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Posting a longer cut of Ron DeSantis dropping some truth bombs about the state of the Republican Party after last night's blue tsunami. Hard to argue with any of this to be honest.
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Q: “Should republicans look to you as some kind of savior going forward?”
A: “There’s no saviors in politics. Elected officials are supposed to be servants.”
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On prices, it’s not just that Trump failed to deliver on his 2024 promise to bring them down, he pursued policies (tariffs, Iran war) that served to increase them across the board.
This was the equivalent of, say, pledging to close down the border and then doing multiple things to make the border more porous.
Then, he either denied his policies were having this effect, promised miraculous relief at some point TBD, or said he didn’t care. And this was the issue that has the most direct impact on people’s everyday lives.
So, the scale of the rebuke is stunning, but that there was a rebuke is not surprising—it’d be hard to do more to elicit just such reaction.
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Already I see that the totally wrong lessons from yesterday’s wipeout are being mis-learned, beginning with JD Fucking Vance.
I hope that many of you begin to think of today as your own personal Liberation Day from all things MAGA. It is dead as a political movement. Stop feeding these idiots oxygen, as the rest of the country has in the most unambiguous and unequivocal way possible.
We need to get back to political first principles and their corollaries, including economic and personal freedom, a peace through strength approach to foreign policy, restoring respect and support for our allies around the world, returning to clear-headedness about our enemies and the existence of real evil in the world, fiscal responsibility, restoring a sane approach to immigration that does not treat every single foreigner as an enemy, terrorist, or gangbanger, return to respect for the Constitution and the rule of law, no tolerance for political corruption or the abuse of political power, and so on.
Return to a principled, dare I say Aristotelian approach to politics and government, not our current Hobbesian nightmare courtesy of both MAGA and DSA types. Let’s find people of intelligence and good character again instead of the very worst people that we can find.
We can do this. It’s a choice.
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Always convincing when a politician cites anonymous pollsters who confirm everything he believes and wants to run for president on.
One of the things the data analysts on our side obsessed over was "composition"—whether the electorate looked close enough to 2024 for Republicans to win. And despite polls that showed a Democrat blowout, the data kept on telling us the same story: in some states turnout was merely OK, in other states it was downright amazing, and in no state was it catastrophic. There was a genuine sense of optimism on our team: our people were showing up.
So, I asked the smartest data guy I know, does that mean we're going to shock the world? "No," he told me. "We might do better than the polls suggest. But the data is telling us that a lot of Trump/Vance 2024 voters are pissed and planning to vote for the other guys. Our voters are turning out, but they may not vote for us."
Well, that looks prophetic now. Our voters did show up. In Florida, for example, the electorate was 9 points more Republican than Democrat, just a couple points worse than 2024. Undoubtedly there were places we could have done better on turnout. But the main problem is not turnout. The main problem is that many people who voted for Trump/Vance in 2024 voted for Democrats in 2026.
There will be a lot of infighting and arguing over what happened and why that is. One of the pollsters I really respect told me that our economic messaging wasn’t sharp enough down the stretch. I’m sure that’s true.
But the real reason we lost is obvious to almost everyone.
Another pollster—one of the smartest people I know in politics, told me yesterday we’d lose the generic ballot by 13 points. I felt negative going into Tuesday, but even I was shocked by this. In his polling, he saw that a lot of Trump 2024 voters were angry and planning to vote for Democrats. He asked those voters who had abandoned us what would cause them to come back on our team. The top four answers, accounting for nearly all of the responses were:
1) End the war
2) Focus on cost of living/inflation
3) Put America First
4) Change our relationship to Israel
Our voters showed up. And the above four reasons are why many of them voted for Democrats. This is according to a pollster who nailed the results. While many spent Monday attacking Rachel Campos Duffy for calling for a diplomatic resolution to the conflict, it turns out her political advice was sound. (She’s also a great person.)
In the next few months, there's going to be a lot of gaslighting. Expect to hear any number of establishment politicians say the solution to our woes is amnesty. I'm open to the idea that we should change enforcement—by focusing more on businesses that hire illegal labor, for instance. But anyone pushing amnesty is lying to you.
The reason we lost is the war. The president himself said so last night.
If you'd like to argue it was worth it, that losing the Senate for the next 6 years was worth it, then do so. Argue it was a worthwhile cost to pay. Agree or disagree, that's at least honest.
But everyone knows why we lost. And any honest conversation about where we go from here must start there.
I remain hopeful about our country. To the people who are pissed off and want to say, “I told you so”: you’re right, you did tell us so. Take that energy into electing Republicans who share your worldview. To the people who are just pissed at the results, you should be. Let’s take that anger and get back to the work of saving our country.
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"The average citizen today is unhappy with their financial position, and we saw it," says Fmr. NEC Director @Gary_D_Cohn. "When people are unhappy, they vote for change." cnb.cx/4jXXl9U
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People will overcomplicate it because never has a defeat been more obviously overdetermined. The tariffs - which destroyed Trump's popularity LONG before he started a losing war - are even more important. Equally as important: the flagrant corruption, performative cruelty, and obsession with masturbatory public antics.
The surest sign of an adult is the ability to accept delayed gratification. Relevant today and every day.
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Grow up. Last night WAS the legacy of his "leadership."
The loss of Charlie weighs heavily
It makes me cry to think about the continuing ripple effect of his murder. I am not sure if we will ever fully grasp the affect his leadership was having on the Republican Party and thus the country.
His ability to steer the White House in the direction of the concerns of conservatives and independents
The unifying effect he had on the conservative movement, somehow unifying the Tucker Carlsons with the Ben Shapiros and the Dave Rubins with the Allie Stuckeys just enough to win elections against an evil party
His passion for getting out the vote among his audience and college students
We have no replacement right now
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If you sponsor this podcast, calling for the execution of Elon Musk, I will never use your product… and will buy from both of your top two competitors
This is unacceptable and dangerous.
This a dog whistle to murder someone because you disagree with them — and this is the same guy who joked about the assassination against President Trump.
Fuck this piece of shit.
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DeSantis is the ONLY Repulican who can say he has ALREADY done everything GOP voters care about. Balanced the Florida budget, cut spending, ended boys in girls restrooms, stood up to COVID totalitarianism and cut property taxes. I hope he announces his campaign tomorrow.
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If results in Florida don't convince you that DeSantis is pretty much the only strategic route forward for American conservatism, I'm not really sure what to say.
Also, Vance is dead in the water after tonight. Guilt by association to Trump. If he runs, he loses.
And I think he may be smart enough to know that.
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Phil - there is obviously no question “America” hates it and “voters” hate it. But what is most striking, is how much the people hate it who were supposed to be the beneficiaries of it. American manufacturers hate it, working class Americans hate it, and perhaps more than anyone, small business hates it.
A reminder to @oren_cass that America hates your tariff agenda. And this one is from the NBC exit polls:
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No doubt the political geniuses at NatCon, Heritage, American Compass, AmCon looking at the election returns right now: We gotta have Trump’s VP run for president on “four more years!” because only a candidate with twice the nastiness and bigotry of Trump and none of his charisma can fulfill the revolution.
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You wanted Cornyn gone.
You wanted Ernst gone.
You wanted Collins gone.
You wanted Tillis gone.
You wanted Graham gone.
You got your wishes, right-populists.
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You know, Trump picked Darline Graham. He endorsed Ken Paxton. He endorsed Vivek Ramaswamy the day he announced. He picked Michael Whatley...
He's running.
Governor DeSantis says the “AI Race w China” pushed by Byron Donalds is BULLSHIT.
DeSantis says American AI companies are SELLING to China, not trying to compete with them.
“I'm a China hawk. I think the CCP is a threat. But you have some of these big companies like Oracle. They built the biggest data center in Asia and Singapore for the Chinese stuff. I mean, NVIDIA, they want to sell chips to China.
So like Silicon Valley is NOT trying to BEAT China AND trying to join them! Silicon Valley is trying to make money. And honestly, I don't blame them because they have fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders, if they're a public company, especially to maximize value. So don't tell me that's the reason. So I just think we need some balance.
I think the Democrats have been able to outflank the Republicans. They're running ads in Florida. We don't have any hyperscale data centers in Florida, but they're using that against our candidates.”
