TJ Walker examines cracks in Republican unity as Ted Cruz warns against dismissing anti-Trump protests and Ron DeSantis co-authors a bipartisan op-ed on term limits. Both moves break from standard MAGA messaging, suggesting the GOP may be shifting focus toward self-preservation over attacking Democrats.
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Something unusual is happening in Republican politics right now. Top conservatives are starting to sound less like crusaders against the woke left and more like reformers warning their own party. In separate moments this week, Senator Ted Cruz and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis both broke from MAGA talking points. Ted Cruz told Bloomberg that millions of people protesting Trump's second presidency in the form of the no King stay represent political peril for Republicans, urging his party to take anger on the streets seriously or risk a midterm bloodbath. Meanwhile, Governor DeSantis joined Democrat David Trone in a bipartisan that's not a word you hear very often these days, a bipartisan New York Times op ed calling for term limits to end Washington's retirement home culture of career politics. Together, their comments suggest a GOP in crisis, less focused on attacking progressives and Democrats, more on saving itself from decline. So what's the real message when Ted Cruz is saying to his fellow Republicans When Ted Cruz is saying to his fellow Republicans, hey, wake up. This no Kings thing is real. We ignore at our own peril. That's one thing. When you look at another strand where someone like Ron DeSantis, who's normally just bashing the woke, is talking about a bipartisan issue like term limits, it's a sign that more and more serious career oriented politicians in the Republican Party are saying we can't just keep doing the same old thing of bashing everyone who disagrees with us is a radical terrorist who is a part of the extreme left. It's not working anymore. So this to me is fascinating. Ted Cruz is by all accounts highly intelligent, extremely high iq, top student in high school, college at Princeton. His law professor, Alan Dershowitz at Harvard, said he was brilliant back then. And even people who don't like him, which is, by the way, pretty much everyone in the Senate and everyone who works with him, they can see he's a brilliant person and is smart, has done well in politics despite his personality. I not because of it. He's not one of these warm, cuddly characters that people just love because they're so charming and engaging. He is a smart guy and he is not just following the script. The script that was put out last week in Washington and it trickled down to podcast, it trickled down to the newsmax, the Fox News. It trickled down into comments. It trickled down even to comments on my own social media. And that message point was no, King's Day is just about hating America by radical extremists. Nothing else there. Nothing to look at. Folks it doesn't mean anything. It's not a sign of political weakness or of anyone being less enthusiastic about the incumbent President of the United States. It's just an exercise of a few long haired, dirty, smelly foreign terrorists. That was the message put out by the White House, by most Republicans in the House and the Senate, and the talking points that filtered out into talk radio and podcast and down to the grassroots. Ted Cruz is looking at this, and no, that's not what it is, folks. There's genuine anger in America. And he points out quite rightly that angry people show up at the polls. Complacent people say, oh, you know what? Things are okay, stay home. And it has Ted Cruz worried because I think he rather enjoys being a part of the majority. Now, I've not yet seen any polls to suggest the Democrats could win back the United states Senate in 2026, even assuming, and this may be a bit of a stretch, assuming we have free and fair elections in America in 2026. But by all accounts, by every historical cycle, the Democrats should win back the House of Representatives if there are free and fair elections. This has Ted Cruz concerned, as it should. People in any one party should always be concerned about losing control of a branch of government, if they have control. So he's sending a strong warning to people, we cannot ignore this. So I think that's significant because for quite a while now, so many members of the Republican Party have marched in lockstep with whatever the administration says. And they followed. Give them credit. Politically, it's worked. They followed a very disciplined communication strategy, which is, everything we're doing is great, everything our opponents are doing is wrong, awful, and an example of how they're extremists and terrorists. You can quibble whether that's factually accurate or not, but that has been a messaging strategy that's been very helpful. Ted Cruz has broken that. He's now giving honest assessments, saying, look, we may have some real trouble here. The other thing is, I look at the zeitgeist here and how things are changing. I come to different conclusions from other people. Many people would look at this op ed today in today's New York times from Florida Governor Ron DeSantis calling for term limits for the House and say, oh, that's a boring old issue. Ignore it. It is kind of a boring old issue. And not because there's not a problem with people staying, you know, 40 and 50 years in the Congress. And full disclosure, I'm actually in favor of. So I endorse Governor Ron DeSantis on this measure. It's boring because it's not going to happen politically because politicians do not vote to put themselves out of office. They don't. The significance here is this is the first time I remember in years that Ron DeSantis has made an open play to the media, has been up front and tried to really push a story into the national media that wasn't just pandering to an extreme right wing MAGA base. This is the first time I remember him not saying something that is 100% bashing the woke with left, whatever that is. He's saying it's a bipartisan problem. He also, interestingly enough, wrote a column or you know, his assistants or staff did it, but it was bylined by a Democratic member of con, former member of Congress. So he made this a bipartisan push. That is significant to me as well because for quite some time now, the message out of Washington has been the other party is so awful, so extreme. They are so captured by radical, dangerous, violent extremists, socialist, leftist, we don't have anything to do with them. And here's Ron DeSantis essentially getting into bed with a Democratic former member of Congress on an issue bipartisanship. I think it's great. Is it signaling more, is it signaling to the American people from a Republican politician that hey, maybe we've gotten all the juice out of this anti wokeness thing we've got that we can. Maybe we've sucked this thing dry, maybe we've mined this. There's nothing left. There's no gold left in these veins. To further extend my torturous metaphors, I'm wondering if that's what's going on. What do you think? You can post your comments and your questions. If you agree with me, say why don't you say agree? If you disagree with me, even better, but say why. Now this is a part of a pattern. We've talked in recent weeks about how Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Republican congresswoman from Georgia, has increasingly felt emboldened to attack the Republicans, to attack certain policies of this administration, to say the Democrats are right to be concerned about 20 million Americans seeing their health care cost double in the near future. So it is interesting that what we're seeing now is a splintering of messaging. And you can say, well, T.J. why aren't you talking about the Democrats? Because the Democrats really have no voice. They don't control the White House, they don't control the Supreme Court, they don't control the Senate, they don't control the House. And Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic leaders in Congress, don't have any real power. So, yeah, the Democratic Party has a lot of splintered messaging going on right now. There's no doubt about it. But this past Saturday, the messaging was very, very focused. We don't want kings and America who can just rule as a dictator would. That part has become very clear. So you could argue. And by the way, I'm on record as saying Republicans in general are simply better communicators than Democrats are. I play it to you straight and honest here, but in the last week, we have seen something I think we've not really seen in the last year, which is you've seen Democrats united in a message and you've seen Republicans all of a sudden coming up with a lot of different messages that are no longer 100% black, white, wokeism, extreme left, bad. We're 100% good. So whether this trend will continue, I don't know. I certainly place no faith in the Democrats ability to have consistent positive messaging that will help them politically. But are we at a time when the Republicans are going to be less unified? It may be because of recent drops in polling in terms of support for this president. Sam.
