Mobs, Messaging, and Midterms: What 2025 Revealed About The Left | 12.27.25

2.63 - 20.014 Georgia Howe

The first year of President Trump's second term was a tumultuous and politically contentious year that saw major wins for the president, but it also saw nationwide orchestrated protest movements against him, including No Kings rallies and Democratic Socialist political campaigns focused on thwarting his presidency.

19.994 - 38.391 John Bickley

So with the dust settling from 2025 and 2026 dawning, where do the two parties stand now? In this episode, we sit down with Paul Kangor, author and editor of The American Spectator, to discuss that question and more. I'm Daily Wire executive editor John Bickley with Georgia Howe. This is a special edition of Morning Wire.

39.94 - 60.413 Unknown

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62.502 - 80.646 John Bickley

Joining us now for a look back politically at 2025 and a look ahead to 2026 is Paul Kangor, editor of the American Spectator and political science professor at Grove City College, where he's also the senior director of the Institute of Faith and Freedom. Paul, you need more titles. Thank you so much for joining us.

81.402 - 86.627 Paul Kengor

Yeah, good to be with you, John. Love anything I can do with The Daily Wire, anytime, I'm all in.

87.227 - 108.507 John Bickley

Well, we love hearing that, and we'll hold you to that. So look, this has been a crazy year. We wanted to kind of stop and look back at it politically, specifically the No Kings movement and some of the anti-Trump efforts that we saw over the course of the year. Big picture first, how effective do you think the demonstrations, the activism against Trump were this year? Did they actually work?

109.111 - 130.592 Paul Kengor

Well, I mean, it's hard to judge that, right? I mean, the left did do well in the elections. They put a lot of people out in the streets throughout the summer, through the No Kings rally. So, to use an old Soviet word, agitprop, right, agitation and propaganda. If the idea was to agitate with their propaganda, they did.

130.612 - 151.519 Paul Kengor

And I would call the No Kings kind of a perfect example of agitation and propaganda, especially propaganda, because the whole thing was just, you know, I thought, frankly, silly. And, you know, the first time, John, that I even heard the idea or the phrase No Kings is from my wife. And I said, No Kings? No Kings?

152.06 - 168.779 Paul Kengor

I said, are they talking about Trump? She said, yeah, they're talking about Trump. Who else? Right. And I thought, yeah, but I mean, of all things, why don't they do go with their old thing? Right. No dictators. Right. You know, no fascists, you know, no democracy destroyers or whatever. But but no kings.

169.219 - 191.951 Paul Kengor

It's like patently ludicrous on its face. I mean, everybody knows that Trump is not a monarch. Right? I mean, the first kind of thing you do in sloganeering and marketing, you come up with a clever, kind of tested slogan, right? Black Lives Matter. Brilliant. No matter what you think of the organization, who could argue with Black Lives Matter, right?

191.971 - 204.15 Paul Kengor

Marriage equality from the LGBTQ people, right? Even an old group like the 1930s, 1940s communist front group, the American League Against War and Fascism, right? Who isn't against war and fascism?

204.49 - 229.342 Paul Kengor

But no kings. I mean, you immediately, your response to that is, huh? I mean, who are they talking about? I mean, obviously Donald Trump isn't a king. You could debate whether he's destroying democracy. You could call him, you know, a racist, a bigot, a narcissist, a brain jackass, whatever you want to call him, right? More subjective terms. But no kings? I mean, obviously the guy isn't a king.

229.723 - 233.668 Paul Kengor

So I thought the whole premise was really just kind of fatuous nonsense.

233.75 - 244.789 John Bickley

Right, and there's positive connotations with a king. We want the return of the king. There's fascination with the royal family in England for a reason. People actually kind of like this. No Hitlers would have been much better.

245.562 - 267.098 Paul Kengor

Yeah, well, you're making a great point. I mean, actually, historically, there have been good kings and bad kings, right? And they're probably, in fact, to really do, if you wanted to do a deep dive on this, I teach political science at Grove City College in Grove City, Pennsylvania. And the most common form of government in the history of humanity has been monarchy, right?

267.078 - 287.905 Paul Kengor

You know, that all changes with World War I, to make the world safe for democracy. Monarchy was the governing type of government, even in Europe, until 1914. So, there have been good kings, there have been bad kings. I mean, look at, this will be real easy for Americans, St. Louis, right? St. Louis.