Republicants Are Losing Another PR Battle - A Tradition As American As Apple Pie

There are two parties in this country.

One party is the Demoncrats. Virtually everything they promote is evil and wicked, from abortion, which is the legalized murder of babies, to gender dysphoria, which obliterates God’s design, to usury through excessive taxation.

The other party is the Republicants. They always have an excuse for why something can’t be done. Enforcing basic immigration policy can’t be done because America is allegedly a nation of immigrants. This policy or that policy can’t be enacted because of this reason or that. Where the Dems always seem to find a way, Republicants always seem to find an excuse. It’s just like what Thomas Sowell said, “Republicans’ favorite exercise is running for the hills.”

This explains nearly every political failure on the Right. Democrats are ruthless about outcomes. Republicans are paralyzed by explanations.

Here’s another Republican can’t to consider: why can’t Republicans win an easy public relations battle?

It’s because Republicans confuse being legally correct with being politically effective.

In Minneapolis, Republicans are winning the legal battle. The Trump Admin has every Constitutional right to use some federal muscle to enforce standard immigration policy. Sure, liberal downcourt judges will occasionally gunk up the system, but that can easily be cleaned out, and the machine will keep rolling. But legal victories alone don’t win elections. PR victories do.

In fact, PR victories lead to legal victories.

Chaya Raichik, creator of Libs of TikTok, used her social media presence to help change the narrative surrounding the LGBTQ movement. People could see for themselves that the movement was not a wholesome quest for inclusion. It is actually something much more vile and sinister, far more predatory of children. By putting their lunacy on display, Raichik helped to change a national narrative about the LGBTQ insanity, leading to the overturning of Roe and saving the lives of millions of babies.

The same pattern played out with immigration.

Laken Riley, a University of Georgia nursing student, was murdered two years ago by a Venezuelan man who was in the country illegally. Republicans rightfully pounced on the opportunity to change the narrative about immigration. Trump’s promise to deport illegal aliens was one of the issues that helped him become the first Republican to win the popular vote in 20 years. Later, the Laken Riley Act was codified into law. PR victory leads to legal victory.

Back to Minneapolis.

Republicans are once again winning the legal battle, but losing the PR one. And it might cost them the midterms.

Polling numbers suggest declining support for Trump’s immigration policy and ICE amid the shooting death of Renee Good in Minneapolis. Quinnipiac University, a left-leaning but still fairly reliable pollster, says that 40% of voters approve of how U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is executing immigration laws, compared to 57% disapproval. A YouGov poll showed that 42% of respondents disapprove of ICE, while 39% approve. Another YouGov poll says 51% agree that ICE’s tactics were too forceful. In a weird case of deja vu, 46% says they would support the abolishment of ICE, similar to how BLM supporters wanted to abolish the police six years ago.

The law is in favor of the Trump Administration: ICE has the right to be in Minneapolis, the officer had the right to shoot Renee Good after being struck with her vehicle, while activists and agitators do not have the right to impede law enforcement. But for the general public, none of that matters. It’s all about how things look and how they feel. It’s a shame, but it is the political reality in 2026.

Apple pie, baseball, fireworks, and losing public support. Failure for Republicans to control the narrative is an American tradition. Republicans have been losing the PR battle for nearly a century.

Take Herbert Hoover. Hoover did not cause the Great Depression, but he lost the narrative. Democrats successfully branded economic collapse as a uniquely Republican failure, even though many of the policies that worsened the Depression were bipartisan or purely Democratic. Hoover believed facts would speak for themselves. They never do. Franklin Delano Roosevelt, meanwhile, mastered the art of reassurance and storytelling. Fireside chats beat spreadsheets every time.

Or consider George W. Bush after Hurricane Katrina. Bureaucratic failures spanned multiple levels of government, including Democrat-run Louisiana and New Orleans. But Republicans lost the PR war so badly that Kanye’s quote, “Bush doesn’t care about black people,” became a cultural meme. The truth was irrelevant. The optics were decisive.

Even Mitt Romney in 2012 offers another example. Yes, Romney was a spineless neoconservative, but he was competent with a strong family, clean personal life, and successful business record. Yet Democrats painted him as a heartless plutocrat who had “binders full of women” (remember that controversy?). Republicans barely fought back. Democrats won on emotion.

This is the Republican disease: an obsession with being technically correct while losing the moral imagination of the public.

It’s not enough to diagnose the problem without offering a solution. So what is the path forward?

President Trump is starting to lay out the blueprint.

In a recent press conference, Trump held up pictures of illegal aliens apprehended in Minnesota.

President Trump is making all the reporters at the press conference look at all pictures of the Criminal Illegals that ICE has apprehended. pic.twitter.com/seTKLAg2gb

— GreatLakesLady (@GreatlakesladyM) January 20, 2026

“I can show you some of the people. Vicious. Many of the murderers. These are all out of Minnesota. Just Minnesota. I say, ‘Why don’t you talk about that more?’ Because people don’t know. You want to live with these people?”

It’s often not until a problem personally confronts us that many people are willing to acknowledge it exists at all. Immigration is a dire problem, but people won’t realize it until it is at their front doorstep.

So put it at their front doorstep. Show the criminals, show their faces.

And this is where Republicans must finally learn the lesson they have refused to learn for decades: winning policy without winning the story is a losing strategy.

First, Republicans must stop acting like PR is beneath them. Politics is downstream from culture, and culture is downstream from stories. If conservatives refuse to tell stories, the Left will happily lie in their place.

Second, Republicans must personalize the consequences of bad policy. Do not talk about “border encounters.” Talk about dead daughters, raped women, fentanyl poisoning communities, overwhelmed hospitals, and bankrupt cities. Put faces to policies, like the Laken Riley Act. Name names. Show mugshots.

Third, Republicans must embrace moral clarity. Stop using the language of bureaucrats when the situation calls for the language of pastors. Evil is not an abstract idea. It’s real. It’s personal. Lawlessness destroys communities. Nations have borders. God is not confused about any of this.

Fourth, Republicans must fight every day, not just during election season. The Left never stops campaigning. Conservatives retreat to their think tanks, talk radio stations, and podcast studios and hope voters will remember them in November. Some of them will, many of them won’t.

President Trump understands this better than any Republican in modern history. He understands that images matter, that repetition matters, that confrontation matters. When he holds up photos of criminal foreigners, he is forcing the public to see what corporate media works tirelessly to hide.

This is how Republicans win the PR battle. Not by running for the hills, but by standing their ground.

If Republicans fail to learn this lesson—again—it will not be because the law was against them. It will be because they surrendered the story.

And in American politics, losing the story is a tradition as American as apple pie.

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