George Rebane
Republicans are totally missing the dominant sentiments in the country regarding economics, foreign policy, healthcare, and illegal aliens. Major conservative news and commentary outlets like Fox and Newsmax continue to tout the historic achievements of the Trump administration while paying no mind to what the people believe on Main Street. These mavens act as if there is no Democrats’ domination of the mainstream (lamestream) media who faithfully broadcast their daily dose of outrageous lies. The Republican sermons to their choir utterly fail to connect with the demonstrably irrational and ill-informed common voter as witnessed by every new polling result.
As a glaring example totally missed in the hustings is that Democrats never substantiate or back their policy proposals to demonstrate how they may be or have been successful in the past. To back their proposals and public policies the Republicans always give examples of how free market capitalism, meritocracy, and individual freedoms have given rise to societies with the highest qualities of life and inviting nation-states. The Democrats never provide evidence that their collectivist proposals and policies based on higher taxes, more regulations, larger government control of economies, fewer freedoms, … have given rise to and/or sustained societies that have created wealth and high QoL for their citizens. They just state their proposals and follow-up with baseless claims that these will create some form of workers’ paradise and happy dancing in the streets without citing examples of such successes.
Here’s a short summary of the what the Republicans are missing about the public’s attitudes on the country’s economics. Key findings from recent (late 2025 – Jan 2026) polls –
- Pessimism Reigns: A majority of Americans (around 47-48%) describe current economic conditions as “poor” or “not so good,” with even more (around 68%) feeling the economy is worsening.
- Inflation & Costs: The economy and inflation are top concerns, with rising prices for essentials and healthcare being major worries, especially for lower-income groups.
- Recession Belief: A majority (52% in one poll) believed the U.S. was in a recession, though this number had slightly decreased from earlier in 2022.
- Worsening Outlook for 2026: Predictions for 2026 are considerably more negative than for 2025, with pessimism extending to employment, taxes, and prosperity.
- Job Market Concerns: While unemployment rates fluctuated, expectations for future job finding deteriorated, and concerns about job security increased.
- Political Discontent: Economic dissatisfaction is reflected in low approval ratings for leadership, with record-low economic approval for President Trump in late 2025.
In summary, the overall sentiment points to widespread economic anxiety, driven by persistent high costs and uncertainty about the future, despite significant official data showing an economy recovering from the Biden years.
President Trump’s bravura and braggadocio don’t work with Americans and are simply grist for the Democrats’ TDS propaganda mill. And they don’t have to work too hard to make the president look bad. Examples are Greenland, Iran, Venezuela, Russia, Canada, and Mexico.
In each of these areas we either already have successes or easily obtainable successes. We can ‘control Greenland’ without sabre rattling because we already have established and expandable bases there and can set up new ones under existing agreements. We can start mining the island without much ado about the whole affair as long as we set up some equitable way to share the profits with Greenlanders (and Denmark?). Nobody is going to kick us out of Greenland, however, we can readily eliminate ongoing Russian and Chinese initiatives. And all this can be done very quietly without waking up strong feelings about sovereignty.
Trump’s ‘red lines’ are turning into an embarrassment because he is not honoring them. By now the rump Maduro regime should have made visible overtures to the US in establishing a fast track to scheduled elections resulting in a new government with agreed on segments (e.g. the military) of the old regime operating under new management. Iran has massacred thousands of its people in the streets and continues as you read this. Trump should already have started whumping them by destroying their key defense facilities with stand-off weapons from Diego Garcia bases while additional forces are deploying to the mid-east to continue the campaign. Instead we have the now lame line repeated that Trump is really really gonna get nasty if they continue to shoot and hang the demonstrators – meanwhile, nothing.
It’s way past time when Zelensky should have been regularly launching deep-penetration missiles and drones against key Russian military, energy, and transportation infrastructure. Again, Trump allows Putin to mock America by continuing to bomb the crap out of Ukraine’s cities and killing civilians. Not good for The Donald and the free world.
I could go on, but you get the idea.
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