Have you noticed? Everyone’s on edge these days. Way more so than normal.
It’s the Era of Pins and Needles.
Liberals are on edge by nature: When you’re ideologically hardwired to oppose the status quo, focusing on faults is your casus belli — your raison d'être — and, uh, lots of other foreign phrases I could Google.
So we expect liberals to be on edge. It’s their natural state. (Be weirder if they weren’t.)
And not so coincidentally, it’s also their professional calling card: The more they exaggerate an emergency, the easier it is to justify immediate government action.
Which is why EVERYTHING is an emergency. It’s why we we’ve been told since 1989 that we only have 10 to 20 years to save the planet. It’s why grandma’s eating dogfood, the American Dream is almost over, everyone’s a racist, and everything’s teetering towards apocalyptic collapse.
How many times have we been told it’s “the worst [fill-in-the-blank] since the Great Depression”?
Women complain about men avoiding chores with weaponized incompetence. Well, for liberals, they pass bills via weaponized panic: Hysteria = legislation.
This is what liberals do.
Not so for conservatives. We lean into the ethos of rugged individualism, Reaganesque optimism, and an indomitable faith in American goodness. Our patriotism isn’t performative; it’s part and parcel of how we’re hardwired.
(Not all: “Panicans” certainly exist. But in broad strokes, conservatives aren’t the ones running around with their hair on fire.)
But nowadays, even conservatives are on edge. And in conservative media, it’s a full-on civil war:
Don’t worry, Megyn. I’d never ask you to protect me. You won’t even protect Charlie Kirk’s widow from the monster accusing her of murdering Charlie. https://t.co/EBATwm57os
— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) March 12, 2026
What are they arguing about?
Israel. Iran. Qatar. Antisemitism. White nationalism. Isolationism. Neocons. Nazis. Genocide. Charlie Kirk. Jeffrey Epstein. Conspiracy theories.
It’s unprecedented. We didn’t see Rush Limbaugh bashing William F. Buckley. It would’ve been unimaginable!
But very clearly, Ronald Reagan’s 11th commandment is dead.
Of all the aforementioned trigger points, it’s extraordinarily revealing how few will be top-five political issues in 2028 — yet MAGA’s most influential media personalities are at each other’s throats like never before. Most of those issues are background noise at best.
And stuck in the middle? None other than JD Vance.
He doesn’t want to choose sides. He’d rather inherit an intact MAGA movement — where there’s room for RFK Jr., Joe Rogan, Ben Shapiro, Mark Levin, and Tucker Carlson.
But each faction wants “daddy” to weigh in and punish the other.
Nobody knows what JD Vance really believes about the Iran War. After all, the vice president’s job is to support the decisions of the president; it’s not to freelance.
Speculation, however, is rampant:
ABC News: Trump Says He and Vance Are ‘Philosophically’ Different on Iran War
CNN: Vance’s Distance From the Iran War Is Getting More Conspicuous
The Hill: Vance Declines to Detail His Advice to Trump on Iran War: It’s ‘Classified’
Politico: Vance Was ‘Skeptical’ Voice in White House on Iran Strikes
New York Magazine: Is JD Vance Feeling Left Out of Trump’s Big New War?
Daily Beast: JD Vance Is Desperate to Distance Himself From Trump’s War
What would a JD Vance administration look like? Did he lobby the president against bombing Iran? Does it matter that Tucker Carlson’s son is on his staff — or does it unmask something noteworthy about Vance’s values?
Nobody knows.
Famously, Barack Obama’s dunderheaded vice president advised him not to strike Osama bin Laden. It happens: Sometimes veeps and presidents disagree on risk-reward calculations.
It’s not necessarily disqualifying.
What’s far more troubling is when there’s a fundamental disagreement over values. Tucker Carlson’s worldview and/or value system is very different from Ben Shapiro’s, and it’s unclear if they’re reconcilable. It could be that we’ve reached a fork in the road…
…Unless, of course, those panic-prone Democrats make such jackasses of themselves in 2028 with loony-tune policy proposals, Republicans don’t have a choice but to stay together.
That’s probably what JD Vance is hoping for: Whatever differences there are between the various factions and personalities within the MAGA movement will pale in comparison to the differences between us and the open-border, gender-is-fake, sanctuary-city Democratic Party.
Because it’s still a binary election: Us or them — and the Dems will almost always be more ridiculous than we are. Count on it: They’ll be hysterical, hyperbolic, and over the top.
That’s what panic-prone people do!
But before you get to Election Day, you’ve still got to win the nomination. There’ll be debates, interviews, and hard questions. Not everything can be neatly divided in the middle.
Eventually, JD Vance will need to disappoint one side in the MAGA media civil war, absorb the fallout, and then help the movement heal, because if we’re not at full strength in 2028, the Democrats will win the White House.
Vance is wise to wait. Right now, it’s not his job to say or do anything, other than faithfully serve the president. And hey, maybe this will be resolved on its own. Sometimes, if you procrastinate long enough, the garbage takes itself out.
Perhaps by 2028, the media civil war will be over, and there’ll be no need for Vance to get his hands dirty.
But that seems unlikely. Too much bad blood, hurt feelings, and wounded egos — along with a media ecosystem that incentivizes conflict and controversy.
Which means, it’s probably more likely that it’ll get worse.
Professional provocateurs are paid to provoke. As long as that’s the profit model, what realistic hope is there for reconciliation? Conflict and controversy is good for business.
About 60 years ago, Ronald Reagan delivered his “A Time for Choosing” speech: “You and I have a rendezvous with destiny.”
Destiny awaits all of us. Some decisions can’t be postponed indefinitely.
Clowns to the left of me
Jokers to the right
Here I am, stuck in the middle with you—Stealers Wheel
Eventually, it’ll be time for JD Vance to choose, too.
One Last Thing: 2026 is a critical year for America First: It began with Mayor Mamdani declaring war on “rugged individualism” and will reach a crescendo with the midterm elections. Nothing less than the fate of the America First movement teeters in the balance.
Never before have the political battlelines been so clearly defined. Win or lose, 2026 will transform our country.
We need your help to succeed!
As a PJ Media VIP member, you’ll receive exclusive access to our behind-the-paywall content, commentating privileges, and an ad-free experience. VIP Gold gets you the same level of “insider access” across our entire family of sites (PJ Media, Townhall, RedState, twitchy, Hot Air, and Bearing Arms). That means: More stories, more videos, more content, more fun, more conservatism, more EVERYTHING!
And if you CLICK HERE and use the promo code FIGHT you’ll receive a Trumpian 60% discount!
Thank you for your consideration.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member