John Bickley

Are they in a better position going into 2026 than they were in 2024 and 2025?

The ideologue discussion is interesting to me.

And actually, speaking of Ben Shapiro, he makes this point a lot, that Trump is a common sense, practical, sort of real world president.

He operates in the real world, not in terms of ideology.

And he pivots very frequently when the results don't show that his actions are working like he thought they would.

And conservatism should also be grounded in reality, correct?

So is that the counter to this sort of ideologue approach of activism, pointing to practical results?

To maybe put a button on this, and then actually I wanted to talk to you about Reagan since you brought him up.

In terms of the state of politics for the Republicans going into 2026, do you feel they're in a healthy position or are they divided?

Are they facing a lot of headwinds coming into this next year?

Midterms are always really tough for the party in power.

What do you expect to see from Republicans?

Yeah, do you expect Trump, if he loses a majority, what would the second part of his final term look like?

Would that be all messaging?

Is it all executive orders fighting with the courts?

Final question.

You've written a lot on Reagan, and Trump himself has talked about the comparisons between himself and Reagan.

Every Republican president has put up against Reagan at some point as sort of a standard of excellence for the Republican Party.

How do you believe the brand of Reagan stands now?

This used to be Reagan's party.