher office.

The truth is that Republicans may have dug their own grave 36 years ago by pushing for one of their favorite pet projects: term limits.

Proposition 140 in 1990 imposed strict limits on legislative service and reduced legislative staffing. The entrenched incumbents were supposed to disappear, leaving Sacramento to ordinary citizens. Obviously, that didn’t happen.

Instead, the permanent political networks survived while elected legislators had to begin again and again. Democrats could move candidates from local office into the Assembly, from the Assembly into the Senate, and from the Legislature into statewide office. Term limits made a functioning farm team more valuable, not less.

Worse, they damaged the Legislature’s capacity to stand on its own. In 1991, the Los Angeles Times was already reporting that lobbyists had begun filling gaps left by staff cuts. A 2024 study found that the staffing cuts increased the relative success of interest-group-sponsored bills.

The upshot is familiar: The people answerable to voters lost expertise and support. The people paid to influence them retained both.

Republicans love to talk about entrenched power. They have been considerably less attentive to where that power goes when elected officials are weakened. Unlike institutional memory, it doesn’t simply evaporate. It finds another address.

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Where the fight goes next

So what is left to contest? I wouldn’t spend much time fantasizing about reviving a party whose name repels much of the once Golden State’s electorate. The more interesting question is where the next struggle for political power in California will play out.

My guess is that the next six years will see increasing conflict between establishment Democrats and the Democratic Socialists of America. Socialist Nithya Raman defeated marginally less socialist Karen Bass for mayor of Los Angeles, America’s second-largest city. Socialist Jane Kim defeated garden-variety Democrat Ben Allen for insurance commissioner. True, the wealth-tax fight set Democrats against themselves. But a political coalition can dominate elections without agreeing on much about what government should do once the votes are counted.

I can imagine circumstances in which right-wing and left-wing populists find common cause, at least temporarily, over the cost of living, government favoritism, or the failure of public institutions. They will disagree, sometimes bitterly, about immigration, policing, taxes, and much else. Coalition politics does not require pretending those disagreements have vanished. It requires understanding what can and cannot be done together.

Remember: Politics is the art of the possible.

There is no guarantee that such an opening will emerge. But it is more plausible than expecting millions of disaffected Democrats and independents to wake up one morning and decide suddenly they are Republicans, secret or otherwise.

If the next serious challenge to California’s governing arrangements comes from people who reject the Republican label, it would be a fitting consequence of the party’s long decline. The voters have been telling Republicans who they are for a generation. Republicans might begin to rebuild by believing them.

The Second Amendment has become a security blanket



During a speech three days after the Democrats’ 2026 midterm victory, Michigan’s U.S. Senator-elect Abdul El-Sayed told an Arab-American gathering in Virginia, “I’m honored to be the next United States senator from the great state of Michigan, which of course I know we’re here in D.C., which of course is the capital of the United States of America, but Michigan is the capital of Arab America.”

El-Sayed is far from the first to boast about the rising concentration of Arab and Muslim populations in states like Michigan, Minnesota, and Texas. Americans have routinely criticized Europeans for their lack of action as their homelands are transformed by Muslim immigration. They have often stated that a similar phenomenon could never happen here because Americans are well armed thanks to the Second Amendment.

Despite the bluster around owning firearms, the Second Amendment seems to have done little to halt America’s own demographic transformation.

Despite these confident declarations, Americans are watching passively as Muslim politicians win elections. Conservatives are using the Second Amendment as a security blanket to comfort themselves as they slowly lose control of their own country.

People often talk about their “red-pill moment” when they recognized that politics was not what it seemed. For me, that moment was the migrant crisis that swept Europe in 2015. The fallout from Middle Eastern conflicts destabilized several countries, and refugees sought new homes in Europe. At first, many Western countries welcomed the arrivals, but the migrants were not simply women and children fleeing war. Nearly three-quarters of asylum-seekers were male, and 42% were men ages 18 to 34. Many did not stop at the first safe country they entered but continued traveling until they reached the European countries where they preferred to settle.

In addition to the economic burden, Europeans discovered that their new immigrant populations were not always ideal guests. Many had no desire to integrate, while Islamist activists pushed for separate justice systems under Sharia law. Britain’s grooming-gang scandals exposed the rape and abuse of girls and repeated failures by police and other authorities to protect them. The general population of countries like Germany and the United Kingdom had initially been welcoming, but many were souring on immigration they increasingly understood to be an invasion.

Voters may have come to the realization that mass immigration did not benefit their countries, but politicians refused to listen. Leaders shamed their populations as xenophobic and Islamophobic bigots. In the grooming-gang scandals in particular, officials avoided confronting crimes and uncomfortable facts about perpetrators. They punished Englishmen who dared to defend their daughters.

Voters in country after country attempted to elect politicians who would reject mass immigration but were routinely betrayed by the candidates they supported. It seemed increasingly clear that there were no political solutions to the invasion.

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As English girls were abused, American conservatives responded, “That’s what you get for giving up your guns. That will never happen here because we have the Second Amendment.” Even when Europeans attempted to stand up against mass immigration and their own governments, they remained disarmed and unorganized. It seemed like exactly the kind of hopeless situation the Bill of Rights was written to avoid.

Despite the bluster around owning firearms, the Second Amendment seems to have done little to halt America’s own demographic transformation. After 9/11, George W. Bush was joined by the establishment GOP in warning Americans not to blame Islam for the attacks. Even after terrorists murdered thousands in the name of Islam, Republican leaders treated proposals to restrict Muslim immigration as taboo.

During his first term, Donald Trump restricted entry from several majority-Muslim countries. Critics dubbed the policy a “Muslim ban.” The measure had overwhelming support from his base but was hated by establishment Republicans and the media. It was altered after several court injunctions, and a revised version was upheld by the Supreme Court. Joe Biden revoked the policy in 2021. Trump reinstated country-based travel restrictions in 2025, expanding it to include Chad and the Republic of the Congo.

Republicans spent much of the 2026 midterms warning about Muslim immigration. Yet no major GOP candidate made banning Muslim immigration a central campaign issue. No one ran on expanding the travel ban to more Muslim countries, increasing deportations, or attempting to restrict naturalization.

When it came to growing Muslim political power in major cities or mosque construction in Texas, the GOP had little to say. New York City, which suffered the largest terrorist attack in American history in the name of Islam, now has a foreign-born Muslim mayor. The Second Amendment did nothing.

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The right to bear arms is core to the American identity, and I fully support it. I would always prefer to have the option to defend myself, no matter the situation.

But the Second Amendment has become an excuse for political impotence among conservatives. The idea that one can always fall back on armed defense has become an excuse to avoid meaningful political action. Once Muslims vote their way into power, they will not let you vote them out, but conservatives can always tell themselves they have the right to bear arms as a last resort.

The cowardice of conservatives during the COVID lockdown regime should tell you that the guys with guns do nothing when tested. They close their churches, put on masks, and sit at home like loyal subjects. Or Europeans.

Many will say that rejecting immigrants based on their religion violates the First Amendment, and I could not care less. No one has an inherent right to become an American, and Americans have every right to reject immigration they believe threatens their way of life.

If the United States does not take action to defend itself against Muslim immigration now, then the Second Amendment will not protect us from our failures. Gun owners will sit at home as city after city, state after state, is conquered through demographics and the ballot box.

7 questions the right can’t dodge after the midterm rout



Ever endured a stomach bug so vicious you were certain nothing could possibly be left to vomit — only to feel the nausea return? That is what Republicans face after last week’s electoral gut-punch. They want relief. Instead, they have two more years of Donald Trump.

Conservatives are busy blaming tariffs, the Iran war, bad Senate candidates, feckless congressional leaders, and White House staff for the midterm collapse. Nearly everyone avoids the man who dominates the Republican Party and whose administration owns those decisions.

If we had a movement instead of a craven industry, we would be asking how to get the albatross off our neck.

Replacing the White House chief of staff or replacing Mike Johnson and John Thune will not change the face voters associate with the economy, the war, and corruption. A post-election Economist/YouGov poll found that 62% of registered voters disapproved of Trump’s job performance. My friends in conservative media may prefer to tiptoe around him. Voters will not. They know who signs the orders, makes the promises, starts the wars, and claims the credit. Somehow we have decided he should escape the blame.

Trump has effectively led the American right for 10 years. He controls its message, machinery, and public image. Even if he suddenly changed course, how would voters believe the change?

Since the election, he has bragged about his ballroom, defended the Iran war and tariffs, entertained claims of election fraud, and defended Nvidia’s Jensen Huang amid scrutiny over his adulterous relationship with a suspected Chinese spy. Every appearance reminds voters why they wanted to punish his party.

If this is the performance immediately after a historic defeat, why should anyone expect sobriety when the next crisis comes?

So I have seven questions for those on the right who think replacing a few aides, nominating the next man in line, or changing a policy or two will clear this wreckage.

1. How do we win younger voters while Trump insists that high stock prices and swelling 401(k)s prove the economy is wonderful? Young people struggling with rent and housing costs are not impressed by a Baby Boomer bragging about his portfolio. Nobody on the right can talk over Trump, much less persuade those voters that Republicans have heard them. The party cannot offer an affordability agenda while its leader treats a booming stock market as proof that families have nothing to complain about.

2. How do we loosen Trump's chokehold on candidate recruitment and the party apparatus? He will continue endorsing people based on personal loyalty rather than conservatism or electability. What mechanism allows a genuinely independent Republican movement to develop while he remains its center of gravity?

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3. What happens if the economy gets worse? The Iran war continues, and the housing and AI booms may not last. Another economic downturn could reproduce the electoral catastrophes Republicans suffered in 2006 and 2008. Democrats will control Congress, but Trump will still be the president. His party will own the consequences, whether the pundits think that fair or not. The blame will stick.

4. How can Republicans sell a fresh presidential nominee in 2028 when Trump will dominate the campaign until Election Day? Some colleagues want to clear the field for Vice President JD Vance, as if the best response to an unpopular administration is to nominate its second in command. Even the Bush-era GOP did not try to run Dick Cheney in 2008.

5. How do we win back the suburbs? Republicans cannot win 218 House seats without suburban districts, and the party's image there is toxic. It is not enough to say Democrats are worse. What could a Republican candidate offer suburban voters that they would actually hear over Trump's daily pronouncements?

6. What is the plan for recovering the Senate? Democrats have already flipped seven Republican-held seats, with two races still uncalled as of publication. That is an electoral map the GOP may struggle to reverse for years. Even a Republican presidential victory in 2028 could be crippled by a Democratic Senate blocking judicial nominees and Cabinet appointments. Simply waiting for the next red wave is not a strategy. Neither is assuming every blue seat will become competitive merely because Trump finally leaves office.

7. How do we survive the next two years legislatively? Democrats will investigate corruption and put Trump on defense. He is already floating an immigration compromise. What prevents him from trading away immigration enforcement, signing terrible spending bills, or making deals with Democrats while vetoing reforms conservatives actually want — on surveillance, stock trading by executive officials, or the data-center boom? Republicans could get the worst policy outcomes and still absorb the electoral punishment.

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We are losing by miles, not inches. The landscape is so bleak that if the 2027 off-year elections were held today — governorships in Kentucky, Louisiana, and Mississippi — Republicans would struggle to win those formerly solid red states.

This cannot be remedied by another reshuffling of Republican personnel or a few cosmetic changes in policy. Yet the same people who failed to anticipate the rout claim to have diagnosed it already. They have their preferred villains, their favored replacements, and their fundraising pitches. What they do not have is a believable path out of the hole.

I do not pretend to have all seven answers. I do know the one answer that will fail: asking voters to embrace the very image they just rejected.

If we had a real movement instead of a craven industry, we would be asking how to get the albatross off our neck. Instead, the people who refuse to confront Trump are preparing the next electoral convulsion — and another chance to govern flushed down the toilet.

The GOP’s old dogs had better learn some new tricks



The GOP just took an electoral butt-kicking. As we nurse our wounds, the first order of business is getting some very old dogs to learn new tricks — fast.

Start in my home state of Iowa, where Senator Chuck Grassley is 93. He has been in politics since 1959, when he entered the state legislature, and he was elected to Congress in 1974 — just a year after I was born. That’s quite a run. It needs to end.

Young voters swung hard toward Democrats, and independents broke decisively against us. Republicans cannot win the presidency on nostalgia for 2016 or wishful thinking.

Democrat Rob Sand just won Iowa’s governor's race. He takes office in January. If Grassley dies before his term expires in January 2029, Sand could appoint a Democrat senator until the seat is filled by election. That’s another vote against Trump's Supreme Court nominees and potentially another vote to convict him should the House impeach him.

Why gamble with that? Grassley could retire now and let Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds appoint his temporary replacement before Sand takes over. Grassley is gambling with a Senate seat and perhaps a Supreme Court seat. It’s not his gamble to make alone. He could leave as a statesman instead of hanging on like a crypt keeper in Mitch McConnell’s mold. I don’t think that is too much to ask of a man who has spent nearly seven decades in public life.

Which brings us to another old dog: Donald Trump, now 80. In the aftermath of the midterms, he said his deportation policy might have been “too tough.” Then he insisted there would be no amnesty and his policy hadn’t changed. That's a lot of gray area, and it should give anyone who remembers Trump's COVID-era zigzags a familiar sinking feeling.

Trump's political standing is no side issue. If he can’t restore confidence in the movement he still quarterbacks, states such as Iowa and Texas could repeat their Democratic victories, and whoever Republicans nominate in 2028 will inherit a mess.

Young voters swung hard toward Democrats, and independents broke decisively against us. Republicans cannot win the presidency on nostalgia for 2016 or wishful thinking about the next nominee. We need to win some of those voters back, and we had better start while Trump is still in office.

Trump’s appointment of Stephen Miller as White House chief of staff is a welcome sign that he understands the need to fight. Now let’s see policy instead of another press release. Voters aren’t interested in being told they’re winning while watching their own party get steamrolled.

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Immigration is where we’ll find out what Trump actually means. The movement didn’t spend years fighting for border enforcement just to hear, after a historic defeat, that the policy was suddenly too harsh. Nor can the White House call every hint of compromise a misunderstanding and expect the base to shrug it off.

On Sunday's “60 Minutes,” Trump said his deportation policy “might be too tough.” He talked about longtime workers in landscaping and hotels being removed from the country, describing their deportation as “a tough thing.” When Ross Douthat raised the possibility of legal status for such workers, Trump entertained the idea of a deal. By Monday, Trump was saying no amnesty. So which Trump are we supposed to believe?

I see three possibilities, and each tells us something different about what comes next.

First, Trump really wants some kind of amnesty deal. That could split the Republican base wide open. Immigration has been a defining issue for Trump's voters, especially the younger men the GOP spent the last decade trying to bring aboard. A betrayal on this issue could create room for a Ross Perot-style insurgency in 2028, with the Republican nominee stuck paying the bill.

Second, this could be a trap for Democrats. With Miller running point, Trump might be offering a compromise he expects the other party to reject. After Democrats beat Republicans nearly two to one among independents in one post-election survey, forcing them to explain why they can't accept a deal might be politically useful. If the Democrats revert to their usual radical form, Trump gets to say he tried and they refused. Maybe. But that's a dangerous game when your own side doesn't know the rules.

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Third, Trump may be looking for insurance against impeachment. Democrats have won the House, and the final Senate picture still depends on races including Alaska. Conviction requires two-thirds of senators present. I can imagine three or four Republicans voting to remove Trump, with others tempted if they thought the political coast was clear. It’s possible he’s signaling flexibility on immigration to keep some of those amnesty pimps and low-T Republicans from joining a removal effort.

I don’t claim to know which explanation is right. That’s the problem. Our voters shouldn't have to decipher a president’s immigration policy like a coded message, especially after an election that went this badly. Leaders have to say what they intend to do and then do it. Otherwise, every new interview becomes another round of Kremlinology for people who already feel betrayed.

We know a tree by its fruit. Trump has reinvented himself under pressure that would leave most men curled up in the fetal position. Perhaps he can do it again. Grassley has one last chance to choose his legacy, too.

But after a beating like November 3, the old dogs don’t get to demand unlimited patience. Learn the new tricks, gentlemen — or get out of the way.

The most dangerous evil can look remarkably like good



In my previous column, I asked why God permits the wicked to win elections. A reader responded: “Why do you ask this when James Talarico wins, but not when Trump wins?” He then listed what he considers Trump’s personal moral failings. The objection shifted the focus from policy to personality.

The question became sharper when Ross Douthat asked President Trump whether he could forgive his enemies. Trump answered, “I probably cannot do that, no, because I do hate some of my enemies and I always will.” His remarks at Charlie Kirk’s memorial service had suggested as much. A Christian cannot simply dismiss that answer. But does it settle the question of how Christians should judge political leaders?

Some evils are worse than others. Beware.

You may remember when JD Vance stirred up the left by talking about the order of love. Love moves outward in concentric circles. We do not love everyone in the same way. We love our families and neighbors differently from complete strangers on the other side of the world.

In a related way, there is an order of evil. Every sin deserves the wrath of God, both in this life and the next. Yet not all sins are equally grave. The Westminster Shorter Catechism, Question 83, says, “Some sins in themselves, and by reason of several aggravations, are more heinous in the sight of God than others.”

What makes some sins more heinous? The Westminster Larger Catechism identifies aggravating circumstances: the position of the person committing the sin, the person against whom it is committed, and the harm it causes. It specifically identifies offenses against Christ and his grace, as well as sins committed by those who guide others. A false teacher who leads thousands away from Christ commits an offense with consequences far beyond his private life.

Think of Christianity and the culture it produces as a building. Some beliefs are more foundational than others. Striking at those foundations threatens the entire structure and everyone who relies on it.

Love is directed toward the good. When you tell someone “I love you,” you want what is good for that person. But if you do not know what is good, you cannot love another correctly. You may have good intentions and still lead someone away from what is truly good. Good intentions, as the saying goes, pave the road to hell.

If the order of love begins with what is most central to our lives, the order of evil begins by attacking what is most central. The Shorter Catechism opens with the question, “What is the chief end of man?” Its answer is that man’s chief end is to glorify God and enjoy him forever. It begins there because everything else depends on knowing the highest good.

Augustine made a related point about evil. Evil has no independent substance; it is the absence or corruption of good. A counterfeit seeks to resemble the real thing while lacking its true value. Evil often works the same way. Its appeal comes from the good it imitates. That is what makes the counterfeit so dangerous: Evil need not announce itself as evil.

RELATED: Why does God allow the wicked to win elections?

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Sometimes evil appears openly, in direct attacks on Christ or the Bible. Those attacks harm people at different stages of faith and can have consequences beyond the church.

More often, evil twists something good into a counterfeit. The imitation may still look attractive, but something essential has changed. Politicians can operate this way. They appeal to marriage, family, love of neighbor, education, and fairness, while detaching those goods from the highest good and making them serve changing human desires. A promise of fairness means little until we know whose claims will be honored, whose will be denied, and by what principle. The appealing word alone settles nothing.

To recognize the order of evil, we must be able to judge between good and evil. Our culture often treats Jesus’ words in Matthew 7:1 as a prohibition against making moral judgments at all. Yet later in the same chapter, Jesus warns: “Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves” (Matthew 7:15). We must distinguish the true prophet from the false one.

How does this apply to politics? We must ask whether a politician understands what is good for a country, whether his promises serve that good, and whether he is offering a convincing counterfeit. That requires recognizing the assumptions behind political claims, distinguishing things that appear alike, and judging the wisest means of achieving good ends.

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For example, on the Texas House floor in 2021, James Talarico declared that “God is nonbinary.” In a May CBS News interview, he called that remark “intentionally provocative” and referred to some past statements as “cringey comments.” But he maintained that “God can’t be defined by human categories,” invoking Galatians 3:28: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”

Yet God tells us to use human language when he calls himself “Father.” Talarico quotes the Bible to undermine what the Bible says about God and about us. He also cites Scripture to defend government policy — something the left often says the right should not do.

Nor does the Bible excuse a ruler’s personal sins. Trump’s refusal to forgive his enemies deserves moral scrutiny. But examining personal conduct does not relieve us of the duty to examine the principles a politician advocates and the consequences of putting those principles into practice. We must judge both.

Jesus’ warning about wolves in sheep’s clothing is especially serious when those claiming religious authority lead others into error. James 3:1 warns that teachers face stricter judgment. The more influence a teacher has, the greater the harm when he uses that influence to undermine the gospel. A false teaching about Christianity’s foundations is not simply another private indiscretion.

Some evils are worse than others. Beware.

Veterans get one day of thanks — and VA red tape year-round



My father served as a colonel in the Army and later as chief counsel for the California Department of Veterans Affairs. Yet his own post-traumatic stress disorder went undiagnosed for years.

His VA benefits became a vital source of help for him, my mother, and my two siblings with disabilities. I’ve seen firsthand what those benefits mean to a family — and what years of uncertainty can cost.

Veterans should not have to depend on extraordinary persistence to receive ordinary benefits.

Two of my brothers are serving in the military. I have also spent my career in foreign affairs, where service members play an essential role in American policy. The sacrifices of military families are not abstractions to me.

Every November 11, Americans honor the roughly 17 million veterans who have served in uniform. Veterans Day is an occasion for gratitude. It should also make us ask a question: Are we giving veterans the help they have earned?

Too often, the answer is no.

The VA has made real progress against its disability claims backlog. The number of overdue claims fell below 70,000 in July. But the backlog subsequently climbed again: By October 31, 79,004 claims for disability compensation and pension benefits had been pending more than 125 days.

That is the VA’s definition of a backlogged claim. It does not mean the paperwork has gone unreviewed. It means the claim remains unresolved more than four months after filing. For a veteran waiting on compensation, the distinction offers little comfort.

Many veterans turn to veterans’ service organizations for help. Disabled American Veterans, the American Legion, and Paralyzed Veterans of America are among the organizations whose VA-accredited representatives help veterans gather evidence, file claims, and challenge adverse decisions. All free of charge.

Their work is often invaluable. But even the most dedicated advocate must work within a system the advocate does not control. Veterans should not have to depend on extraordinary persistence to receive ordinary benefits.

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A disability claim may require medical records, evidence connecting an injury or illness to military service, and an appeal if the VA denies benefits. An accredited representative can help veterans through that process. For someone already coping with illness or financial strain, having a qualified advocate can make an enormous difference.

Change requires leadership from Congress and VA Secretary Doug Collins. Congress should protect access to accredited outside advocates and streamline accreditation for qualified representatives. The VA should reduce needless paperwork and work more closely with the organizations veterans already trust.

Congress must also hold the VA accountable for results. The department already publishes claims-processing data. Lawmakers should use it to set measurable goals, identify bottlenecks, and demand answers when claims linger. Members of Congress who have worn the uniform ought to lead that effort.

RELATED: The VFW should be fighting for veterans, not gender ideology

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The test should be more than a favorable headline about a shrinking backlog. Congress should examine how long veterans wait, whether claims are decided correctly, and whether delays are growing again. A falling national total offers little consolation to someone whose own claim remains stuck.

None of this diminishes the importance of Veterans Day ceremonies, parades, or expressions of thanks. I welcome them. But honoring service means more than applauding it. Veterans deserve timely decisions on the benefits they earned, and families should not be left wondering when help will come.

My father's experience taught me what can happen when a service-related condition goes unrecognized for years. The VA's benefits can be lifesaving. Accessing them should not become another ordeal.

On November 12, the parades will be over. The claims — and the veterans waiting on them — will remain. Let’s do better.

The GOP’s worst defeat may be its best chance to move on



The 2026 midterms did more than punish Republicans. They rearranged the political fortunes of presidential hopefuls in both parties — and created some unexpected winners and losers, some with consequences for 2028.

Some changes were obvious on election night. Others became apparent only as the shock waves spread.

The sting is sharp, but the Band-Aid is off.

Losers

Start with Republicans. They entered November 3 holding the White House and both chambers of Congress, only to suffer a defeat that will shape their next two years and perhaps much longer.

The biggest loser, undoubtedly, was President Donald Trump. Midterms are almost invariably referendums on the president, with his party in Congress receiving the verdict. A Republican setback was expected. Its scale was not. The defeat will hamper Trump’s final two years in office, and its consequences for his political legacy may last much longer.

The Republican Party is the second-biggest loser. What a wave took may take another wave to return. Some Republicans who deserved to lose did. Plenty who did not deserve to lose went down with them. Democrats have a chance to turn this year’s gains into an enduring congressional advantage.

Republicans’ third-biggest loser is Vice President JD Vance. Before November, he seemed to have the inside track to Trump’s endorsement and, with it, the 2028 Republican nomination. Now he is tied to a crushing Republican defeat. He left a safe Ohio Senate seat to join Trump’s ticket; on November 3, Democrat Sherrod Brown won that seat from Republican Jon Husted. Instead of launching a presidential campaign from the Senate, Vance faces two years in an administration under siege.

RELATED: Why does God allow the wicked to win elections?

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Democrats have losers too, though they may be harder to spot amid the party’s happiness hysteria.

At the top of that list is Kamala Harris. She spent much of 2025 on the sidelines and was scarcely more prominent in the midterm campaign. Democrats have now demonstrated that they can win big without her. In fact, they did considerably better without Harris in 2026 than they did with her at the top of the ticket in 2024.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom is another Democrat loser. His national profile no longer looks quite so indispensable when Democrats are winning in places far removed from California and its political baggage. His endorsement did not save Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass (D) from defeat. And his decision to commute the death sentences of all 548 people on California’s death row — a move requiring state Supreme Court approval in many cases — gives future opponents an obvious target. Newsom may find that his California record travels less well than he expects.

The third-biggest Democrat loser may be the Democratic Party itself. Impossible? Consider the democratic socialists, now more deeply entrenched in the party and more numerous in Congress. The more elections they win under that banner, the harder it becomes for party leaders to keep them from defining the national Democratic agenda.

Winners

The biggest winners, appropriately enough, are Democrats. They won up and down the ballot and across the country. Candidates captured offices they might never have imagined winning. Some will hold those offices for years, perhaps multiple terms, as incumbency gives them opportunities that were out of reach before November 3.

Second are the democratic socialists. They have penetrated the Democratic Party to an unprecedented degree. Their ranks in the House will more than double when the new Congress convenes. Democratic socialists already lead New York and Seattle; last week, candidates from the movement won mayoral elections in Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. The country’s two largest cities will soon have democratic socialist mayors.

Even in defeat, they made a showing: Angie Nixon lost Florida’s Senate race to Republican Ashley Moody by fewer than three percentage points.

Such results will make it harder for Democrat leaders to argue that socialist candidates cannot win. And the movement is unlikely to stop recruiting candidates while the victories keep coming.

The third-biggest Democrat winners are the party’s prospective 2028 presidential contenders — anyone not named Harris. They have just been handed a national victory to claim and a new political landscape in which to compete.

RELATED: The day after tomorrow: A new GOP

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Believe it or not, Republicans had winners too.

First are their prospective 2028 presidential contenders not named Vance. The Republican nomination looks more open than it did before the election, and more candidates are likely to enter. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Secretary of State Marco Rubio may find their positions strengthened as Republicans look for a way forward.

Next comes Florida. It held firm against the blue wave while Texas drowned. Both states have robust economies and deep Republican benches, but Florida now stands out as the party’s strongest large-state showcase. Byron Donalds’ victory in the governor’s race gives the GOP another rising figure to watch — and another reason for national Republicans to look south.

Finally, the Republican Party of 2028 may be a beneficiary of the very defeat it has just suffered. Win or lose, the party eventually had to move beyond Trump. A narrow midterm outcome would have made that reckoning easier to postpone. A rout did not. The sting is sharp, but the Band-Aid is off.

No amnesty. We’ve seen this movie before.



President Trump gave supporters of immigration enforcement a jolt Sunday night. In an interview with CBS News’ “60 Minutes,” he called his administration’s deportation policy “too tough” and entertained a deal with Democrats that could allow some people here illegally to stay. The president who promised mass deportations has put legal status back on the table.

Trump spoke sympathetically of hotel and landscaping workers who have lived here for 10 or 15 years. He offered no plan or eligibility rules. On Monday, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said amnesty was out of the question. Good. But after the president’s remarks, a warning is in order: We have seen this “bargain” before. It failed.

Migrants are plainly paying attention to Washington’s political signals. Congress should pay attention to the signals it sends.

In 1986, Congress passed the Immigration Reform and Control Act, legalizing roughly 2.7 million illegal aliens. The law also established penalties for employers who knowingly hired unauthorized workers and a process for verifying employment eligibility. Americans were told that legalization and enforcement would work together to bring illegal immigration under control.

They didn’t. The legalization happened, but lasting enforcement did not. The estimated population living in the United States illegally fell to around 1.9 million in 1988, then grew to around 12.4 million by 2007. Economic conditions and other policies contributed to that increase; the numbers do not prove that amnesty alone caused it. They do prove that the promised solution did not solve the problem.

The law’s enforcement provisions proved terribly inadequate. The Government Accountability Office later found weaknesses in employment verification and worksite enforcement that left employers too much room to hire illegal labor. Washington had provided legal status to millions without building an effective system to prevent the next wave.

California offers a lesson in the political afterlife of legalization. Los Angeles limited police immigration inquiries in 1979, and San Francisco declared itself a refuge in 1985. But the 1986 amnesty created a new legal immigrant constituency. Researchers have found increased Hispanic voter turnout and officeholding in communities affected by legalization. Then the fight over California’s 1994 Proposition 187 helped mobilize an immigrant-rights movement whose political influence eventually contributed to the state’s 2017 sanctuary law.

Legalization is not the sole cause of California’s politics. It is part of the history that shaped them.

Now we are apparently invited to make the same deal, only this time with the assurance that the people who have been here long enough, worked hard enough, or paid enough taxes should be allowed to remain. How long is long enough? Ten years? Fifteen? And what would prevent a future Congress from moving the cutoff date again?

RELATED: Stephen Miller has the keys. Now what about the deportations?

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Amnesty creates an expectation worth examining before Washington acts: If someone can enter or remain illegally and eventually receive legal status, others may calculate that patience will pay. That incentive cannot be measured by a single migration statistic, but dismissing it would be foolish. The message a law sends beyond our borders is part of the law’s effect.

This is more than a theoretical incentive. CNN reported on Saturday that caravans from Honduras and El Salvador were headed toward the United States, with some travelers hoping the newly elected Democratic Congress would ease their passage. Telemundo reported Monday that hundreds were moving through southern Mexico and that some expected the election to change border policy. It has not. Their hopes may prove groundless. But migrants are plainly paying attention to Washington’s political signals. Congress should pay attention to the signals it sends.

There is a cost to American workers, too. Employers who evade immigration and employment rules gain an advantage over businesses that obey them. Workers in construction, agriculture, hospitality, and service jobs deserve a labor market in which the law is enforced consistently. Legalizing people already employed does not, by itself, add new workers to the labor force. The greater concern is an arrangement that rewards the existing violation while leaving the incentive for the next one intact.

The 1986 experience also warns against treating eligibility verification as a formality. A Justice Department inspector general later described the Immigration and Naturalization Service’s belief that fraud had been widespread in the law’s special agricultural worker program. Any new legalization would require a credible system for verifying identity, residence, and eligibility. Why should anyone trust Washington to deliver one after the fact?

RELATED: Republicans need to be honest about why we lost

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There is nothing wrong with Congress discussing immigration law. There is everything wrong with making lawful status the opening bid while reliable enforcement remains aspirational. A durable policy would make employers answer for illegal hiring, verify work eligibility, maintain border security, and enforce removal orders under the law. It would not tell the next generation of illegal entrants that the political calendar eventually wipes the slate clean.

The president has fought battles over border security that previous administrations preferred to avoid. He should not squander that record because last week’s elections went badly for Republicans. A defeat at the polls is no reason to abandon a principle at the negotiating table. Nor should a softer public-relations message be confused with a solution to the failures that have persisted since 1986.

Markwayne Mullin and Stephen Miller are right to draw a hard line against amnesty. Trump should draw the same line, publicly and without qualification. The country has already paid for one grand compromise that delivered legalization and promised lasting enforcement. There is no reason to buy another ticket to the same movie. No amnesty.

When ‘medical aid in dying’ stops looking like a choice



“Do you know that you’re going to die on Friday?” Brigitte Kranendonk asked her grandmother.

The 83-year-old woman began to cry. “I’ve made a mistake,” Brigitte Stegemann told her granddaughter, according to Kranendonk. She wept for nearly an hour.

This is not compassion if the person about to die cannot make herself understood. It is the machinery of death moving past the one vulnerable human being whose wishes should govern it.

Two days later, on July 10, Stegemann was dead. A physician had administered a lethal injection under Canada’s medical assistance in dying program. The question her family wants answered is as elementary as it is horrifying: Did she understand what was being done to her, and did she freely consent?

The details come from Kranendonk’s account of her grandmother’s final days. They demand serious scrutiny, not a soothing recital of the word “choice.”

Stegemann was a devout Christian with stage 4 stomach cancer. She had lived for about 18 months at a long-term care home in Cannifton, Ontario. She was hard of hearing, German was her first language, and her family says her understanding and memory were impaired. Kranendonk had helped care for her for 12 years and held her power of attorney for six.

According to her family, Stegemann had previously rejected an assisted death because it violated her faith. Yet while Kranendonk was away on a 10-day trip, staff arranged a MAID assessment. The granddaughter says she was told about the process only after it was under way. She had received routine updates about a fall and her grandmother’s need for a wheelchair, but nothing suggesting that death was now imminent.

When Kranendonk returned, she said, her grandmother was still eating, talking, and joking. At a subsequent eligibility assessment, Kranendonk says, the physician spoke of “medicine” and feeling “at peace,” without plainly explaining that the procedure would end Stegemann’s life.

“She doesn’t understand what you’re saying,” Kranendonk protested.

During questioning about her family, Stegemann gave answers her granddaughter knew were wrong. She said she had no living siblings, though two survived. Kranendonk was then asked to leave. Shortly afterward, she says, the physician announced that Stegemann had been deemed eligible for MAID.

On Wednesday, July 8, Kranendonk asked to see the paperwork authorizing her grandmother’s death. She was told Stegemann had signed it the previous day. Kranendonk says she has never seen the documents and does not know who witnessed the signature or how the request was explained. That was when she asked her grandmother whether she knew she would die Friday.

“I’ve made a mistake.”

RELATED: Canada kills 83-year-old Christian grandmother without consent, family claims — outrage ensues

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Kranendonk told her she could refuse. The following day, they ate ice cream, shared memories, and danced to a traditional German polka. “We had the best day,” the granddaughter recalled. Such ordinary tenderness makes what followed almost unbearable to read.

On Friday morning, according to Kranendonk, a nurse struggled repeatedly to insert an intravenous line, leaving her grandmother bleeding. When the doctor arrived, she asked whether it was all right to give Stegemann “medicine.”

“My Oma is not moving. She doesn’t open her eyes. She doesn’t nod. She doesn’t say anything,” Kranendonk recalled. The doctor, she says, responded: “OK, well, I’m going to proceed.”

Stegemann was pronounced dead within minutes, her hands clasped in prayer.

The care home and practitioners have not publicly answered these allegations in detail. They reportedly maintain that Stegemann legally consented. No wrongdoing has been established. But Belleville police confirmed in September that the death was under investigation, and the family has sought a review by Ontario’s chief coroner.

Canadian law requires a voluntary, informed request and independent assessments. Ordinarily, it also requires express consent immediately before death. A narrow exception permits a written waiver of final consent when specific conditions are met. Even that waiver cannot overcome a patient’s demonstrated refusal or resistance.

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The unresolved questions are therefore specific and grave. What did Stegemann sign, and when? Could she understand its meaning? Was there a valid waiver? Did she withdraw consent or express resistance? The documents and findings must answer them. Her granddaughter’s account cannot by itself establish a crime. It is more than enough to demand an investigation.

Defenders of euthanasia invoke “autonomy.” But autonomy requires comprehension, freedom from pressure, and a choice that belongs to the patient. It cannot be supplied by a doctor’s euphemism, a form no family member has seen, or silence interpreted as permission.

This is not compassion if the person about to die cannot make herself understood. It is the machinery of death moving past the one vulnerable human being whose wishes should govern it.

The burden belongs to those who ended Brigitte Stegemann’s life: Show that she understood. Show that she chose. Until then, do not ask her family to call it mercy.

Patients lose when politicians play pharmacist



Imagine learning that the pharmacy filling your prescriptions must change owners — or close — not because it failed patients, but because lawmakers object to its corporate parent. That is a risk Arkansas and Tennessee are taking with their restrictions on pharmacies affiliated with pharmacy benefit managers.

Pharmacy benefit managers negotiate drug discounts, administer prescription benefits, and manage pharmacy networks for insurers and employers. Some belong to companies that also own insurers, mail-order pharmacies, and retail drugstores. These arrangements can reduce administrative costs and coordinate care. They can also concentrate market power.

If regulation forces those systems apart, patients could lose key benefits, and lawmakers will be guilty of getting in a patient’s way, rather than out of it.

As an economist, I question the wisdom of addressing that problem by forcing a particular business structure out of the market. Patients, not competing corporate interests, should determine whether a reform succeeds.

Arkansas enacted Act 624 in 2025 to bar PBMs from holding pharmacy permits. A federal judge blocked its enforcement before the law took effect, and the state appealed. Tennessee's FAIR Rx Act, scheduled to take effect July 1, 2028, generally prohibits a corporate group from holding more than a 5% interest in a pharmacy while also controlling both a PBM and a health insurer. Companies that cannot comply may have to sell pharmacy operations.

The states' concerns are legitimate. A PBM that determines which pharmacies enter a network and how much they are reimbursed has an obvious incentive to favor its own affiliates.

Yet an ownership ban is an unusually blunt remedy. It targets the corporate structure even when lawmakers have not established that breaking it apart will lower costs or preserve access. Integrating pharmacy operations with a PBM can offer logistical advantages, specialized clinical support, and simpler coordination for patients with complicated prescriptions. Those efficiencies are possible, not guaranteed; consolidation can also conceal costs and disadvantage rivals.

The immediate question is what happens to patients during a forced separation. CVS has warned that Tennessee's law could require it to sell or close 136 pharmacies and stop some mail-order services. That is the company's claim, not a prediction that all those stores will close. But legislators ought to be able to answer a basic question before imposing divestiture: Who will fill the prescriptions if the existing providers leave?

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Access is already precarious for many Americans. A 2025 study cited by the Goldwater Institute estimated that 57.1 million people live in pharmacy deserts; another 28.9 million depend on a single pharmacy whose disappearance could leave them with few nearby choices. Those figures do not prove that PBM ownership bans will cause closures. They show how much damage even an avoidable disruption can do.

Independent drugstores are indispensable in many communities. Their complaints about reimbursement and patient steering should not be brushed aside. But a small pharmacy's difficulty matching a national company's delivery network or specialty services is not, by itself, evidence that the larger model should be prohibited. Competition should reward pharmacies that serve patients well, whatever their ownership.

There are other tools available. Lawmakers can demand transparent reimbursement arrangements, meaningful audits, safeguards against steering patients to affiliated pharmacies, and enforcement against deceptive pricing practices. Congress has already enacted PBM reforms for Medicare Part D, with important provisions scheduled to begin in 2028. Those rules deserve a chance to work before legislators assume sweeping divestiture is the answer.

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If regulation forces those systems apart, patients could lose key benefits, and lawmakers will be guilty of getting in a patient’s way, rather than out of it. Regulators have a painful history of blocking transformative business practices and have often picked sides that obstructed innovators, encouraged by incumbents whose market share is under threat.

Lawmakers in Arkansas and Tennessee are interfering with business models that may genuinely benefit patients. They have decided that sacrificing vertical integration and efficiencies in a capital-intensive industry by separating PBMs from pharmacies will better serve patients. History tells us bureaucracy and good intentions are poor ingredients when redesigning complex markets and supply chains.

They should focus on protecting Americans rather than deciding which business models deserve to win in the marketplace.