President Donald Trump is at his best when he’s fighting against something, not fighting for something. He’s at his best and most effective when he attacks, not when he defends. He wins when he has a clearly defined target.
In 2016, he ran against the media, illegal immigration, and Hillary Clinton, in that order. These three targets were already despised by the electorate, and so Trump’s job was to drive it home every day. “Make America Great Again” (MAGA) was his solution to the problems all three of his targets represented.
I agree with him that in 2020, he won that election, but for the same reasons that we still can’t confirm that, we also can see dilution in the Trump formula. His targets were harder to define and universally hate. His opponents that year were the COVID pandemic, the public health establishment, the media, and Joe Biden, in that order. As an incumbent, he felt like he was forced to defend everything he did. That bogged him down by design.
Trump faced an insurmountable problem when it started to become clear, even before the election, that some public health professionals, who were part of his administration, undermined him. He couldn’t run against them, and he had to go easy on attacking them because to attack them would be to attack his own administration.
As for his opponent, how do you run against a dementia-addled old man who is campaigning from his basement, whose handlers say he’s doing so in accordance with rules you helped create?
The lessons from 2020 were not missed by Trump in 2024. This was perhaps the best demonstration of political acumen in my lifetime. Trump went back to MAGA. He had a clear foil in Joe Biden and his failed administration, characterized mostly by authoritarianism in all of its forms, from censorship to selective enforcement of the law. He had Biden’s dementia to run against, and then he had Kamala’s vapidness to target. All the while, in true Trump fashion, he attacked, attacked, attacked.
He was aided by his opponents’ own obsessive desire to destroy him personally, in the process granting him true victimhood street cred. They corruptly charged him, convicted him, smeared him, censored him, and tried to assassinate him twice. Every time he foiled them and came out stronger.
Meanwhile, he had built a movement that cut across party lines. Democrats Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and Tulsi Gabbard became leaders in his movement and now his administration. Trump’s campaign and administration are a collection of people who were personally targeted by corrupt, duplicitous, and sometimes evil forces from the left. They endured the trials, they passed the test, and Trump rewarded them with an opportunity to do something about it. Most Americans liked seeing this.
Trump is the glue for this movement of an eclectic bunch of Type A personalities who, across the board, are making big news every day. Check that: They don't just make news, they attack it. In PR speak, they flood the zone with news so that the leftist media can’t single out one story to twist and beat Trump over the head with for consecutive news cycles. More often than not, it’s the media that struggles to keep up.
Looking ahead to 2026, try to name one Republican Congressional rep or Senate candidate who has embraced this approach and seems to be internalizing it in his or her own way.
I can name at least one Democrat who is doing this: Sen. John Fetterman from my hometown in Pennsylvania. He’s been a leftist mainstay, but don’t let those Carhart hoodies fool you. He actually does give a s##t, at least when it comes to himself. He’s drawn to network cameras every bit as much as Chuck Schumer. Fetterman knows what plays off-Broadway, and he gives it to them.
Notice that Fetterman reliably votes with the Democrats on almost every issue. But also, notice how he neutralizes and mutes his opponents by appearing to agree with them publicly and in the media when his vote isn’t on the line. Fetterman is a populist who has shrewdly latched onto Trump’s coattails as part of his public persona, which appeals to working-class Pennsylvanians, while remaining a party loyalist on legislation.
In the process, he’s the lone voice of reason in his party, and he’s not likely to be successfully primaried next year by the Democrats, making him an odds-on favorite to win in a landslide come Fall. Republican voters in Pennsylvania trust the man and have been duped into ignoring his record.
Since Republican candidates are so good at losing races where they are the favorites to win, you can expect more of the same next year. Twenty-something political consultants, armed with data, will feed into this mentality.
“Talk about what you are for, not against,” they will advise. “Stay above the fray,” they will recommend. They will tell their candidates to talk about the economy in generic and general terms, to distance themselves from the Trump administration, and to look for compromise on everything from immigration to crime and drug enforcement. Then, too many Republicans will lose in 2026 because of “my voters” or “typical midterm elections” as excuses.
The old “my voters” excuse goes like this: “That may be how Trump won a national election, but my voters back in Pennsylvania want something different.”
Fine. But how about actually trying to win the way Trump does consistently?
Going into 2026, across the country, if you’re a Republican, you have a target-rich environment when it comes to issues. You have the Democrat-driven government shutdown. You have high crime, and you have Democrats fighting to preserve the crime. They victim-blame and defend criminals. You have Democrats fighting for illegal immigrants, many of whom are violent criminals. You have Democrats working against sound economic policy.
They’re for higher taxes. They supported Obamacare (the Affordable Care Act), which is not affordable. You have the lie of transgenderism. Boys in girls’ sports and locker rooms. Parents are losing parental rights, thanks to Democrats. You have children being placed in vulnerable positions based on many of the issues I just mentioned. You can blame your opponent for all of these things, early and often.
Even if your opponent is not an incumbent, you can tie him or her to the Democrats’ record by virtue of simply being a member of the party of death, of violence, of murder, of celebrating the assassination of Charlie Kirk. You have more than enough substantive content to use to frame your opponent as heartless, possibly corrupt, and certainly the worst possible option.
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But instead, we voters will get four-color printed flyers in our mailboxes that feature you and your kids and your yellow lab, all in sweaters, blandly telling us that you stand for families. That you’re different because you’re for something, not against something. You may as well line bird cages with your campaign cash.
You will do interviews with your local newspaper or TV station, and you will let them coerce you into distancing yourself from the strongest ally you could have – President Trump. Every Republican candidate in 2026 will be asked, “Are you MAGA?” And far too many will try to dodge that question at your immediate peril. The news media and the left will succeed in driving a wedge between you and the source of the most potent power you could have.
Just cut to the chase. Tell your voters what you’re against, and make sure they know your opponent represents all of it. If you’re smart, you’ll ditch the 1980s textbook midterm campaign playbook and pick the two or three things you will run against, and then add your opponent’s name to the list. Then build your whole campaign around that. Go for broke. Attack. Don’t apologize for anything. Don’t let the left attack you with fake anger and contrived scenarios where they demand you apologize. Attack. Don’t give in to the temptation to distinguish “my voters” from all voters. Americans have the same basic needs and wants everywhere. In their hearts, they don’t want the Democrats or their policies. You must attack.
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