Vice President JD Vance is cutting through the noise and reminding Republicans not to overreact to the Democrats' latest winning streak in local and state elections.
To onlookers, it might seem like Democrats have regained their footing. New York City elected its first openly socialist mayor, California is poised to redistrict the state in a manner that gives Democrats an even greater electoral advantage, and fantasizing about murdering political opponents no longer disqualifies a person from holding the highest law enforcement office in Virginia. In short, Democrats won every election they were hoping to win on November 4.
'The infighting is so stupid.'
In the wake of these electoral losses, Vance gave Republican voters a reality check.
"I think it's idiotic to overreact to a couple of elections in blue states, but a few thoughts," Vance said in a Wednesday post on X.
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Vance noted that one of Republicans' challenges is voter enthusiasm. Voter turnout has historically been difficult for local elections, even more so among Republicans. Because of this, Vance emphasized the importance of energizing the base and engaging voters in future elections.
"[Scott] Pressler, TPUSA, and a bunch of others have been working hard to register voters," Vance said. "I said it in 2022, and I've said it repeatedly since: our coalition is 'low propensity' and that means we have to do better at turning out voters than we have in the past."
Affordability was at the forefront of all successful campaigns this cycle. As Vance noted, cost of living will be a defining issue for all future elections, and it's one Republicans need to stay focused on both on the campaign trail and in office.
"We need to focus on the home front," Vance said. "The president has done a lot that has already paid off in lower interest rates and lower inflation, but we inherited a disaster from Joe Biden and Rome wasn't built in a day."
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"We're going to keep on working to make a decent life affordable in this country, and that's the metric by which we'll ultimately be judged in 2026 and beyond."
Above all, Vance encouraged the MAGA movement to tune out distracting "infighting" and focus on the movement.
"The infighting is so stupid," Vance said. "I care about my fellow citizens — particularly young Americans — being able to afford a decent life, I care about immigration and sovereignty, and I care about establishing peace overseas so our resources can be focused at home."
"If you care about those things too, let's work together."
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Since last November, I’ve warned Republican voters not to believe the happy talk coming from friendly media. Nothing suggests the Democratic Party is collapsing — or that Donald Trump has “killed wokeness,” as Eric Trump claimed recently. The fight against the woke left and its Democratic Party embodiment continues, and the results remain mixed.
Trump has made real progress in removing DEI programs from the federal government and institutions that take federal funds. Yet schools, corporations, and other major organizations continue to find new ways to keep the ideology alive.
The Democratic Party is not collapsing. Its radicals are thriving. Black voters are not abandoning it. Conservatives need to stop pretending otherwise.
In blue and purple states, even the most extreme woke policies — like letting biological males compete in women’s sports or enter girls’ locker rooms — barely move voters. More than half the electorate in places like Virginia, New York, Illinois, California, and Oregon appear comfortable with positions that conservatives describe as “80-20 moral issues.” The electoral evidence for such optimism doesn’t exist.
Polls show Democrats holding barely a 30% approval rating — but Republicans don’t fare much better. A recent Gallup survey found the GOP only three points higher in popularity, while Democrats lead by 20 points on “acceptable philosophical positions.”
Democrats also hold a massive financial advantage and dominate the institutions that shape culture and opinion: public-sector unions, schools, universities, corporate media, and Hollywood. Their radical wing isn’t dragging them down; it’s defining them. Just ask Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Zohran Mamdani, or the other progressive Democrats who keep winning elections.
As Ben Domenech recently noted, Democrats’ “bloodthirsty rage” keeps them united — even behind candidates like Jay Jones, the Virginia attorney general hopeful who once texted that he wanted to shoot a Republican lawmaker in the head and hoped the man’s children would die. Strategically, the Democrats may be right to stand by him. On the eve of Election Day, Jones was running neck-and-neck with incumbent Republican Jason Miyares, a capable and articulate attorney general trying to survive in an increasingly blue state.
Jones, who is black, will likely dominate the black vote — a reality Republicans must face. Black voters have come to view hostility toward the mostly white GOP as an expression of group identity. The small gains Trump made with black voters in 2020 haven’t changed that dynamic in a meaningful way.
Republicans should stop pretending they can transform black voting habits and instead focus on persuadable groups: white Christian men, Orthodox Jews, and Hispanics. Some subgroups, such as African immigrants and West Indian evangelicals, remain open to outreach — but the broader trend is clear.
The left’s cultural dominance was driven home for me recently when I learned that local elementary school students came home singing about “Daddy’s new boyfriend.” Teachers in our district overwhelmingly belong to the hard-left American Federation of Teachers and have no hesitation promoting its ideology. Even when warned against it, they keep injecting political dogma into the classroom.
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Our borough’s school board still has a Christian majority, but it faces relentless pressure from activist feminists determined to take control of local education. The county newspaper, once a reliable conservative voice, now reads like an MSNBC transcript. And for the first time, our state representative is a progressive Democrat.
These are not isolated anecdotes. I live in a community that once voted Republican by habit — a borough in Pennsylvania’s traditionally red 11th Congressional District. Yet the signs of political drift are unmistakable. The left controls the institutions that shape belief, and that control gives it momentum. As a result, this place is turning purple.
Conservatives need to stop pretending otherwise. We are the weaker side in a long struggle against a relentless opponent. The Democratic Party is not collapsing. Its radicals are thriving. Black voters are not abandoning it. And wokeness, far from being “dead,” continues to define American life — from boardrooms to classrooms to city hall.
The first step toward winning any war is admitting you’re losing one.
Republican Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky fired back after Vice President JD Vance criticized the lawmaker for constantly bucking their party.
Vance spoke at the University of Mississippi Wednesday night to continue the Turning Point USA's college campus tour following Charlie Kirk's assassination. In remembrance of Kirk, Vance opened the floor to thousands of students to ask questions.
'You're eventually going to make too many enemies.'
One attendee asked Vance why President Donald Trump went after Massie, raising concerns that this conflict would discourage independent thinking within the Republican Party.
"This one is hard for me," Vance said. "And the reason it's hard for me is because Thomas Massie and I — he's one of the first people that ever reached out to me about my book or about political office. I've known Thomas Massie well before I ever got involved in politics."
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"I think the problem with Thomas — and I've told him this in private, and now I guess I'll say it again in public — is it's one thing to disagree with the party on a particular issue," Vance added. "It's one thing to have your independent stand on a number of questions — and by the way, some of this stuff where Thomas Massie has been independent from the Republican Party, I've agreed with."
Vance went on to argue that despite their friendship, Massie's ideological stubbornness, no matter how principled, has cost him the president's support.
"Being independent, having your own opinions is one thing," Vance said. "Voting against the party on every single issue, you're eventually going to make too many enemies. And that is the problem that Thomas has had. It's not one issue. It's not three or four issues. It's that every time that we've needed Thomas for a vote, he has been completely unwilling to provide it."
"Politics is politics," Vance added. "And when you always vote against the party, you can't expect the party to actually back it."
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Massie argued that if the party demands total compliance on every vote and leaves no room for debate, it risks alienating many voters who may not check every policy box on the party platform. Massie also did not shy away from calling out the party's policies he objected to, saying he "won't be their yes man."
"The lady at TPUSA last night addressed an issue many young Republicans have with our party today," Massie said of the attendee who approached Vance. "90% of my votes align with the Republican platform, yet there seems to be no room for dissent or debate. Our tent shrinks if party leaders demand 100% compliance."
"When leaders of my own party protect sex traffickers, spend our grandkids into oblivion, fund endless wars, lockdown our citizens, bailout corporations, bow to other countries, and hurt small farmers ... it’s true that I won’t be their yes man," Massie said in a post on X.
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We have created a demoralized right, perpetually apologizing for existing while the left advances unimpeded.
Conservatives' views on marriage, transgenderism, abortion, race, and more are based on reason, science, economics, and the Bible — not hate.
The right of 2025 is significantly different from the right of previous generations — and Charlie Kirk deserves a lot of credit.
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