You cannot fully appreciate how delusional and dishonest Marc Thiessen has been about the Iran war until you watch him say over and over again for 9 months that we are just 14 more days of war away from it being over.

Imagine watching an apocalyptic tsunami wipe out 20 states and then claiming the real problem was a lack of strong swimmers. That’s what the “candidate quality” losers trying to cover up for their disastrous war sound like.

The 2024 mandate from voters given to the GOP was squandered by the war with Iran. We delivered a GOP President, House, Senate, popular vote, electoral landslide -- we even had a moderately decent SCOTUS. Trump's EO's weren't codified. No SAVE America Act. And a war.

Every GOP strategist, consultant, and candidate should be forced to participate in a role-playing exercise this morning. Your name is Bob. You’re a 49-year-old blue-collar worker in Ohio. You’ve always struggled to make ends meet. The good jobs were all shipped to China and the few remaining pay a pittance wage, undercut by endless illegal labor. You’re a 3x Trump voter because you believed he would finally make America great again. You put your son through Ohio State. He graduated cum laude in computer science. You couldn’t have been prouder. After months searching, he landed an entry-level job at Microsoft. Beneath his qualifications, but a good start for a smart kid. Then he got laid off. That same month, Microsoft applied for 150,000 more H-1B visas because it can’t find qualified Americans. Your son has spent six months back in his childhood bedroom, sending hundreds of applications without landing an interview. On TV, Trump boasts about the greatest economy in history and how many women and minorities are finding jobs. You decide a father-son steak night might cheer him up. Gas is $4.50 a gallon. Filling your truck costs over $100. At Kroger, ribeyes are $30/lb. You settle for hamburger, even though 70/30 ground beef still costs $10+. At checkout, a fat black woman is screaming at the cashier because her EBT will only cover most of the filet mignon and lobster in her cart. You think to yourself how the Iran war has made everything expensive, but at least we’re stopping their nuclear bomb. You weren’t even sure where Iran was before you googled it after we first bombed them in March. After dinner, you take your son to the county fair. Half the people aren’t speaking English. Virtually none of the crowd looks like you. You’re forced to leave early after a “teen takeover” turns violent. A foreign born judge pledges none of them will go to jail. Back home, you turn on the TV. Vivek Ramaswamy is lecturing the crowd about American mediocrity and why Ohio needs more foreign talent. Your son grows upset. You change the channel. Now a Republican surrogate, the daughter of a governor or wife of an elderly billionaire, explains that young White men are the REAL welfare queens. They’d rather play videogames in their parents’ basements than work. Your son says nothing. He just goes back to his childhood bedroom. You turn off the TV. Then your neighbor starts blasting reggaeton and cracking open Modelos. He brought his cousin’s family from Mexico to help with all the minority-business contracts his construction firm keeps winning. Tonight they’re celebrating his nephew’s birth, the family’s first birthright American citizen. You sit alone in your living room. You worked hard, paid taxes, obeyed the law, and raised your son to do everything right. You voted Republican again and again because you believed somebody in Washington would finally fight for you. Instead, your wages are stagnant. Groceries are unaffordable. Your community is unrecognizable. Your country is fighting another foreign war. And upstairs, the son you sacrificed everything for is lying awake in the bedroom he slept in at twelve, wondering what the heck he’s even supposed to do with his life now. Every time you turn on the TV, the Republicans you elected are either congratulating themselves or explaining why you and your son are the problem. For ten years, they told you America’s future depended on your vote. Now you aren’t even sure America has a future worth defending. The Republican Party needs to answer one simple question this morning: You’ve spent a decade demanding Bob’s loyalty. You’ve given him stagnant wages, unaffordable groceries, another foreign war, and a son who did everything right but can’t find work. And when they complain, you call them lazy, entitled, and racist. What possible reason have you given Bob and his son to vote Republican? Do you honestly think you deserve their vote?

Johnson never sought the top job and while he wasn't good, he was actually better at moving stuff through a narrow House majority and keeping folks in line than many would have expected. And at least he has the honor to step aside. Thune should take the hint.

The media siloing of conservatives was massive and intentional Fox News running fake polls saying 95% of MAGA supported the war Aggressive attempts to silence anyone who pointed out war and affordability were going to be definitive issues Gaslighting about Trump’s continues popularity The entitlement displayed by insulting voters you were demanding to turn out After watching Dems build a giant denial bunker around first Biden and then Harris leading to their own befuddled destruction Republicans decided the best strategy was to do exactly the same thing to themselves and their voters “Just trust the plan” was a recipe for the kind of blowout we just witnessed

Greg Abbott didn’t say anything like that. And yet you said you didn’t vote for Abbott either because he pragmatically endorsed a different candidate who said something you found offensive against your ethnic identity. That is the definition of tribalism. I can see deciding not to vote for Bo French on the basis. But you openly said you didn’t vote for any Republican who endorsed French either. That kind of transitive rejection is what makes you tribal.

It was a referendum above all on Trump’s war against Iran and the costs that the war imposed on American families—a war that Shapiro and all the other neocons demanded! Now they blame Trump for doing what they wanted. Amazing. These people have no shame, no self awareness.

AND THERE IT IS: Ben Shapiro takes ZERO responsibility for lobbying Trump to launch the disastrous Iran War, throws the president under the bus instead. "I was working under the impression that the president was going to pursue war in the same way that he had pursued war in his first administration, and also in Operation Midnight Hammer, meaning go fast, go hard, finish it fast and achieve your ends—right? That is the way to actually win a war!" "But if you decide that you're not going to win it because you want to slow down because you're worried about oil prices, and then it turns out the oil prices just bite you right in the ass again, and you exacerbate the domestic pain with no strategic explanation, it's chaos! It's discombobulation!" Evidently, all Trump had to do was press the win button! 🤡

The Jewish vote moved 4 points to the left nationally. Muslims and nones voted hard left. We lost ground with Christians and many stayed home. We are still a majority Christian nation. If Rs want to win, you must motivate and inspire our Christian base.

Last night showed that with neocons you lose. People with billionaire donors who can afford to buy a blog for $150,000,000 don't actually win elections. They lose them. They do not have real audiences. It is all pay-for-play via Facebook advertising and YouTube auto-rolling podcasts via paid traffic campaigns. I still wish people had voted Republican. But last night sent an unmistakable message. Dave Smith and libertarians have more electoral clout than neocon podcasters, because at the margins, libertarians can cost us close races as happened in George two cycles ago and Ohio yesterday. Does this mean you court Dave Smith? That's a question for others to an answer. I am merely describing the political reality.