As we watch the radical Left’s insurrection in France and Italy, President Trump’s 2017 speech in Warsaw, Poland, is especially relevant to the 2026 midterm elections. In that speech, he summarized the threats facing the West in simple and clear terms: “The fundamental question of our time is whether the West has the will to survive. Do we have the confidence in our values to defend them at any cost? Do we have enough respect for our citizens to protect our borders? Do we have the desire and the courage to preserve our civilization in the face of those who would subvert and destroy it?”
Substitute “America” for “the West” and President Trump’s challenge puts all the political claims and counterclaims of this midterm election into clear focus. The same alliance of Marxist and Islamist forces that are burning Paris is well established in the United States. The difference is that those who would subvert and destroy our civilization in the United States have no need, at least at this point, for riots and looting. Their insurrection is happening at the ballot box, fueled by the Left’s long-term strategy of using our educational institutions for leftist indoctrination and importing voters who have no loyalty to this country, its values, or the political system designed to protect those values. The rise to political power of radical politicians such as Zohran Mamdani or Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the widely predicted blue wave in November give the radical Left confidence that, owing to the success of the “long march through the cultural institutions” of Cultural Marxism, American voters will bite the hook of Marxism if it is baited with the rhetoric of easy answers to hard questions.
Seen in that light, what is on the ballot in the 2026 midterms is far more than a choice between two candidates in a given race. It is not about which candidate is more likeable or which candidate gives better speeches. What is on the ballot is a choice between two futures characterized by very different visions for America.
In one future, the hard job of restoring and promoting the American values that made America great – the job that President Trump began in 2016 and resumed in 2024 — continues for two more years. In that future, citizenship matters. Border security matters. Having fair and honest elections matters. The opinions and needs of people who work the everyday jobs that keep America running matter more than the utopian visions of self-appointed elites who couldn’t change a flat tire. Our government will do what other governments do, which is to put the needs and interests of its citizens above those of other countries. Content of character and merit matter more than skin color or other demographic characteristics. Our schools do what we pay them to do, which is teaching math, science, and an accurate view of history and not changing the gender of our children or turning them against the values of their parents. In that future, you are free to speak your mind even if elitists in powerful positions disagree with what you are saying. In that future, laws apply to everyone regardless of political connections, beliefs, or power.
In the other future, the globalist elite, radical leftists, and the Islamists who hate America seize power and carry out their authoritarian transformation of this country. In that future, our borders reopen and the flood of people with no loyalty to this country or respect for its laws or citizens will determine the outcomes of all future elections. The votes of American citizens will be swamped, Puerto Rico and DC will become states, and the radical left will have four more senators. America will descend into one-party government run by the political and bureaucratic elite who will decide what you can earn, what you can drive, what you can eat, what information you can have, and what you can say because they know better than you how you should live. Those politicians and bureaucrats will use their power to suppress opposing thoughts and the people who express them. Your right to defend yourself will be gone.
Like it or not, in practical terms the first of those two futures depends on the Republicans being able to maintain their majorities in both the House and Senate. Frustration with the slow progress of the MAGA agenda might tempt voters who gave Trump a landslide in 2024 to sit this one out, and turnout figures so far suggest that is the case. But punishing the Republicans will answer the question of America’s survival in the negative.
If it is action you want, you will see action if the Democrats seize one or both houses of Congress, and that action will look like the authoritarian future described above. Vote as if the survival of America is on the ballot, because it is.
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