Mark Penn

Tariff Turnaround

Perhaps the easiest way for a turn around in public opinion would be a 6 month slashing of virtually all tariffs. A temporary pause in view of inflation and Mideast tensions. And add that retailers must turn the benefits over to consumers.

Stock market would soar. Prices ease. Interest rates could come down. Public opinion on inflation would change as companies offered tariff rebates. And room created to deal with the Mideast.

Iran Lobby

What is it with the Iran appeasement group centered in the DSA and spreading through the Democratic Party and even some Republicans?

This regime has waged a terror war against Israel, the United States and in Europe since 1979, killed a thousand or more of our troops in Iraq, funded terrorism throughout the world including building up the proxy networks of Hamas and Hezbollah, is seeking nuclear weapons, rules its own people against their will and kills them at the slightest protest. They even tried to assassinate the President.

It’s like the 1930s all over again in which Stanley Baldwin and Neville Chamberlain first let Germany rearm, then gave them Austria and then part of Czechoslovakia. Little by little they believed they bought peace in our time until Germany could not be stopped and took Poland. And the British public loved it, nearly turning Churchill out of office before the war.

And Americans hate Iran — by 8/65 or so it is the most despised country by far. And yet it seems this movement is happy to endanger Israel as appeasement as though Iran has any plan at stopping at regional and even global domination of an autocratic theocracy. Iran tells you their policy of going after big Satan and while we have new Congressmen now who won’t even condemn them, they are sending teams to disrupt our society and bomb our bases and ignite antisemitism.

So we all want lower gas prices but it’s clear that this group internally is following the appeasement playbook to the letter, calling for abandoning virtually any and all efforts at stopping Iran — from letting them rearm without real limits to summarily ending even the threat of military force and now putting our own military leadership on trial. In their wildest dreams the Iranian despots could not have imagined a better outcome for them.

History can and will repeat itself. Last time about 85 million died before they were stopped compared to what could have happened if Germany had never been allowed to rearm. And if you don’t believe it can happen, the failure to deter Russia when they first invaded Ukraine under Obama has now cost about 600,000 lives.

Impeachment Mania

No evidence, no hearings. And Democrats think it’s a free vote that scores political points.

The Secretary of War is charged with no real high crimes — it’s just a political swipe by a disgruntled and disaffected congressman and the Democrats are all too happy to go along for the ride.

The more educated we get, the stupider our politics and politicians become. Impeachment has gone from a serious matter reserved for real issues to a circus. As detailed in profiles in courage, one senator from Kansas saved the president and restored impeachment to its proper status. (Ironically over who can fire the Secretary of War)

If you want to censure someone or complain, fine, pass such a resolution. But enough Democrats should join with Republicans to return impeachment to its proper position. After all, what goes around comes around.

Stop the War?

Time to end the draft and bring our soldiers home from Iran where they are dying by the hundreds in trench warfare and house-to-house combat.

Oh wait. We are not doing any of that. The “war” is a naval blockade to get the Iranians to give up nuclear and terrorist ambitions. At its peak we also had an air campaign directed at military and leadership targets but we stopped it in exchange for fake promises.

Mostly we have been engaged in endless negotiations and memorandums of understandings while the Iranians regained their footing and kept their resolve to kill big and little Satan. The Iranians are so confident now in their success they are not negotiating at all. They killed tens of thousands of their own people to keep their iron grip. They are laughing at America that can’t take a temporary $1 increase in gasoline prices to get rid of the world’s top sponsor of terrorism and instability.

The President should set out his non negotiable demands of no nukes, no strait, no terrorist funding, no long range ballistics, and then resume bombing if they don’t agree until they do.

And democrats want to lower the cost of gasoline? Who could possibly believe that after they spent 20 years choking off the supply of domestic energy over climate change. Check the price of gas in California.

So the current fashion is to end the war with nothing, cut off Israel, and lower the cost of gasoline. That’s a strategy? Enable nuclear and other terrorism that will ultimately swallow the region, travel to Europe and then here? Or stop it now that you can when they are weak and have alienated all the gulf states and go for real stability. That’s an actual strategy that will pay us back for decades to come.

And as to affordability — suspend the gas tax, drop interest rates, suspend tariffs, provide temporary tax breaks for energy use, reform the student loan program and push for big affordable housing programs beyond the recent bill.

As to “war,” finish the job while we can. And explain why to the American people.

More Coming In

Definitely a blue wave that undid much of 2024 shifts as Blacks, Hispanics and Young Men headed back to the Democrats pretty much across the country. A 10 to 13 point shift.

This was a record expenditure and it’s clear the Democrats got their messages through and went on offense against the administration on inflation, healthcare, corruption, ICE. They had no actual programs but the negative frame got through. The Republicans had it all but those in Congress had no real agenda of any substance that people could fight for or back.

The Republicans then largely played defense and had no offense. They stuck largely to 2024 rhetoric and with the border closed it did not answer the questions and issues people had in 2026 as opposed to 2024.

The President and VP led a big turnout operation and they got the vote out but this was a swing election and we learned these new groups were experimenting with the Republicans in 2024, not adopting them for life.

And sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, meaning people had high expectations in 2024 and in 2026 saw a divided country, and no matter how good the economic numbers may look compared to 2022, they felt unhappy due to the cumulative effects of inflation and saw tariffs and other policies as working against them and not for them. The dems won the message war and got their voters back…for now.