1) “Anytime someone in the conservative movement says we need to do more to help families and young people, the…

1) “Anytime someone in the conservative movement says we need to do more to help families and young people, the immediate assumption is that they are calling for socialism” Depends what you mean by “do more.”

Terry Schilling 🇺🇸@Schilling1776 · Aug 17, 2026

We’re not socialists for noticing families are priced out of the American Dream. The real socialists defend a system redistributing trillions to bureaucrats, NGOs & the powerful while first-time homebuyers hit age 40. Time to fix it. x.com/i/article/2089…

2) “I view this as bad faith—an effort to protect the current corrupted system rather than confront what it has become.” Always fun to see allegations of bad-faith IMMEDIATELY followed by ACTUAL bad faith.

3) “America is not the pure free-market, capitalist nation we have been told it is” Virtually nobody on the Right thinks or claims it is, but thanks for sharing.

4) “we must identify the problems families and young people are actually suffering” Unless one of those problems happens to be an economically-illiterate president making most of what they buy more expensive through illegal executive power grabs?

5) “Are taxes too high on productive people? Are government programs inflating the cost of housing, healthcare, and education? Are higher-education subsidies producing more debt and credentials than knowledge?” All things normal conservatives have been calling out my whole life.

6) “stop the bad policies and the spending that created the crisis. Eliminating what is broken frequently does more good than layering on another program” Again, virtually every conservative, including everyone opposed to Vance and his ilk, ALREADY UNDERSTOOD AND AGREED ON THIS.

7) “How do we turn workable solutions into a winning coalition” Perhaps we start by recognizing the public thinks the fruits of the current president and his sidekick y’all wanna coronate are a dumpster fire?

8) “You are not a socialist for noticing that young people and families are being priced out of the economy in large parts of America. You are not a socialist for wanting to fix these problems” Again, nobody said you are.

9) “You are closer to a socialist if you defend the present system that redistributes trillions every year to people and institutions that have not earned it” Again, who on the Right is defending anything of the kind?

10) “whether we will let zombie Reaganism, which even Reagan rejected, keep our hands tied and seal our fate” This is a strawman, and not a terribly original or clever one. I know of nobody who thinks every present challenge is perfectly analogous to everything Reagan faced...

...or thinks “just copy Reagan” is some kind of all-purpose answer. But conservatism is in large part about recognizing that while circumstances & practicalities & strategies may change with the times, principles don’t...

...the ASPECTS OF Reagan that conservatives advocate emulating are the timeless principles and wisdom that don’t change, that remain applicable in every generation.

11) Case in point: Trump 1’s biggest economic successes stemmed from following them, and Trump 2’s rejection of them in the areas of spending and trade is not going very well, to say the least.

12) If Terry insists he’s not a socialist, great! But he should take a moment to reflect on how many of the ills he has bizarrely lumped together as “the system” are COMPLETELY unrelated to Reaganism, to conservative free-market orthodoxy...

..., or anything else Trump and Vance’s conservative critics have EVER believed or advocated. He should also be willing and able to recognize that there is a small-yet-vocal faction on the Right who do express hostility to bedrock conservative principles of liberty...

...limited government, & free markets, that they are largely convinced JD agrees with them, and that Vance has signaled enough common ground with them that, AT THE VERY LEAST, he should answer questions about all of this before handing him the most powerful office on the planet.