On Friday morning, I joined Todd Piro on Fox & Friends First to talk about the Republican message heading into the 2026 midterms. My point was simple: You can be populist without being socialist.
Washington has a habit of making simple things complicated. Voters are not grading the economy from a White House press release. They are looking at the grocery bill, the gas pump, and what happens when an insurance company denies a claim. If Republicans want to win, people need to see results in their own lives.
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How Republicans can be populist without being socialist
Border security remains a Republican strength. Affordability is where the party is vulnerable.
Republicans should explain what President Donald Trump inherited, what has changed since the election, and how those changes affect the prices families actually pay. If your family still feels squeezed, being told that the statistics look good will not cut it.
Healthcare may be the clearest example. Todd cited internal polling presented to Senate Republicans showing voter anger over insurance-company profits, denied claims, poor transparency, and long wait times. That anger is justified. The answer, though, is not to put another federal bureaucracy between patients and doctors.
I want patients to control their own healthcare money through patient-controlled health savings accounts. Let the patient make the decision, then make the insurance companies and other middlemen compete for that business.
That is the kind of populism I believe in. Take power away from institutions that have made basic services more expensive and give it back to the people paying the bills. Secure the border. Rebuild American industry. Make the middlemen compete.
A fight over progressives organizing in Uruguay
We also discussed progressive Democratic lawmakers and candidates who traveled to Montevideo for the PanAmerican Congress. Participants there talked about building an international coalition against right-wing political forces.
Democrats have every right to oppose Trump in Congress, on television, and at the ballot box. I said that plainly. But traveling overseas to organize foreign political allies against the policies of an elected American president crosses a different line.
Todd also pointed out that Democrats held an advantage on the generic congressional ballot cited during the segment. I do not take that lightly. Republicans will not close that gap with slogans or another round of investigations. They need a disciplined argument and results voters can recognize.
There is a lesson in the Democratic Party’s own history. In 1948, former Vice President Henry Wallace opposed President Harry Truman’s hard line against Stalin and accepted the Communist Party’s endorsement. Eleanor Roosevelt, Hubert Humphrey, and labor leader Walter Reuther helped form Americans for Democratic Action, excluded communists, and backed Truman. Wallace finished with just 2.4 percent of the popular vote.
Democrats once understood that a political party has to draw a boundary around its radical flank. Republicans should make them answer for where that boundary is now.
Why this conversation matters to the 4Liberty Network
I founded the 4Liberty Network because I want to restore the Barry Goldwater wing of the Republican Party. That means constitutional government, individual liberty, and American sovereignty. It also means confronting socialism without copying it or building a bigger Washington bureaucracy of our own.
Putting healthcare money back in the hands of patients is a practical example of that mission. So is demanding measurable results from Republican leaders instead of accepting excuses because they happen to come from our side.
Republicans have unfinished work to do. Give voters a clear agenda, tell them how success will be measured, and then deliver. That is how we can be populist without being socialist, and how we can earn the trust of people who are tired of being asked to settle for another campaign slogan.
Watch my full Fox News appearance above, then read The Goldwater Revival Starts Now to see where the network is headed. You can also follow the 4Liberty Network shows for daily reporting, debate, and the work of rebuilding a serious liberty movement inside the Republican Party.