Included in the 2025 One Big Beautiful Bill Act is a dollar-for-dollar tax credit, up to $1,700, for contributions to “Scholarship Granting Organizations” that parents can access and use toward paying for private school tuition and fees and other educational expenses. The provision is constructed such that states must choose to opt in to the program, which begins January 2027. As of this writing, per the IRS, 28 states have opted in. Of those 28, 25 are red states and three are blue—Colorado, New Hampshire and Virginia. This partisan imbalance is no accident. The nation’s two major teachers unions—the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association—are cash machines for the Democratic Party. And the last thing they want is parents having any say in where their child receives their K-12 education. The unions have published an “Open Letter to our Democratic Governors” urging them to “say no to the Trump private voucher scheme.” Per the leaders of these two unions, the signatories of the letter, “Public education … is the foundation of a thriving democracy” and vouchers are a betrayal. Amid the celebration of our nation’s 250th birthday, with recitals of the defining words of our founding declaration—our rights to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”—the leaders of the teachers unions declare it un-American that parents should have the right to choose how and where to educate their children. We all should justifiably shudder that minds like this influence the majority of our nation’s children. The results speak for themselves. The Programme for International Student Assessment, administered by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, tests 15-year-olds in 80 countries in math, science, and reading. In the latest available scores, the top five countries are Singapore, China, Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea. The United States ranks 18th behind Poland, Czechia, and Denmark. Per the OECD, U.S. education spending per student in 2025 was $20,387 compared to the OECD average of $15,022. U.S. education spending as a percent of gross domestic product was 5.8% compared to the OECD average of 4.7%. Per the World Bank, education spending as percent of GDP in Singapore, the country with the highest PISA score, was 2.2% in 2024, less than half that of the U.S. Analysis done at the Cato Institute shows inflation-adjusted spending per student in the U.S. increased 140% from 1971 to 2019, while over the same period, test scores in math and reading for 17-year-olds barely moved. A May 2026 study by the Network Contagion Research Institute and the Gevura Fund, which have affiliations with Rutgers University and the University of Maryland, reports: “Combined NEA spending on political activities, lobbying, and contributions to outside organizations totals approximately $175 million in FY2025, nearly 4 times the $45 million spent on direct member representation. PAC records show that 90% of NEA candidate-directed spending and nearly all of AFT’s, has gone to Democrats consistently across decades.” A casual glance at the website of the NEA and the AFT barely turns up a hint about reading, math and science. Both are poster boards for the progressive political agenda. It is no wonder that scholarships and vouchers, tickets for parents and children to education freedom, is a nightmare for the teachers’ unions who are about control, not freedom. A recent study by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute ranks states by the strength and influence of their teachers’ unions. Among the top 25 states rated with the strongest teachers’ unions, only two—Ohio and West Virginia—have opted into the new tax-funded scholarship program. Why are so many of our youth embracing socialism and turning away from the principles of our founding? Look no further than the vice grip unions have on our public schools. Education freedom is vital to America’s future. The new tax-funded scholarship program is a major step in the right direction. COPYRIGHT 2026 CREATORS.COM We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of the Daily Signal.

The United States nation faces threats that extend beyond the familiar divide between Democrats and Republicans. Increasingly, two ideological movements—one on the far left, one emerging on the populist right—share a willingness to undermine the principles that have long defined the American experiment. On one side stands the Democratic Socialists of America, whose influence within the Democratic Party has grown dramatically. This is no longer simply a debate over tax rates or entitlement programs. The party’s activist wing has become increasingly hostile to the ideas that have undergirded the country for 250 years: freedom of speech, religious liberty, private property, free markets and the belief that America is an exceptional nation worth preserving. The political consequences are no longer hypothetical. Democrats have a realistic chance to regain control of Congress in the 2026 midterm elections. Competitive Senate races across North Carolina, Ohio, Maine, Texas, Alaska, and Iowa underscore how narrow the margins have become. If Democrats were to reclaim both the House and Senate, the ramifications would extend far beyond the next two years. The federal judiciary is the clearest example. Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito are both in their late 70s. Should vacancies arise while Democrats control the Senate, the ideological balance of the court could shift for a generation. A new liberal majority would influence constitutional interpretation on everything from executive authority and religious liberty to economic regulation and the administrative state. At the same time, Democrats would accelerate confirmations throughout the federal judiciary, leaving an imprint that would outlast any single administration. Those stakes make recent developments on the right especially consequential. Tucker Carlson has spent recent weeks floating the idea of launching a third political party, arguing that Republicans and Democrats are effectively indistinguishable on issues of war, spending and finance. He portrays America’s two-party system as little more than a single political establishment masquerading as democracy. That argument ignores the most significant policy differences in American politics. Republicans and Democrats remain sharply divided over taxation, judicial appointments, regulation, free markets, energy policy, and the proper role of government. Pretending those distinctions no longer exist requires overlooking the very issues that define modern elections. Carlson’s broader political philosophy has also drifted away from traditional conservatism. Over the past several years, he has increasingly criticized free-market capitalism, questioned longstanding American foreign policy, and adopted a form of economic nationalism that bears little resemblance to the conservative movement’s traditional commitment to limited government and free enterprise. More than likely, Carlson is not seriously preparing to build a viable third party. American political history offers little reason to believe such an effort would succeed. Ross Perot’s independent 1992 campaign remains one of the strongest third-party performances in modern history, yet his Reform Party, launched in 1995, quickly collapsed. The structural realities of American elections overwhelmingly favor two major parties with established fundraising networks, ballot access and national organizations. Rather than constructing an alternative party, Carlson appears to be positioning himself for the aftermath of the 2026 elections. If Republicans lose seats—as the president’s party often does during midterm elections—he can argue that the defeats occurred because Republicans ignored his vision for the party. Electoral losses then become evidence that the GOP should move in his ideological direction. That makes his current rhetoric politically significant even if no third party ever appears on the ballot. Republicans already face the historical disadvantages of defending Congress during a president’s midterm. Voices on the right openly rooting for Republican defeats only increase the likelihood that Democrats, increasingly influenced by their progressive wing, will gain power. Following the nation’s semiquincentennial, the debate should return to first principles rather than political personalities. For 250 years, America’s strength has rested on enduring ideas: constitutional government, individual liberty, private property, free enterprise, religious freedom and peace through strength. Those principles have survived wars, economic crises and political upheaval because each generation chose to defend them rather than discard them. The greatest challenge facing the country may not come from a single ideological movement but from competing factions that, despite their differences, are increasingly willing to abandon those foundational principles. If the United States is to thrive to its 300th anniversary, its 500th and beyond, it will depend not on charismatic personalities or political factions but on whether Americans remain committed to the ideals that made the republic possible. COPYRIGHT 2026 CREATORS.COM We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of the Daily Signal.

From May 30 to June 9 this year, I traveled to Israel with a group, seeing holy sites and hearing from survivors of the Oct. 7, 2023, terror attacks. When Iran and Israel began exchanging fire, my phone buzzed. Rockets. I ran to the stairwell of my Jerusalem hotel. Another guest shared a video showing a missile being intercepted above the hotel. Several minutes passed, and we got the all-clear. Back at my balcony, I watched commuters driving down the highway, buses making routes, and joggers in the morning sun. This experience was jarring for an American. For Israelis, it was simply part of daily life. American influencers often paint Israel as a shady actor, while legacy media show a war-torn Jewish state divided along ethnic and religious lines. While good-faith criticism is important, the reality is far more complex. I spent 10 days in early June traveling with a group across Israel and hearing from survivors of the Oct. 7, 2023, terror attacks. We found a nation varied in culture and religion, and a people scarred by war—but still hoping for peace. Unlikely Unity After a full day of travel, we reached Jerusalem and set out for “The Shuk”: a bustling nighttime market with dozens of restaurants and bars. We found people of all different cultures drinking, dancing, and singing. Some of the Israelis noticed we were Americans and broke out in chants of “USA.” Several days later, we traveled to the Dead Sea. There, we met several young Palestinians. They were intrigued to meet Americans, asking our ages and where we were from. They were from the West Bank, specifically the conflict-ridden town of Nablus. One tried to give me his hat. Two leaned in and whispered, “Palestine love USA.” We also traveled through one of Israel’s largest Arab cities, Nazareth—the hometown of Jesus. It is home to the Basilica of the Annunciation, one of the largest Christian churches in the Middle East. Leaving the church, the Islamic call to prayer rang from all directions as thousands of Muslims lived and worshiped freely. Within Israel, there were roughly 1.82 million Muslims as of 2024, according to Statista. Meanwhile, one estimate found fewer than 25,000 Jews across the entire rest of the Middle East in 2026. This religious diversity is perhaps most evident in the Old City of Jerusalem. At the center of the city sits the Al-Aqsa Mosque, a holy site for Muslims. Directly below, thousands of Jews and some Christians gather to pray at the Western Wall of the Temple Mount. Here, the world’s three major religions worshiped side by side. Meanwhile, children as young as 4 years old ran and played in the streets. They were unattended and unworried, even during wartime. Hope Amid Horror The morning of Oct. 7, 2023, Israelis in the desert villages on the Gaza border awoke to sirens. This was nothing new. With just 10 to 15 seconds of warning, they headed to their safe rooms. Naor Hasidim and Sivan Elkabetz, partners aged 23, were at home in the Young Generation neighborhood of Kfar Aza. They quickly realized the danger this time was real. “Dad, is your whole house locked?” Sivan texted her father. “We’re hearing lots of gunshots here. What’s going on?” “The army is handling the terrorists,” he replied. Hamas captured the village in an hour, and it took another hour for the first soldiers to respond. Terrorists began raiding the Young Generation neighborhood around 9:36 a.m. Naor sent the couple’s last text at 11:13 a.m.: “They shot at the house. Any soldiers?” Soon after, Naor and Sivan were dead. After Hamas invaded, the Israel Defense Forces took three days to eliminate the terrorists. More than two and a half years later, Naor and Sivan’s house remains almost exactly as it did on that fatal day. I walked through the front door, and death fell heavy upon my shoulders. The kitchen sat in disarray—dirty dishes still in the sink, flanked by shattered glass and broken appliances. Bullet holes peppered the ceilings. Crime scene photos, too gut-wrenching to mention, lined the walls. In the back room where Naor and Sivan hid for hours, clothes lay strewn across the floor. A torn and battered mattress looked up from the ground, a reminder of the couple’s final moments. I prayed as I left the home. Outside, the rest of Naor and Sivan’s neighborhood still bears the signs of mayhem and murder. Our group stood before long-time Kfar Aza resident Shachar Shnurman and his wife, who both miraculously survived the attack. They walked us through the homes where their neighbors once lived. We stopped at the edge of the community, set apart from Gaza by only a barbed-wire fence. “You can’t destroy a nation,” Shnurman said. “Doesn’t matter what all the smart people in the world say … This is going to be my neighbor for the next 100, 200, 300, 400 years.” The Hamas attack on October 7 ended up killing more than 1,200 people, most of them civilians—the largest slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust. In Kfar Aza, terrorists killed 62 residents and 18 security personnel, taking 19 civilians hostage. Despite his grief and loss from October 7, Shnurman held out hope for peace. “You don’t have to love me, I don’t have to love them,” he said of the Gazans. “But to live in a place that no one wants to kill you … After that, we learn to love each other. It’s a bonus.” We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of the Daily Signal.

Communism is an evil philosophy. Communist regimes have killed hundreds of millions of people and made millions more live in a police state. But somehow, speaking ill of communism alarms the same journalists who constantly suggest democracy is in peril under President Donald Trump. Authoritarianism is bad—unless it’s communist. Trump denounced communism in a July 3 speech underneath Mount Rushmore in South Dakota. A three-person team at Associated Press—Steven Stone, Steve Peoples, and Michelle Price—penned a story headlined: “Trump hails U.S. exceptionalism before veering into darkly political speech to usher in America 250.” AP began by claiming Trump offered “soaring rhetoric about American exceptionalism before veering into a darkly political speech with warnings about a sinister threat of communism that evoked one of the country’s ugliest chapters.” Trump said communism was a “mortal threat to American liberty.” That’s considered “darkly political,” even if it’s factual. American liberty and Soviet communism were polar opposites in the Cold War: democracy and tyranny. Somehow, reporters don’t like “dark” words about Stalin and Mao and Castro and Pol Pot. They were somehow never a “sinister threat” to anyone. As for the ugliest chapter? The AP trio lectured: “Indeed, Trump’s language evoked the Red Scare of the 1950s, when alleged communists were persecuted and blacklisted from jobs across America, from Washington to Hollywood.” This is a mind-boggling sentence. They’re still saying “alleged communists”? Every journalist should have taken the time to learn that there were communist spies in the federal government and there were communists in powerful positions in Hollywood. Leftist journalists spent decades claiming Alger Hiss wasn’t a Soviet spy, but post-Soviet records clearly established he was. There is a shelf of books underlining the evidence, including “Blacklisted by History” by M. Stanton Evans. As for the entertainment world, Allan Ryskind, whose father was a Hollywood screenwriter, wrote an engrossing book that came out in 2015 called “Hollywood Traitors” about the communists who infiltrated the movie business. Sen. Joseph McCarthy might have gotten the number of Soviet spies wrong, but journalists have spent decades ridiculously pretending the number was zero. It’s a little humorous that this anti-anti-communist story was picked up online by both NPR and PBS. NPR’s headline was “In Mount Rushmore speech, Trump veers from U.S. exceptionalism to warnings about communism.” The PBS headline put communist “threat” in quote marks, like it was crazy talk. Right after their “Red Scare” laments, the AP scribes uncritically added, “Mayor Zohran Mamdani, a democratic socialist, delivered his own address that cast America as a nation of contradictions, ‘working each day towards the perfection in which it was conceived.'” That’s their only Mamdani speech quote in this piece. Mamdani has openly spoken of seizing the “means of production,” but that would only make him an “alleged communist.” Graham Platner identified himself as a communist on Reddit, and Darializa Avila Chevalier spoke warmly of Marx and communist dictators on her X account “Darializabonet,” until she took it down. But an AP Fact Check genius wrote an article objecting to anyone claiming there are communists in the Democratic Party, because none of them were actually members of the Communist Party. They missed the obvious point: They’re pro-communist members of the Democratic Party. Journalists who constantly smear Trump and his supporters as “fascists” (with no fuss from the “fact checkers”) find it “darkly political” when someone does a version of what they do—except conservatives have the actual facts on their side. COPYRIGHT 2026 CREATORS.COM We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of the Daily Signal.

A little over a year ago, I saw what is easily my favorite election polling graphic of all time. The picture showed the results of a citywide poll on the mayoral election in New York. Conducted by Emerson College Polling, the survey measured support for three candidates, with their percentages reflected in the snapshot. At the time (May 23-26, 2025) former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo led the field, with 54% of voters. State Assemblyman (and eventual winner) Zohran Mamdani followed closely with 46%. And New York City Comptroller Brad Lander trailed with an embarrassing 0%. Now, the hilarity of the graphic was undermined a bit by the fact that it was somewhat misleading. Those results represented the final (10th) round of the poll’s ranked-choice voting simulation, after all other candidates had been eliminated and undecided voters had been excluded. That is to say that Lander’s goose egg at that point was a foregone conclusion of the polling methodology, not a reflection of his actual support. That said, the first round of the simulation was embarrassing enough for Lander, albeit not as embarrassing as the results showing that not even his mom would waste her vote on him. Cuomo led Mamdani 35% to 23%. Lander followed in a distant third, with just 11%. Either way—0% or even 11%—the results of the polling (and then of the election itself) were just desserts for Lander. As the city’s comptroller, Lander was “by law the custodian of City-held trust funds and the assets of the New York City Public Pension Funds,” served “as Trustee on each of the funds,” and was “delegated to serve as investment advisor by all five pension boards.” In other words, then, he was the guy in charge of deciding how and where the city’s public pensions funds were invested. With a master’s degree in Anthropology and Urban Planning and a professional background as an advocate for “affordable housing,” one might wonder what made Lander think he was qualified to handle the management of the city’s nearly $300 billion in pension assets. The short answer is that he wasn’t qualified. He was elected. And he was elected specifically because he intended to use the comptroller’s office to make a name for himself and, if possible, to springboard himself to higher office. Lander took office on January 1, 2022, at the height of the ESG (environmental, social, and governance investing) craze. He immediately got to work embedding ESG in the city’s pension plans and, by extension, embedding himself in high-profile, media-generating controversy. He immediately made net-zero and decarbonization a priority, creating a climate transition plan for the pension system that was overtly and aggressively political: “Every investor,” the plan frantically (and erroneously) explained, “is exposed to climate risk, but no single investor can protect themselves from it. That’s why investors must take action together. With aligned action, we can limit global temperature rise, saving lives and investment value. Without aligned action, we will likely burn up millions of lives and trillions of dollars.” In his first year in office, Lander demanded that the Securities and Exchange Commission create and implement a mandatory corporate climate reporting rule. He sent a letter to BlackRock CEO Larry Fink (of all people) demanding that Fink do more to honor his commitments to sustainability. And he signed a letter insisting that Republican state financial officers quit trying to undermine ESG. In his second year in office, Lander announced that he would use the pension system’s proxy votes to demand corporate decarbonization and focus on the energy “transition.” In his third year in office, Lander announced that he would be running for mayor. Later, after Donald Trump was reelected and while every private asset manager and bank was announcing its withdrawal from every global climate alliance it had joined, Lander moved in the opposite direction, making his opposition to Trump known by having the NYC Pension System join the Net-Zero Asset Owners Alliance. In short, Brad Lander had a plan. He intended to run for higher office, and he decided that politicizing New York City’s pension plans was how he would make that happen. He announced his intentions just over halfway through his term and continued to put pension funds at risk by playing political games as he campaigned for mayor. In fiscal year 2025, for example, while Lander was both the comptroller and the wannabe mayor, New York’s pension plans returned 10.3%. While that number easily beat the plans’ 7% return target, it also trailed the S&P 500’s returns by 5%. Even accounting for the fact that pension plans are more diversified than the S&P, that raises serious questions about the opportunity cost of Lander’s political game-playing. The good news is that the people of New York saw through Lander’s gambit. The Emerson College poll had the first-round numbers backward for Cuomo and Mamdani, but it was spot on in identifying Lander’s support. As predicted, the Comptroller won exactly 11% of the vote and was swiftly eliminated from the race. The bad news is that Lander is not stupid. Even before he lost—sensing that he would—he threw his support behind Mamdani, cross-endorsing the eventual winner before election day. Lander knew his numbers were far from impressive on their own, but if they were added to the frontrunner’s, they would virtually guarantee a Mamdani victory. Mamdani, in turn, rewarded Lander’s faith and foresight by endorsing the former comptroller in his race to unseat sitting Democratic Congressman Dan Goldman, who represents New York’s 10th Congressional District. Interestingly, that race against Goldman (which resulted in a huge Lander victory roughly three weeks ago) shows how quickly and how profoundly the Democratic Party is changing. For more than a century now, the Democrats have been the allies of organized labor and public employees. Both groups have been unwavering members of the Democratic coalition since at least FDR and more likely since Woodrow Wilson. Yet Lander’s tenure as NYC Comptroller was a de facto rebuke of those constituencies and their interests. Lander—like many in the Democratic Socialists of America universe—differentiated himself from his opponent specifically on the question of support for Israel. Lander, who is Jewish, attacked Goldman, who is also Jewish, for being a sellout to Israel and President Donald Trump. The Trump charge was preposterous, given that Goldman is himself extremely left-wing and has made a point of being confrontational in his interactions with the administration. The Israel charge stuck, however, which is why Lander even outperformed his new political patron in New York’s 10th Congressional District (Lander won 65% of the Democratic vote in the District, while Mamdani won 60% there last November). This, then, is the state of the Democratic Party in the year of our Lord 2026: when faced with a choice between two candidates, both extremely liberal, voters will choose the challenger over the incumbent by more than 2-to-1. They will do so even if the challenger has a demonstrated record of disregard for his previous job and for his constituents at that previous job, two core Democratic constituencies. The issue that matters most to Democratic primary voters—at least in New York’s 10th Congressional District—is the Israel-Palestine question. Support Israel, and your career is over. Support the Palestinians, by contrast, and a multitude of other sins can be forgiven and forgotten, even if those sins include turning city pensions into a political cudgel. That campaign poll graphic is still hilarious, largely because it shows the level of support that Brad Lander deserved, given his politicization of the city’s pensions. Unfortunately, voters tend to have short attention spans, and Lander is now having the last laugh.