Ever notice that in the Trump era, Republicans look more like Democrats on economics, foreign policy, and most social issues, and the key differences between the parties seem to be only on immigration, transgender issues and a few weird, esoteric regulatory items?
As a friend of this blog likes to say, “Trump isn’t Rick Santorum, he’s Dick Gephardt with a ‘let it burn’ streak.”
Well… the hard left still hasn’t figured this out, over ten years after Trump descended from his Trump Tower escalator. They also haven’t figured out that this means major stars in the GOP are also pretty close to Dick Gephardt with a “let it burn” streak. That leaves opponents making really spurious attacks based on outdated notions of what the GOP is and is not, and routinely decrying what are in fact pretty bog-standard liberal positions as somehow borrowed directly from a Margaret Atwood novel.
The guy who motorboated Rudy Giuliani in drag, who picked a married gay man for his Treasury Secretary, has attracted boatloads of gay dudes (especially) to his ranks, and whose line has been “let abortion be regulated at the state-level, but keep it legal in the first five months of pregnancy” is supposedly right in line with Mike Huckabee on social issues.
The guy who has advocated for ever-more federal spending and who has now overseen the passage of two tax reform laws that, contrary to Democratic rhetoric, massively benefit poorer and middle class Americans– not just investors who fuel disproportionately fuel economic growth– is somehow the latest incarnation of French monarchs who taxed the crap out of the third estate and let the nobility languish at Versailles tax-free. The guy who has advocated a lower mandated rate for credit card interest rates than traditional Republicans or indeed many progressive Democrats is somehow Ted Cruz on economics.
The guy who boatloads of Michigan Palestinian-American, Lebanese-American, and assorted other Muslim-American voters concluded (rightly, in our view!) was less pro-Israel than Biden-Harris is secretly John McCain. The guy who notably didn’t copycat George W Bush/Dick Cheney/Donald Rumsfeld/Paul Wolfowitz when it came to Venezuela (literally, Trump did not do regime change!) is somehow… more hawkish than George W Bush/Dick Cheney/Donald Rumsfeld/Paul Wolfowitz.
Whatever American voters think of Trump, they know this crap isn’t working. Yet the left just continues on trotting it out.
And socialist Bernie Sanders-advising David Sirota’s news site is just the latest to trot it out– but this time, training fire on two Ohio Republicans using literally the weakest attack on them that we’ve ever seen.
Ever.
In history.
No joke.
Here’s the scoop.
There’s a really wonky debate about banking regulation (cue the snoring) playing out in Washington, DC. Currently, most states allow banks chartered in other states to offer loans at interest rates authorized in their states to customers outside state lines (rather in line with, say, the concept of interstate commerce).
Leftists don’t like it because that means that states that want to ban someone borrowing $250 for a week at a cost of $25 for making the credit available can’t effectively do it. They can block lenders located in their state from making those loans. But they can’t block out of state lenders– banks or those who partner with them– from doing it. Their argument is that these loans shouldn’t be made because they have a super-high rate of interest (true), even though the cost to borrow *if* the loan is repaid on time would strike almost all of us (most Democrats included!) as cheap and certainly not worth the government regulating.
Sirota and co side up with the leftists on this (duh, they are leftists).
Bernie Moreno, despite being a Republican thoroughly in the Trump mold– and definitely no Ted Cruz, no Paul Ryan, no Mitt Romney– doesn’t agree with the leftists, so the new leftist narrative is that Moreno has been “bought and paid for by Big Finance.” Bonus: Warren Davidson is also under fire for the same thing (at least Davidson has a bigger libertarian streak than Moreno, for which kudos, though the knock falls flat anyway).
Moreno, first elected to the Senate in 2024, has received more than $3.2 million in campaign donations from the same industries. In 2025, he has also accepted campaign donations from several financial-industry PACs, including:
$5,000 from Visa’s PAC,
$3,300 from an Ohio-based credit union’s PAC,
$3,000 from Goldman Sachs’ PAC,
$2,500 from the American Bankers Association’s PAC.
Oh also: “The American Financial Services Association donated $5,000 to Moreno in December 2024.”
More:
Throughout 2025, during the lead-up to the bill’s introduction, Davidson also accepted campaign donations from political action committees (PACs) representing industries that likely stand to benefit from the bill. These contributions included:
$6,000 from a PAC representing credit unions,
$5,000 from a PAC affiliated with Wells Fargo,
$2,500 from Goldman Sachs’ PAC,
$2,500 from the American Bankers Association’s PAC,
$2,500 from Bank of America’s PAC,
$2,000 from Citigroup’s PAC,
$1,000 from Visa’s PAC.
Grab your pearls, ladies!
You’ll be shocked to know that socialists can’t do math, so haven’t figured out these are pittance numbers for both Moreno and Davidson.
Here’s what our local, in-house quant found, using math we personally had mastered by age 15 and for which no one needs a PhD for.
Per Open Secrets, which the Lever relies on for their data, Moreno took in $26,674,445 in 2024 (when he was in cycle; he wasn’t in cycle in 2025, nor is he now, so his 2025 and 2026 donations aren’t relevant). Of that total, these “Big Finance” contributions identified by the Lever come up to an aggregate, pathetic 0.05 percent.
Per FEC records, from which Open Secrets data is pulled, in 2025, Davidson took in $280,495.76 in campaign contributions. Of that total, “Big Finance” amounts identified by the Lever account for a measly 6.5 percent.
Related Stories:
Moreno starts Senate brawl after surveilling colleagues’ cars
Warren Davidson to get a primary over “nay” on “Big, Beautiful Bill?”
Big Airline kicks Ohio in the teeth again