Why Some Republicans Think AOC Is Good for Them
The New York Post ran a piece this weekend quoting new RNC chair Joe Gruters, who said that figures like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani are actually good news for Republicans. His reasoning was straightforward. The more radical the left looks, the easier it is for the GOP to win. Extremes scare swing voters. They create contrast. They simplify the message.
In the short term, that logic holds.
RNC Chair Joe Gruters predicted that the Dem Party will go so far to the left that Republicans will become the only sane choice in the upcoming midterm elections, allowing the GOP to retain control of Congress.
“What AOC and Mamdani and others are doing is giving confidence to these … left-wing rogue radicals across the country and giving them confidence to run for these races, which in turn turns their primary battles into who can go further to the left,” Gruters said Sunday on 77 WABC radio’s the “Cats Roundtable.” – New York Post
But it also reveals a problem that too many people on the right seem unwilling to talk about.
If your political strategy depends on the other side nominating its worst people, then you are no longer running on your own ideas. You are running on comparison. You are betting that voters will show up out of discomfort rather than conviction.
That can work. It just does not last.
I keep hearing this assumption creeping in. We won, so momentum will take care of itself. The other side is a mess, so we do not need to explain much anymore. The contrast is obvious, so the rest will handle itself.
That is how movements weaken.
Winning an election is not the same thing as building something durable. It buys you time. It does not buy you permanence.
@JoeGruters Republican Party leader,seems to be doing very little to message what the Republicans stand for and are going to fight against. Who is Joe Gruters?
— Jerry Gunboat (@JGunboat) January 18, 2026
When Contrast Becomes the Platform
Right now, too many candidates are running on attitude instead of substance. They know how to sound tough, they posture well, and they hit all the right cultural pressure points. But when it comes time to explain what they will actually do, what they will prioritize, what they will cut, and what they will leave alone, things start to blur.
Voters should not accept that.
Not because the other side is better, but because the bar should not be set by your opponent’s worst behavior.
Running against insanity is easy. Running a country is not.
What bothers me about Gruters’ comment is not that it is tactically wrong. It shows a kind of comfort that suggests some Republicans now think their job is finished as long as the left keeps embarrassing itself.
That is not leadership. That is waiting for your opponent to trip.
At some point, voters want to know what you are actually for, not in slogans or attitude, but in real terms. They want to know what gets funded, what gets cut, what gets enforced, what gets ignored, and which problems you are willing to own.
Those questions are not glamorous. They do not go viral. They do not generate applause lines.
They are still the job.
One of the quiet dangers of a big win is that it trains people to confuse energy with direction. Energy burns fast. Direction is what actually carries a movement forward.
A movement that only knows how to oppose eventually forgets how to build.
Why This Thinking Backfires
You can already see this dynamic taking hold. There is plenty of talk about fighting. There is much less talk about governing. There is a lot of confidence that the other side will implode. There is very little clarity about what comes next.
That is how momentum fades.
Not through defeat, but through drift.
There is another cost to this way of thinking. It trains voters to treat politics like a sport. You start watching for meltdowns. You start rooting for chaos on the other side. You stop asking what any of this is supposed to accomplish.
A constitutional republic is not meant to function like a reality show. It is supposed to produce adults who make decisions and take responsibility for them.
If your party’s success depends on the other side being ridiculous, then your success is fragile by definition.
What happens when they nominate someone calmer, more disciplined, and less online?
What happens when your favorite villains disappear?
If your only plan is contrast, you have no backup.
This is why I keep coming back to the same concern. A lot of people on the right seem to believe that winning once means winning automatically. They are mistaking a moment for a foundation.
A serious movement does not just beat bad ideas. It replaces them with better ones, explains the trade-offs, sets expectations, and is honest about what is not going to happen as much as what is.
If Republicans want to hold what they have gained, they cannot rely on the left to keep supplying villains. They have to give voters something solid to move toward.
Otherwise, this all becomes reactive, loud, and hollow.
Winning buys you an opportunity. It does not absolve you of responsibility.
If leaders start acting like it does, voters should notice.
