[WASHINGTON, D.C.] — J.D. Vance delivered what insiders are calling the party equivalent of “please stop singing Macarena at the reunion” — telling the Republican Party to ditch the vintage talk of “post-Cold War wins and libertarian open borders” because, honestly, Americans are tired of losing their jobs and finding asylum seekers next door. “We can govern the country successfully for the next generation,” Vance intoned, before flicking at an imaginary vinyl recording of “Old GOP Greatest Hits.”
He continued: “We don’t want jobs going overseas, and we don’t want open borders where anyone can stroll in and start voting in the next city council race. That’s not our playlist.” At the same time, a small, bewildered faction of traditional party members quietly added “Remember ‘Compassionate Conservatism’?” into their mental shopping carts.
One veteran lawmaker said, “We thought the memo meant ‘go back to basics’. Turns out it meant ‘update the firmware’.” At the coffee machine in the House basement, staffers whispered “revision 3.0” and “no feature parity with 2005.”
Faith-respecting conservatives applauded the message: Jobs, sovereignty, and identity matter more than who fries the 2006 API docs for best practices in “political realignment.” As one pastor-turned-staffer said, “It feels like we’re tuning a guitar from steel to classical — still stringed, still American, just… less squeaky.”
Final punchline: The GOP’s jukebox was stuck on “liberty, justice, foreign outsourcing.” With Vance at the mic it’s now shifted to “jobs here, borders there, memes everywhere.” Encore? Depends on who shows up for the dance.
