Transcript

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

From Morning Wire · Episode page · Watch on YouTube

· 16 min · 2,885 words · 32 timestamped sections

This is the full, timestamped transcript of "Mobs, Messaging, and Midterms: What 2025 Revealed About The Left", an episode of Morning Wire published December 27, 2025 (16 min, about 2,885 words). It mentions 7 people, works and ideas, including American Spectator, Paul Kangor, Daily Wire (company), Grove City College, Institute of Faith and Freedom.

What is discussed, and when

  1. – 3:00: American Spectator, Daily Wire (company), Paul Kangor, Grove City College
  2. – 6:00: Grove City College
  3. – 9:00: American Spectator
  4. – 12:00: Democratic Socialist of America
  5. – 15:00: Ronald Reagan
  6. – 15:35: American Spectator, Daily Wire (company), Grove City College, Paul Kangor

Notable quotes from "Mobs, Messaging, and Midterms: What 2025 Revealed About The Left"

  • 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…
    about American Spectator · at
  • 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.
    about Institute of Faith and Freedom · at
  • Left. They're not Democrats, right? They are Democratic socialists. They are DSA. They are the Democratic Socialists of America, which if you go to the DSA's website, calls…
    about Democratic Socialist of America · at
  • Movement? The MAGA movement. What does MAGA stand for? Make America great again. That was actually Ronald Reagan's slogan in 1980. In fact, I recently went back and was looking…
    about Ronald Reagan · at

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

  • Paul Kangor — Person · 3 mentions · first at
    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.…
  • Ronald Reagan — Person · 1 mention · first at

Companies & orgs

Full transcript with timestamps

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.

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 How. This is a special edition of Morning Wire. The Daily Wire Shop's best deals of the year are still live and you can get up to 70% off. Save big on items like the Golden Leftist Tears Tumbler, Truth Bomb Golf Club covers, the collected poems of Donald J. Trump, plus hats, t-shirts, hoodies, and a whole lot more. And if your order tops 100 bucks, free shipping. Head over to dailywire.com/shop right now. That's dailywire.com/shop.

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.

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

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?

Well, I I mean, it's hard to judge that, right? I mean they did uh you 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 if the you to use an old Soviet word agit prop right agitation and propaganda. If the idea was to agitate with their propaganda they did. 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 I thought frankly silly and you know the first time John that I even heard the idea or the phrase no kings it was from my wife and and I and I said no kings I no kings I said are they talking about Trump she said yeah they're talking about Trump who else right and I and I thought yeah but I mean of all things why don't they do go with their old thing right? No dictators, right? Uh, you know, no fascists, you know, no

democracy destroyers or whatever, but but no kings. It's just it's like patently ludicrous on its face. I mean, everybody knows that Trump is not a monarch, right? I I mean, you know, the first kind of thing you do in sloganering and marketing, you come up with a 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? Marriage equality from the LGBTQ people, right? Even an old group like, you know, the 1930s, 1940s Communist Front Group, the American League against War and Fascism, right? Who isn't against war and fascism? 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 them, you know, a racist, a bigot, a narcissist, a brain jackass, whatever you want to call them, right? More [snorts] subjective terms, but no kings. I mean, obviously, the guy isn't a king. So, I thought the whole premise was really just kind of fatuous nonsense, 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.

Yeah. Well, you're making a great point. I mean, actually, there are I mean, historically, there have been good kings and bad kings, right? And 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 the most common form of government in the history of humanity has been has been monarchy. You know, that all changes with World War I to make the world safe for democracy. monarchy was a governing um rule of type of government even in Europe until 1914. So there have been good kings, there have been bad kings. I mean look at um this will be real easy for Americans. St. Louis, right? St. Lewis, I mean [snorts] that king, the Louis, not the bad Louis the 14th or Louis V 16th, you know, uh, Leas Ma, you know, in the 1700s, the time of the French Revolution, but in the 1200s, that King Louie was a saint canonized by

the Catholic Church. So, so there have been good there have been good. Yeah. St. Trump even even in Britain right now, right? Kate and um, for forget which one she's married to, but they're popular, right? They're popular.

Well, it's not Harry. It's the other guy. It's the other guy. That's right. It's not Harry and Megan. [clears throat]

All right. So, in terms of marketing strategy, maybe not a great move, but they were very active. They were organized. Does it seem like the left and Democrats have become better organized over the course of the last year or not? There's always been a sense that they do have a high level of of activism and organization. Are they in a better position going into 2026 than they were in 2024 and 2025? Well, I think they're just natural activists, right? They're natural idologues. They're natural agitators. In fact, um, you know, Ben Shapiro and I talked about this the last time we we spoke. We're talking about Russell Kirk, the conservative mind and conservatism. And Russell Kirk famously said that conservatism should not beh called an ideology. It's more an attitude, right?

The idea of like an enduring moral order. Um whereas ideology is for idologues and ideologues are on the left right so when you think of ideology and idologues you think of you know the French revolution you think of radical progressives and so for the American left they're just doing what they always do and so in a way no kings was just the latest manifestation of whatever slogan or protest movement they wanted to come up with I thought a silly one but um yeah so you could the one thing you can count on you know sure is the sun coming up tomorrow is that American leftists are going to go out and act like leftists, which means they're going to go out and protest and uh often act like uh like like a mob. Um who was it? The famous um monarchist Eric von Kunholt led said something like uh this is why he was this is why he was pro monarchy and anti-democracy and he said um the you know the mob is the mob

is never a Nero. No, the mob is always a Nero. It's never a Marcus Aurelius, right? And uh and that's what the left is good at. It's good at organizing mobs.

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 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 the sort of ideologue approach of activism pointing to practical results?

Yeah. In fact, you're making a great point because Trump most definitely is not an ideologue, right? Probably not.

And [snorts] Trump doesn't follow really a specific ideology. And you know, other conservatives like Robert Nisbbit have said, "Well, Kirk, you're overdoing it." Right? Conservatism is an ideology, right? We get what you mean about ideologies for ideologues and ideologues around the left. All right, we got it. But it's about a system of ideas. So you would really call it a modern political ideology. And in that sense, Reagan was um a conservative in terms of ideology. But Donald Trump is kind of, you know, outside of ideology, right? Uh he he actually brags about not reading much. I don't know that he reads National Review. He probably doesn't read National Review at all. Um, I think he reads our magazine, The American Spectator, every now and then, but I doubt he's read The Conservative Mind by Kirk or a book like that. Trump is really kind of a common sense practitioner, um, businessman who I I don't know what

his IQ is. You could tell it's a high level of intelligence, a high level of energy. Um, my the founder of the American Spectator, RM Material Jr., always says, "What is Trump?" Trump is somebody who first and foremost loves America, right? Um, if there was any ism for Trump, it might be nationalism. It might be patriotism, but it wouldn't be so much conservatism. To maybe uh 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?

Well, you'd have to predict that they would lose seats, right? I mean, they they just they typically do and so I would expect that. So, it's probably only going to be a matter of how many seats. But on the other hand, you know, the American left is not popular. The Democrats are not popular. In fact, even within the Democratic party, uh the biggest defeats that the Democrats have had in the last few months have been at the hands of Democratic socialists. someone like a Zoran mom Donnie in New York. Um the the woman who won the mayoral seat in Seattle, is it Katie Wilson? I think it might be the name. Um they are challenging Karen Bass, the Democrat um mayor in in Los Angeles. So these are people coming from the far left. They're not Democrats, right? They are they are Democratic socialists. They are DSA. They are the Democratic Socialists of America, which if you go to the DSA's website, calls itself the

largest socialist organization in the United States. They're running as Democrats to transform an Obama term, right? Fundamentally transform the Democratic party from within. So, it's um they've been successful lately, maybe even more so than the Democrats in that sense, the you know, the kind of farther left. But um I'm getting a little bit off subject from your question. I would expect the Republicans in the midterm to lose seats because that's just simply what happens in midterms for the party and the in the presidency. It's only a question of how much and we'll have to wait and see.

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?

A lot. Yeah, a lot of it might be messaging. And in fact, this circles back to our original point about no kings. Trump can't even abolish the Department of Education, right? Because Congress has veto power. If Trump was a king, he'd be able to do all the things that he wants to do. And when you're talking about executive orders, I mean, no one did executive orders like FDR. Um, I mean, he could have probably you, you know, thrown the term king FDR more at FDR than you could have a Donald Trump, Woodro Wilson, uh, LBJ. Yeah, these guys, Joe Biden, right?

Obama, these guys were masters of the executive order. So, a [snorts] lot of this is really just kind of hot air by by liberals and Democrats. But for Trump, yeah, a lot of it might be messaging, pushing an idea, pushing ideas, but legislatively probably not getting all that much done. Frankly, foreign policy could be a difference as it always is, which is one of the reasons for one of his great successes so far has been the Abraham Accords because that's something he was able to do on his own with his staff and without, you know, King Trump's approval of uh of his national assembly.

Final question. You've written a lot on Reagan and Trump himself has talked about the comparisons between himself and Reagan. Every Republican president is 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. Does he still have a presence that's powerful and effective in this party in terms of inspiring people?

Well, I would say you can look at the enduring impact. What do we call Trump's movement? The MAGA movement. What does MAGA stand for? Make America great again. That was actually Ronald Reagan's slogan in 1980. In fact, I recently went back and was looking through my book, The Crusader, on Ronald Reagan and the fall of communism because it was the basis of the Reagan movie um starring Dennis Quaid. And so I went back, I'd written that book 20 years ago. And I went back, John, just to try to kind of familiarize myself because I was going to be doing interviews. And I think part two of the book was called Make America Great Again. And I thought, gee, that's exactly right. That's, you know, that was Reagan's slogan. I actually have a a button, a campaign button in my office.

someone gave me with Reagan's faces, make America great again. So, that shows that it's still Reagan's impact and and Reagan is the standard bearer of the party. Look, um you and I are probably old enough to remember Republican parties around the country, Republic in different states, localities, counties. They hold Lincoln Day dinners. Uh they now call most of those Reagan day dinners. And I don't think they'll be calling them, nothing against Trump, but Trump Day dinners. And Reagan was reelected by winning 49 out of 50 states. You know, the electoral college 525-13.

Twice won New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, California, even Massachusetts twice. So, I think um I think Reagan's still the standard.

Yeah. And I've seen the left their attempts to tear down this myth. I remember a book titled that about Reagan. They've failed to do so and he continues to be very powerful. And the film that was based off your book, it's an excellent film. We love Quaid. We love that production. It was great to see that having a lot of cultural relevance now and the ability to make movies like that now, which we hadn't seen for decades.

Well, it's hard. I mean, it's hard to raise the money. Yeah, it's hard to raise the money. And in fact, if I would just tell people here right now, um, support conservative filmmakers because it took us 20 years to make a movie about the icon of the conservative movement, about this American icon of the Republican party. When Ruth Bader Ginsburgg died, there were already three scripts ready in Hollywood, all fully funded. All right, we need to support conservative filmmakers. And I think that's something Daily Wire has been doing, and it's very, very important.

Well, we appreciate that shout out and yeah, it's something we do for sure find very important and central to our business. Paul, thank you so much for joining us. Just a total delight to talk to you.

Same here, John. Anytime. Give me a call. Happy to come back. That was Paul Kangor, editor of the American Spectator and professor of political science at Grove City College. This has been a special edition of Morning Wire.

Questions about this episode

What is discussed in "Mobs, Messaging, and Midterms: What 2025 Revealed About The Left"?

In order: 0:00 American Spectator, Daily Wire (company), Paul Kangor, Grove City College; 3:00 Grove City College; 6:00 American Spectator; 9:00 Democratic Socialist of America; 12:00 Ronald Reagan; 15:00 American Spectator, Daily Wire (company), Grove City College, Paul Kangor.

What is mentioned in this Morning Wire episode?

7 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including American Spectator, Paul Kangor, Daily Wire (company), Grove City College, Institute of Faith and Freedom, Democratic Socialist of America. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "Mobs, Messaging, and Midterms: What 2025 Revealed About The Left"?

The episode runs 16 min; the transcript is about 2,885 words in 32 timestamped sections.

More from Morning Wire

About this transcript: the episode's spoken words as captioned on YouTube, split into timestamped sections. Reclip.Me locates every person, work and idea in the text, keeps the time it is first named, and quotes the words around it verbatim. Last updated January 24, 2026.