OPINION:
After the crippling oxygen tank explosion aboard Apollo 13 triggered a cascade of system failure alarms that overwhelmed NASA’s flight controllers, Flight Director Gene Kranz focused his team on a critical question: What did they still have aboard the spacecraft that worked?
Amid all the alarms going off in Republican circles, perhaps we should pause and reflect on that.
At the top of that list are the foundational principles that define Republicanism: a devotion to constitutionally limited government and free markets. Those principles still work, and we must return to them.
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Among the major drivers of voter discontent on Nov. 3 were the impact of the inconclusive Iran war on fuel prices and the impact of arbitrary and excessive tariffs on the economy.
These occurred because we Republicans drifted from our constitutional and free market moorings and allowed them to happen. To recover our country, we must recover our principles.
The Constitution gives Congress the power to declare war, leaving the president narrow independent authority to repel or prevent immediate attacks. There is a practical reason for this: War’s hardships require a high degree of national unity to endure and a high degree of resolve to pursue.
Iranian mullahs with nuclear weapons are a nightmare for humanity that we dare not allow, and the president cannot be blamed for stopping them. Still, our constitutional principles are sound, and we drift from them at our peril.
Similarly, the Constitution clearly places the power to levy tariffs in Congress’s hands, yet over the decades, Congress has surrendered much of that power to the executive. The result has been the arbitrary, unpredictable and economically destructive use of those tariffs, which has sidelined investment, pushed up prices and dampened what would otherwise have been a robust economic recovery.
The president insists that tariffs give him leverage to negotiate better trade deals, but the benefits have been uncertain. Meanwhile, the costs to American consumers, businesses and investment have been substantial.
The Founders gave these powers to Congress because they wanted unity in war and restraint in taxation. Until recently, these have been bedrock Republican beliefs. We should restore them and insist that they remain in congressional hands regardless of who controls Congress or the presidency.
Our constitutional principles still work, and we can recover them. The economic reforms enacted in 2025 are still in place and are starting to work.
In 1981, after the Democrats’ era of malaise, President Reagan enacted major tax and regulatory relief, but he warned that it would take time to work. Republicans suffered major setbacks in the 1982 midterm elections, but Reagan’s reforms helped lay the groundwork for a historic economic expansion and his 49-state landslide reelection just two years later.
The policies in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act are Reaganomics on steroids, but they too need time to work. We are already seeing positive economic trends, but not in time for most Americans to feel them.
If we can put the Iran war and the trade wars behind us, these policies are likely to produce a new “morning in America” in time for the 2028 elections.
What else still works aboard the Grand Old Party? Since its inception, it has stood as the party of freedom. It was the counterforce to slavery in the 19th century and today stands as the counterforce to slavery’s close cousin, socialism.
Socialism is an ideology of envy and greed, and it consistently produces the same results wherever it is applied: misery, poverty, authoritarianism, strife and injustice. Its failures are evident not only abroad but also in our own major cities and states, where socialists have commandeered the levers of government for extended periods.
Americans know this instinctively, because they have been fleeing these results for decades.
Freedom and socialism are antithetical principles, and the two parties have clearly identified themselves. The case for freedom should be the most persuasive ever taken to the American people. Over the next two years, they will decide which course our country will take — and upon this fight, as President Lincoln said, “We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth.”
A great deal still works with the Republican Party — enough to make it safely home in time to save America.
• Rep. Tom McClintock represents California’s 5th Congressional District.
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