The GOP Has Become a Single-Issue Party. The Issue Is Elite Impunity.
This dynamic is also apparent in the GOP’s slavish devotion to AI billionaires. The class divide on this topic is sharp—regular Americans are increasingly concerned about the potentially devastating impact of AI on their jobs and their kids’ economic prospects, and they sure as hell don’t want parasitic AI data centers raising their electricity prices and fouling their water. But the Epstein class loves this plutocracy-enriching technology, so the GOP jumped into action. Your community wants to hold AI billionaires accountable for the harmful effects—mass unemployment, suicide, cognitive decline, climate breakdown—of their products? Not while the party of elite impunity is in charge. Twice last year, Republicans in Congress tried to pass a law preventing state and local regulation of AI. Democrats were able to defeat both efforts, but in December Trump signed an executive order to bypass Congress by, among other measures, directing his government to mount legal challenges to state AI laws and withhold federal funds from jurisdictions that are regulating AI.
Then there’s climate change. Millions of voters are already feeling the pain of skyrocketing home insurance rates driven by increased climate risks, and millions more are confronted each year with the staggering costs of climate disaster recovery, without any help from the corporations that created and profited from this crisis. So communities across the country have been pursuing state legislation and litigation to make fossil fuel companies pay for the damages they caused—the homes swallowed by the sea, businesses wiped off the map by inland flooding, communities destroyed by wildfires, lethal heat waves, horrific droughts, and other catastrophes. In response, Big Oil has been begging for a get-out-of-jail-free card, with the American Petroleum Institute explicitly naming Big Oil immunity one of its top priorities in 2026. Naturally, Republicans have answered the call, with the administration filing multiple legally unhinged lawsuits to try to stop states from pursuing accountability litigation and congressional Republicans recently announcing that they are crafting legislation to block communities from having their day in court.
On issue after issue, the GOP has gone to the mat to shield the most powerful and wealthy individuals and entities from legal consequences for their misdeeds. Surely Democrats should be making this a central part of their messaging this year?
