Think More: Monday, May 18, 2026
Davidson reads Britain's local elections as the drift toward civil war, Smarick on Republican governors leading higher-education reform, Republicans pursue a double-digit House swing post-Callais, and seven more pieces worth reading.
Davidson on Britain’s Drift Toward Civil War
John Daniel Davidson • The Federalist
Davidson, senior editor at The Federalist, reads Reform UK’s 1,400-seat gain and Labour’s 1,300-seat loss in early-May local elections as the collapse of British right-left politics. Nigel Farage called it a historic shift. King’s College London war studies professor David Betz warns that electoral mobilization by the disaffected is an early symptom, not a cure. More than 100 independent Islamopopulist candidates also won municipal seats.
Smarick on Why Republican Governors Should Lead Higher-Ed Reform
Smarick, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, argues that just as Wisconsin’s Tommy Thompson on welfare and Tennessee’s Lamar Alexander on K-12 led the two great domestic policy reforms of the past generation, Republican governors should now lead the rescue of higher education. Public trust has collapsed. Governors control the boards of public four-year universities attended by 87 percent of students. Nearly two-thirds of those students live in states President Trump won in 2024.
Republicans Pursue a Double-Digit House Swing
With redistricting mostly settled, Republicans are positioned for a double-digit House-seat swing in 2026. The Supreme Court’s decision in Louisiana v. Callais (2025) narrowed Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act and disallowed race-based congressional districts. The Louisiana Senate has already passed a new map eliminating a majority-Black district. South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster called a special session on redistricting. Alabama, Tennessee, and Virginia have followed.
Blanche Confirms Multiple 2020 Fraud Investigations in Georgia and Arizona
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche told Maria Bartiromo on Sunday that the Department of Justice has multiple active 2020 election fraud investigations in Arizona and Fulton County, Georgia. “There’s a ton of evidence the election was rigged.” Blanche said the work is slow because the people responsible are “very good at hiding misconduct.” FBI Director Kash Patel has promised arrests are coming soon.
Grassley Continues the Arctic Frost Oversight
Sen. Charles Grassley • Senate Judiciary Committee
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, in partnership with Senator Ron Johnson, has scheduled a series of Arctic Frost hearings throughout 2026. The oversight will examine the constitutional and legal implications of the Biden-era Federal Bureau of Investigation and Special Counsel Jack Smith investigation that targeted more than four hundred Republican members of Congress.
SPLC Curriculum Reaches Nearly 200 School Districts
A Defending Education investigation found that the Southern Poverty Law Center’s K-12 curriculum, originally called Teaching Tolerance and renamed Learning for Justice in 2021 because “tolerance is not justice,” has been integrated into the lesson plans and standards of nearly 200 school districts and 30 state government entities across 42 states and the District of Columbia. The federal indictment of SPLC for wire fraud earlier this year has not slowed the curriculum’s classroom penetration.
Conservatives Press Trump to Test Frontier AI Before Release
Emily Hallas • Washington Examiner
More than sixty Trump-affiliated conservatives, including Steve Bannon, signed a letter organized by the group Humans First urging an executive order requiring mandatory government testing, evaluation, and approval of the most powerful AI models before deployment. “Nuclear materials are strictly controlled. Aviation systems undergo rigorous certification.” The letter follows agreements by Google, Microsoft, and Elon Musk’s xAI to grant the government early national-security access.
Brandtjen on the Pratt Approach
Brooke Brandtjen • The American Mind
Reality-television figure Spencer Pratt is polling in second place in the Los Angeles mayoral race behind incumbent Karen Bass. Brandtjen reads his viral “Not Like Us” campaign ad, contrasting Bass’s untouched home with the charred lot where Pratt’s Palisades house stood and the trailer he now lives in, as the kind of emotionally direct conservative communication the right needs. Mamdani in New York was the negative version.
Rasmussen on the Freedom to Walk Away
Scott Rasmussen • Napolitan News Service
A Napolitan News Service survey of 1,000 registered voters conducted May 13 and 14 found 73 percent of Americans believe it is appropriate for a corporation to leave a state because taxes are too high, including 79 percent of Republicans and 67 percent of Democrats. Sixty-nine percent endorse leaving for a lower cost of living. The principle of corporate mobility crosses party lines.
Europe Tried Wealth Taxes and Most Gave Up
The Center Square • The Center Square
Europe tried wealth taxes and most countries gave up. The Tax Foundation estimates the largest proposed United States wealth tax would lose more than two-thirds of its projected revenue impact over thirty years owing to avoidance and slower growth. Several legal scholars argue the Sixteenth Amendment does not permit direct taxation of unrealized gains or accumulated wealth without apportionment among the states.
