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Southwest Airlines debuts a special new livery aircraft in honor of America's 250th birthday: Independence One, registration N1776R.
Perhaps most eye-catching: "Red, white, and blue paint scheme with 1776 written in giant quill script, and the key phrase, 'life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness' from the Declaration of Independence and the three inalienable rights endowed to all humans," the airline says.
[📸 Southwest Airlines]
My initial reaction is DeSantis should stay as far away from this dumpster fire as possible, especially with the no win scenario of Iran that Trump is going to hang around the neck of any SecDef.
RyanRuck retweeted
Iran and Israel.
Not tariffs. Not corruption.
Hmmmm.
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.
Listening to @Liz_Wheeler on @glennbeck a little bit ago.
She is exactly the person Republicans should be listening to if they want to continue to lose electrons.
Her takeaway of last night is that the *real* problem is we just haven't gotten enough of Trump.
She talked about how bad Ken Paxton & Darlene Graham were with zero self awareness or ability to connect that these were people hand picked by Trump himself.
No Liz, voters are telling you they've had their fill of Trump & his hard left shift of the Republican Party. They want classic Republican conservatism & values, not yours, Beck's and Trump's off brand "America First" BS.
Stop trying to make "America First" happen. It's not going to happen.
RyanRuck retweeted
The Armed Forces of Ukraine have published a new video showing a Skyranger 35 SPAAG mounted on a Leopard 1 chassis in service with the 1020th Anti-Aircraft Missile Brigade. An unknown number of these systems have been financed through the interest of frozen Russian assets.
RyanRuck retweeted
Ken Paxton didn't even come close. With 96 percent of the vote in, he's trailing by 1.2 million votes.
Paxton was every bit as abominably poor a candidate as his critics said; his nomination likely doomed the seat. Elon Musk and his Texas PAC could have bought every ad break on every channel for the entire year, and it wouldn't have altered the outcome.
This midterm isn't an endorsement of the Dem platform, even if they're dumb enough to pretend it is. It's a rejection of the leftward direction Trump has taken the Republican Party.
Ever since the below, the Republican Party has continued to move further and further left and it has continued to lose worse and worse each time.
Critics will say, "The country isn't the same as back then."
My counter to that is that principles are timeless, and the voters keep telling the parties that yet none of them want to listen.
Stop trying to argue with results.
RyanRuck retweeted
Turning Point, American Compass, American Moment, The Claremont Institute, Conservative Partnership Institute, and The Heritage Foundation right now
It would be naive to ignore the effect of the Iran war on the midterms, but we should not lose sight of the fact that tariffs were brutal for Republicans (via @NBCNews)
RyanRuck retweeted
Last night was a referendum on postliberal economics. It failed catastrophically.
Coming soon to an inbox near you: "it wasn't the tariffs" and "real tariffs haven't been tried." Don't buy it.
A) It wasn't ONLY the tariffs, but the polls/results are clear: they were a BIG anchor.
B) This IS real tariffs. They raise prices BY DESIGN, fuel cronyism/carveouts, hurt smallbiz & many manufacturers, alienate allies, & cause many other problems/distortions - especially when done by executive action (which boosts uncertainty).
There's a reason these taxes have been mostly abandoned - by the US and every other rich country. The GOP should stop listening to the protectionist fundamentalists (and cronies) and abandon them too.
RyanRuck retweeted
Russian FPV drones suspended from power lines in ambush positions are being destroyed.
The drones use hooks to hang from the wires and remain there until an operator takes control to attack a passing target. Ukrainian drone operators also use similar tactics.
RyanRuck retweeted
Congrats everybody. Republicans did this to themselves. God is smashing your idols now. Maybe instead of telling people to vote for a lesser evil, find better candidates. Find character that counts.
RyanRuck retweeted
As every pre-election survey indicated and many a "market fundamentalist" predicted.
It would be naive to ignore the effect of the Iran war on the midterms, but we should not lose sight of the fact that tariffs were brutal for Republicans (via @NBCNews)
RyanRuck retweeted
Dems are set up for an '06 '08 one-two punch more than twenty years ago because Trump controls the GOP even more than Bush and will double down on everything that got us here even more. Nobody has an answer for how you deal with 24 more months of this and somehow still run as a Republican up and down the ballot. Normally, Dems would own some of the incumbency, but Trump will constantly remind people of the ballroom, the golden economy, and glitch out to ensure he owns 100% of the incumbency. Nobody on the right has an answer for that.
We need an independent movement, and frankly, always did, but now the excuses against it are counterintuitive.
Fuck. 😞
RyanRuck retweeted
Cyberattack on France’s national blood service (EFS) via its refrigeration contractor Coolworld. Hackers reset freezers keeping blood donor samples at -30°C to a target of 110°C. The thing that stopped it from destructive impact was an on-call technician who noticed the temperatures going up. Frozen plasma intended for transfusion was stored there too. Fortunately nothing was destroyed. This was a cyberattack on a sensitive layer of healthcare. From frozen peas to boiling plasma in three weeks...?
RyanRuck retweeted
He says he thinks the MAGA base is the Republican Party and that since he’s 99% with the MAGA base ergo he’s at 100% of the Republican Party while Lincoln was only at 8 percent (because of all the polling under Lincoln). It’s pathetic.
RyanRuck retweeted
I think it should be clear to everyone by now that the results of these midterm elections are largely a reflection of Donald Trump's actions, policies, and the way he has governed the country over the past two years.
His approach toward traditional allies, his foreign policy decisions, the growing tensions with America's international partners, and the rising cost of living have all contributed to growing public dissatisfaction.
Trump made numerous promises to the American people, particularly regarding the economy, prices, and making life more affordable. Yet, for many Americans, the reality has been quite different. Instead of seeing the improvements they were promised, many have faced continued economic pressure and uncertainty.
The results we are witnessing over these past hours are therefore not particularly surprising. Midterm elections have always been an opportunity for voters to hold the party in power accountable, and this time many Americans have chosen to send a clear message to the White House.
Ultimately, this is about more than individual races or seats in Congress. It is a reflection of public confidence in the administration, its priorities, and the direction in which it is taking the country.
After losses in 2018, big losses in 2020, and now a near record loss in 2026, at some points Republicans need some serious introspection that their hard shift left - namely abandoning free markets in favor of protectionism & socialism, and abandoning leadership in favor of "sizzle" - have consequences, financially and at the ballot box.
Socialism, protectionism, and talking about candidates assess may be popular with limited segments of the electorate and get you tons of TV time but that's not what the important voting segments care about.
Either that or continue to spiral into irrelevancy.
