George Washington warned of "the alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge."
He understood what America keeps forgetting: political power changes hands, but a republic survives only when its people refuse to surrender its principles.
Republicans have sixty days. Democrats have taken the House and Senate, flipping at least seven Republican Senate seats. James Talarico won the Texas Senate race; Gina Hinojosa defeated Governor Greg Abbott. We don't need to process this. We don't need to grieve it. We simply need to act.
Until January 3, Republicans still hold the House and a 53-seat Senate. Spend those sixty days on what can actually pass: judges, permitting reform, the budget, and the defense bill, while red states lock in what Washington cannot take away. A Republican who goes home for December is voting for a Democrat January.
Our president and our Congress must act NOW. Cancel everything but Thanksgiving and Christmas. Heads down. Lock in what we've won. Finish what's pending. And secure and protect our America with aggression and clarity.
The president's party lost House seats in eighteen of twenty midterms between 1946 and 2022. Don't forget: Ronald Reagan lost 26 House seats in 1982, then turned around two years later and won 49 states.
A bombastic deconstructionist outsider sent to confront the bureaucratic state was never going to be Washington's favorite dinner guest. He was hired to deliver, and he did: the lowest border apprehensions since 1970, record oil production, and murders down 18 percent last year.
Be honest about the clock first. Republicans rarely move fast, and the filibuster still stands. The SAVE America Act passed the House and died in the Senate, where four Republicans joined every Democrat against attaching it to a party-line bill. Thune has said Republicans will not end the filibuster.
A third reconciliation package has sat unadopted in the Senate since August. There are about twenty-four legislative days left. A wish list cannot survive that. A short list of what takes 51 votes, or what must pass anyway, can.
First, confirm every judge. Judicial nominations need only a simple majority. Sixteen Article III nominees are pending, including Daniel Domenico for the Tenth Circuit, Anna St. John for the Fifth, and Lee Rudofsky for the Eighth. Domenico and St. John are both on the Senate's calendar.
Chairman Chuck Grassley has a nominations hearing set for November 10. Every nomination left unconfirmed when this Congress ends goes back to the White House to be resubmitted to a Democrat Senate. Judges serve for life. This majority ends January 3. The Senate's 2025 rule change also lets it confirm sub-Cabinet nominees in batches by simple majority.
Second, pass permitting reform. The Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act from Senators Shelley Moore Capito, Mike Lee, Sheldon Whitehouse, and Martin Heinrich faces its first test vote on November 9, with White House support. Faster approval for pipelines, transmission, and power plants is the most direct answer Congress can give to $4.12 gasoline.
Years ago, I called the climate crusade the Big Green Elephant: a movement that began as conservation and mutated into coercion. Even Bill Gates, its most famous financier, conceded last year that climate change "will not lead to humanity's demise." Permitting reform is how Congress starts to tame it. It is the rare bill that can find 60 votes.
Third, refuse to hand the budget to the incoming majority. Government funding expires December 11. The House has passed only three of twelve appropriations bills. The Senate has passed none.
The easy path is another stopgap into the spring, which lets a Democrat Congress write the rest of the year. Hakeem Jeffries said before the election that he favors finishing the full-year bills in the lame duck. Take him at his word and force those votes now, on terms a Republican Congress sets.
Fourth, finish the defense bill. The House passed its $1.15 trillion NDAA, H.R. 8800, 216–212 in July. The Senate could not even bring its own version to the floor, falling short on a 50–46 vote.
Congress has enacted a defense authorization for 65 straight years. Fight for the SAVE provisions in it, but do not let the munitions, shipbuilding, and border support die with them.
Fifth, Republican legislatures should not wait on Washington. Texas just elected a Democrat governor, yet its constitution still bans an income tax and a wealth tax, and repeal requires two-thirds of the legislature plus the voters. Every red state should lock in its protections the same way while it can.
An executive order is a lease; a statute is a deed. Sixty days to pour concrete.
The public still feels 3.7 percent inflation, $4.12 a gallon for regular gasoline, and a debt past $40 trillion. Those problems are real. Another federal program will not cure them.
As I wrote in 13½ Reasons Why NOT to Be a Liberal, "Intentions are emotional. Results and facts are rational." An entitlement is not a wage. A subsidy is not a factory.
And investigate corruption without mercy: audits, evidence, criminal referrals, prosecution, and recovery of stolen funds. Minnesota's Feeding Our Future scandal and California's pandemic unemployment fraud show the staggering price of failed oversight. The Justice Department's 2025 health care fraud takedown charged 324 defendants in schemes totaling $14.6 billion, a record.
Do it again. Follow the money into every public office. Guilt comes from proof, not party registration. That standard binds us. It will bind them too, and Americans will notice which side keeps it.
Asked about impeachment, Democrat leader Hakeem Jeffries said his party hasn't "ruled anything in or ruled anything out." Let them try. Impeachment pursued without evidence of serious wrongdoing is revenge, and Washington warned us exactly where the spirit of revenge leads.
A Democrat House can impeach by majority vote; removing a president requires two-thirds of the Senate. A party that campaigned on affordability and opens with a show trial will have to explain that to every family paying $4.12 a gallon.
After January 3, use the veto, constitutional executive authority, and the courts with discipline.
As I wrote at Newsmax last year, every movement with staying power has a midpoint, that moment when you've been through hell, taken your licks, and found your footing. This is ours.
Although President Trump is disliked by many, even on both sides, the presidency is not a job where you simply have to be liked. You have to protect the country and the Constitution as your first objective.
What they can't take away is the power of President Trump's influence on a country that is at war over sovereignty and independence. We still have two years. We may lose ground for a while. They'll run this country into the ground, and then we'll take it back. That's America.
As I write in my forthcoming book, 12½ Steps to Save America, "a movement that depends on one extraordinary man expires with him." The disruptor is a type, not a person. The type does not wait for January. The sixty days started this morning.
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