
Republicans Must Stop Blaming the Deep State and Start Delivering Results
Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content.
I don't want to hear another excuse.
Not another, "The deep state's holding us back."
Not another, "We can't move too fast."
Not another, "Wait until after the midterms."
Why? Because Republicans literally control Washington. Every lever of power that matters—from the White House to the House of Representatives to the Senate—is in our hands. The executive pen. The committee gavels. The agenda. The messaging. All of it. So if we don't use it now, we have nobody to blame but ourselves.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, House Speaker Mike Johnson, President Donald Trump pose after Trump signed the Big Beautiful Bill Act at the White House in Washington, D.C., on July 4, 2025....
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, House Speaker Mike Johnson, President Donald Trump pose after Trump signed the Big Beautiful Bill Act at the White House in Washington, D.C., on July 4, 2025. More
BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images
Let me be clear: I get the frustration with the so-called deep state. I've talked about it, written about it, and called it out. But at some point, it becomes a crutch—a convenient way to explain away slow movement, weak messaging, or flat-out cowardice.
It's time we stop running scared. Because this is the moment the Republican Party has been waiting for.
President Donald Trump is back. Conservatives hold the House and Senate. We have a rare, historic opportunity to go big—and go fast. The window is tight. Midterms are around the corner. Every day we waste is one we don't get back.
We saw what happens when we blow this kind of moment. I was 12 when Republicans had full control in 2017 and 2018. What did we do with it? Sure, we cut taxes (and that was a big win), but we also watched Paul Ryan's House fumble a repeal of Obamacare after campaigning on it for seven straight years. We watched Senate Republicans fold under pressure and waste time trying to play nice with Democrats. We watched momentum die.
We don't have the luxury of learning that lesson twice.
This time around, we better work like we've only got two years—because we might. The media is already gearing up their midterm hysteria. The Democrats are raising millions to claw their way back. And Republicans? We should be sprinting through our conservative checklist:
—Lock in immigration reform that ends catch-and-release and finishes the wall.
—Drastically and permanently cut waste, fraud, and abuse, and bring down our suffocating debt.
—Slash regulations that are strangling small businesses.
—Rein in the weaponized federal agencies.
—Pass school choice legislation that empowers parents, not bureaucrats.
—Defund DEI and climate cult nonsense.
—Make work cool again by rewarding productivity—not freeloading.
—Finally bring the administrative state to heel by firing the dead weight and putting real patriots in charge.
The passage of the Big Beautiful Bill was a major step in the right direction. No more taxes on tips. No more taxes on overtime. Finally, a Republican bill that rewards hard work and defends working-class families. But let's be very clear: that can't be the end of the story—it has to be the start. The BBB should be the launching pad for a legislative sprint, not a victory lap we take for the next six months.
If any Republican can't get excited about that list—or worse, can't fight for it—they need to get out of the way.
We don't need speeches. We need spine.
We don't need meetings. We need motion.
And we definitely don't need more blame games.
You know what wins elections? Results. You know what keeps Gen Z engaged and proud to vote conservative? Momentum. I talk to young people every day who are sick of politics-as-usual and fired up for a bold, unapologetic Republican Party. But if we go soft now—if we let fear or laziness sink in—we'll lose them. Maybe forever.
So no more feet dragging. No more "wait and see." No more excuses.
Republicans control Washington. Now let's control the narrative—and the future.
Let's pass everything we can between now and the midterms. If we get lucky and keep the majority in 2026, that's bonus time. But don't count on it. Plan like this is all we've got—and leave it all on the field.
Because the country is watching. And so is history.
Brilyn Hollyhand is a 19-year-old political commentator, bestselling author of One Generation Away: Why Now is the Time to Restore American Freedom, and host of The Brilyn Hollyhand Show. For more of his hot takes you can follow him on socials @BrilynHollyhand or visit BrilynHollyhand.com.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


USA Today
5 minutes ago
- USA Today
Cleveland Guardians respond to Trump's post about restoring 'Indians' team name
The Cleveland Guardians have been the Guardians for four seasons now. The Washington Commanders have been the Commanders for five seasons, approaching their sixth. Both teams have evolved beyond past their previous monikers, and everyone thought the argument surrounding cultural appropriation, insensitive names, and racist caricatures was done with. Nope. The dialog was back in the news Sunday, July 20, courtesy of President Donald Trump. Via a post on Trump's Truth Social, the president claimed that the Native American people want the names reverted back. "There is a big clamoring for this," wrote Trump. "Our great Indian people, in massive numbers, want this to happen. Their heritage and prestige is systematically being taken away from them. Times are different now than they were three or four years ago." "The Washington 'Whatever's' should IMMEDIATELY change their name back to the Washington Redskins Football Team. There is a big clamoring for this. Likewise, the Cleveland Indians, one of the six original baseball teams, with a storied past. Our great Indian people, in massive numbers, want this to happen. Their heritage and prestige is systematically being taken away from them. Times are different now than they were three or four years ago. We are a Country of passion and common sense. OWNERS, GET IT DONE!!!" − Donald Trump via Truth Social Trump also expressed his own desire to see the names changed back, calling on each team's owners to "GET IT DONE!!!" However, despite the president's pleas, the Guardians seem uninterested in going back in time. Cleveland Guardians respond to Trump's comments In a meeting with reporters Sunday, Guardians' president of baseball operations Chris Antonetti said that he was unaware of Trump's statements prior to the meeting and that changing the name back to the 'Indians' was "not something [he has been] tracking or [has] been paying a lot of attention to." "We've gotten the opportunity to build the brand as the Guardians over the last four years and are excited about the future," said Antonetti. Cleveland's PBO is obviously hinting at the idea that the team does not plan on returning to the Indians' moniker any time soon. Antonetti did note that he understands the different perspectives people may have on the name change, but did not provide any indication that the team plans on reverting to its former name. Trump's history with Cleveland baseball Trump has been involved with Cleveland's MLB franchise for over four decades at this point. The President even attempted to buy the team back in 1983, but his deal was eventually rejected. Since the name change, Trump has been adamant that the change was a mistake, claiming that the decision was made only as a means to be "politically correct" when it was first announced. During his election campaign in 2024, Trump continued expressing his discontent with the change. While speaking at a rally in Ohio, Trump compared the name 'Cleveland Guardians' to a group of people "in charge of a trust fund." Have the Washington Commanders made a statement? Not yet. That said, they likely will not be reverting to their former name either. Since new Commanders owner Josh Harris took control of the team in 2023, he has maintained a staunch stance that his team will not be returning to their former name. Harris has previously stated that the name has been "embraced by our team, by our culture, by our coaching staff," expressing a strong connection with the brand and looking to build a future with the organization as it currently is. That said, Harris has admitted that he has considered bringing back some remnants of the team's former namesake, such as throwback uniforms.

Los Angeles Times
5 minutes ago
- Los Angeles Times
Texas Republicans aim to redraw House districts at Trump's urging, but there's a risk
AUSTIN, Texas — U.S. Rep. Vicente Gonzalez, a Texas Democrat who represents a slice of the Rio Grande Valley along the border with Mexico, won his last congressional election by just over 5,000 votes. That makes him a tempting target for Republicans, who are poised to redraw the state's congressional maps this week and devise five new winnable seats for the GOP that would help the party avoid losing House control in next year's midterm elections. Adjusting the lines of Gonzalez's district to bring in a few thousand more Republican voters, while shifting some Democratic ones out, could flip his seat. Gonzalez said he is not worried. Those Democratic voters will have to end up in one of the Republican districts that flank Gonzalez's current one, making those districts more competitive — possibly enough so it could flip the seats to Democrats. 'Get ready for some pickup opportunities,' Gonzalez said, adding that his party is already recruiting challengers to Republicans whose districts they expect to be destabilized by the process. 'We're talking to some veterans, we're talking to some former law enforcement.' Texas has 38 seats in the House. Republicans now hold 25 and Democrats 12, with one seat vacant after Democratic Rep. Sylvester Turner, a former Houston mayor, died in March. Gonzalez's district — and what happens to the neighboring GOP-held ones — is at the crux of President Trump's high-risk, high-reward push to get Texas Republicans to redraw their political map. Trump is seeking to avoid the traditional midterm letdown that most incumbent presidents endure and hold onto the House, which the GOP narrowly controls. Trump's push comes as there are numerous political danger signs for his presidency, both in the recent turmoil over his administration's handling of the Jeffrey Epstein case and in new polling. Surveys from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research show most U.S. adults think that his policies have not helped them and that his tax cut and spending bill will only help the wealthy. The fear of accidentally creating unsafe seats is one reason Texas Republicans drew their lines cautiously in 2021, when the constitutionally mandated redistricting process kicked off in all 50 states. Mapmakers — in most states, it's the party that controls the Legislature — must adjust congressional and state legislative lines after every 10-year census to ensure that districts have about the same number of residents. That is a golden opportunity for one party to rig the map against the other, a tactic known as gerrymandering. But there is a term, too, for so aggressively redrawing a map that it puts that party's own seats at risk: a 'dummymander.' The Texas GOP knows the risk. In the 2010s, the Republican-controlled Legislature drew political lines that helped pad the GOP's House majority. That lasted until 2018, when a backlash against Trump in his first term led Democrats to flip two seats in Texas that Republicans had thought safe. In 2021, with Republicans still comfortably in charge of the Texas Legislature, the party was cautious, opting for a map that mainly shored up their incumbents rather than targeted Democrats. Still, plenty of Republicans believe their Texas counterparts can safely go on offense. 'Smart map-drawing can yield pickup opportunities while not putting our incumbents in jeopardy,' said Adam Kincaid, executive director of the National Republican Redistricting Trust, which helps coordinate mapmaking for the party nationally. Republican Gov. Greg Abbott called a special session of the Legislature, which starts Monday, to comply with Trump's request to redraw the congressional maps and to address the flooding in Texas Hill Country that killed at least 135 people this month. Democratic state lawmakers are talking about staying away from the Capitol to deny the Legislature the minimum number needed to convene. Republican Atty. Gen. Ken Paxton posted that any Democrats who did that should be arrested. Lawmakers can be fined up to $500 a day for breaking a quorum after the House changed its rules when Democrats initiated a walkout in 2021. Despite the new penalties, Democratic state Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer, who led the walkout in 2021, left open the possibility of another. 'I don't think anybody should underestimate the will of Texas Democrats,' he said. Texas is not the only Republican state engaged in mid-decade redistricting. After staving off a ballot measure to expand the power of a mapmaking commission last election, Ohio Republicans hope to redraw their congressional map from a 10-5 one favoring the GOP to one as lopsided as 13 to 2, in a state Trump won last year with 55% of the vote. Some Democratic leaders have suggested that states where their party is in control should counter the expected redraw in Texas. 'We have to be absolutely ruthless about getting back in power,' former Texas Rep. Beto O'Rourke said Sunday on CNN. But Democrats have fewer options. More of the states their party controls do not allow elected partisans to draw maps and entrust independent commissions to draw fair lines. Among them is California, where Gov. Gavin Newsom has floated the long-shot idea of working around the state's commission. The few Democratic-controlled states that do allow elected officials to draw the lines, such as Illinois, have already seen Democrats max out their advantages. Trump and his allies have been rallying Texas Republicans to ignore whatever fears they may have and to go big. On Tuesday, the president posted on his social media site a reminder of his record in the state in the November election: 'Won by one and a half million Votes, and almost 14%. Also, won all of the Border Counties along Mexico, something which has never happened before. I keep hearing about Texas 'going Blue,' but it is just another Democrat LIE.' Texas has long been eyed as a state trending Democratic because of its growing nonwhite population. But those communities swung right last year and helped Trump expand his margin to nearly 14 percentage points, a significant improvement on his 5½-point win in 2020. Michael Li, a Texas native and longtime watcher of the state at the Brennan Center for Justice in New York, said there's no way to know whether that trend will continue in next year's elections or whether the state will shift back toward Democrats. 'Anyone who can tell you what the politics of Texas looks like for the balance of the decade has a better crystal ball than I do,' Li said. One region of the state where Republican gains have been steady is the Rio Grande Valley, which runs from the Gulf of Mexico along much of the state's southern border. The heavily Latino region, where many Border Patrol officers live, has rallied around Trump's anti-immigration message and policies. As a result, Gonzalez and the area's other Democratic congressman, Henry Cuellar, have seen their reelection campaigns get steadily tighter. They are widely speculated to be the two top targets of the new map. The GOP is expected to look to the state's three biggest cities to find its other Democratic targets. If mapmakers scatter Democratic voters from districts in the Houston, Dallas and Austin areas, they could get to five additional seats. But in doing so, Republicans face a legal risk on top of their electoral one: that they break up districts required by the Voting Rights Act to have a critical amount of certain minority groups. The goal of the federal law is to enable those communities to elect representatives of their choosing. The Texas GOP already is facing a lawsuit from civil rights groups alleging its initial 2021 map did this. If this year's redistricting is too aggressive, it could trigger a second complaint. 'It's politically and legally risky,' Li said of the redistricting strategy. 'It's throwing caution to the winds.' Riccardi and Lathan write for the Associated Press and reported from Denver and Austin, respectively.


New York Post
5 minutes ago
- New York Post
Trump rages over CBP officer shot in the face by illegal migrant in NYC: ‘Democrats have flooded our Nation with Criminal Invaders'
President Trump raged at sanctuary city policies after an off-duty Customs and Border Protection agent was shot in the face in New York City during a robbery — allegedly committed by an illegal migrant. Trump also ripped Dems for flooding 'our Nation with Criminal Invaders.' The Department of Homeland Security named the suspect in the Saturday night robbery in upper Manhattan as Miguel Francisco Mora Nunez. He entered the US illegally under the Biden administration hand was never deported, despite multiple arrests. 3 President Trump spoke out Sunday after a CBP officer was shot in the face by an illegal migrant. AP 'Last night, in New York City, an incredible CBP Officer was shot in the face by an Illegal Alien Monster freed into the Country under Joe Biden. He was apprehended at the Border in April 2023 but, instead of being deported, was RELEASED,' the GOP president said on Truth Social. 'The CBP Officer bravely fought off his attacker, despite his wounds, demonstrating enormous Skill and Courage. 3 Miguel Francisco Mora Nunez, 21, has a lengthy rap sheet and a deportation order. Obtained by NY Post 3 A still from video of the incident at a New York City park. Obtained by NY Post 'The Democrats have flooded our Nation with Criminal Invaders, and now, they must all be thrown out or, in some cases, immediately prosecuted in that we cannot take a chance that they are able to come back. That's how evil and dangerous they are!' The federal agent, 42, and a female companion were sitting on a rock near the Hudson River in Fort Washington Park when they were ambushed by two men on a moped shortly before midnight, police sources said. After a brief struggle, one of the suspects opened fire and struck the victim in the face and left forearm, leading the agent to pull his own gun and fire at the perps, hitting the suspect. The agent is expected to live. This is a breaking story. Please check back for updates.