"One last thought on what happened. I don't like it, but I believe Frank Luntz and his focus groups are right: while 2024 was a massive repudiation of the full Democrat agenda (2020-2024) , 2026 was an even more massive repudiation of the full Republican agenda (2024-2026).
The fact is, while people who are VERY liberal or VERY conservative may control the party agenda, that is not the majority of the country at all. They are just looking for something they consider "normal" i.e. their version of "moderate" and often that involves accepting a tremendous amount of cognitive dissonance. Additionally, voters often want the benefits of a particular policy without accepting its moral, economic, or practical costs. They may hold socially conservative views on one issue, liberal views on another, and economically contradictory views on a third. This is because, unlike the majority of people reading this, they don't have anything like a consolidated worldview, and a lot of that is due to the fact that churches and families no longer teach a strictly Biblical worldview.
As a result, they want various parts of the two competing agendas in ways that don't make any sense. These are just 25 incompatible factors that polls have documented.
1. They want the border secured, but they don't want public deportations
2. They may complain about illegal immigration and cheap labor but they want illegals available to roof their houses, mow their lawns, clean their hotels, and work on their construction crews for less than Americans.
3. They want high wages and to buy American, but they want to pay Chinese prices.
4. They want government spending dramatically reduced, but they don't want cuts to Social Security, Medicare, veterans' benefits, farm subsidies, or programs their families use, and the majority of Americans receive some sort of government subsidy.
5. They want lower taxes for themselves, higher taxes for those who earn more than they do, and the kind of public services that only a high-tax welfare state can provide.
6. They want the next generation to pay for their retirement, but they don't want to actually raise enough of a next generation to actually do that.
7. They want affordable housing and restrictive zoning.
8. They don't want billionaires, but they do want the kind of technology and innovation that only billionaires can produce.
9. They don't want a biological male competing against their daughter on the high school girls' teams, but they want that same daughter to have access to a publicly funded abortion at any point in the pregnancy if she becomes pregnant.
10. They acknowledge children do best with a married mother and father, but they don't want to get married and fiercely defend the supposed right to get a no-fault divorce whenever they want.
11. They want recreational marijuana legalized, but they don't want their neighborhood smelling of marijuana, their children using it, or intoxicated people operating vehicles and machinery.
12. They are outraged by child pornography, and think pornography is harmful to children, but they want a thriving porn industry, to be able to make porn for OnlyFans without being judged, and as much access to porn as they want.
13. They celebrate sexual autonomy and freedom from traditional expectations, but they lament the instability of marriage, fatherlessness, and the difficulty of finding faithful long-term partners.
14. They believe passionately in free speech when it comes to the ability to spread their own views, but they want employers, universities, and social media companies to punish people whose speech they find offensive.
15. They insist that adults should be free to make unhealthy or dangerous choices, but also expect taxpayers and insurance pools to absorb the resulting costs of their own poor choices.
16. They want AI to drive their cars, write their papers, explain things to them online, and lower the cost of doing business, but they don't want to build the data centers in the US necessary to make that feasible. They'd prefer they were all in China, but they don't want to acknowledge that the CCP would control them.
17. They want abundant, inexpensive electricity and fuel, but resist new power plants, nuclear facilities, transmission lines, refineries, and drilling operations, especially near their communities.
18. They want to be considered spiritual, perhaps even Christian, but they don't want to attend church regularly, submit to church discipline, or have their moral choices challenged by Scripture.
19. They praise the family as the foundation of society, but organize their personal lives around career advancement, consumption, leisure, and individual fulfillment, often at the expense of family relationships.
20. They complain about the harmful effects of social media on their children and want to sue those companies, but stubbornly resist the personal sacrifices involved in limiting their own screen time and overseeing their children's technology use.
21. They say they want politicians to be moral, but excuse personal immorality in political leaders when those leaders advance causes they support.
22. They want a "moral" nation, but do not want the church telling them how to spend their Sundays, conduct their marriages, or raise their children and resent being told that adultery, dishonesty, covetousness, or neglect of worship are sins.
23. They want the world's strongest armed forces, capable of winning wars quickly and decisively, but oppose the taxes and expenditures required to maintain that capability.
24. They want America to exercise decisive influence over world affairs, protect trade routes, and deter hostile powers, but don't want military deployments, "boots on the ground", economic disruptions, foreign aid, or complicated diplomatic entanglements.
25. They want low crime, strict penalties for serious crime, loose morals, low surveillance, low incarceration, and invisible policing."
