The Midterms Will Be Won on the Economy Here’s Why

This week, President Trump stood on the ground where Bethlehem Steel once employed 30,000 people. He launched construction of the largest new shipyard in the United States since World War II, and American taxpayers will own a 40% stake in it.The next day in Athens, Secretary of State Marco Rubio told the West it can reindustrialize or resign itself to “atrophy and servitude and decline.” These were two shots fired by the same side in the war between the American System of Hamilton and Lincoln and the City of London.That was the thesis of yesterday’s LIVE: The Midterms Will Be Won on the Economy — Here’s Why. Prices still hurt, and Barbara Boyd and Susan Kokinda didn’t pretend otherwise. Their case is that you vote on where the country is going, not on the pain behind us.Election Day is 25 days away, and ballots are already landing in mailboxes.”Everybody get 10 people. It’s in our hands, folks. We can either get disorganized by all the crap that’s being thrown at us, or we can win.”— Barbara Boyd”When you vote, vote as a Promethean, not as an Epimethean.”— Susan KokindaThe show runs about two hours, so jump to any chapter below, and take the assignment at the bottom.REPLAY — Thursday, October 8thSparrows Point: From Steel Town to Arsenal AgainAdam Sturman opened with the President’s own words: “The storied grounds of Sparrows Point will never fall silent again.” These are the shores where Baltimore forged steel for the Empire State Building and the Golden Gate Bridge, and built the first Liberty ship of World War II.Anduril, a new defense company run by sharp millennials, is investing $3.7 billion in the yard, and the Navy is adding $2.9 billion. It will build the next generation of American submarines, including autonomous subs and components for Virginia-class attack submarines.Then Barbara told the story most of the press won’t. In 1957, Bethlehem Steel employed 30,000 people at Sparrows Point. Her husband’s father worked there, and so did her husband before he went into the military.That mill gave a family with 10 kids a skill, a decent living and a middle-class life.It died when the “post-industrial society” took hold in the 1970s. Bethlehem Steel needed capital to modernize and couldn’t get the loans, because the globalists had decided America didn’t need to make steel. Baltimore became famous for TV crime shows instead.Susan added that Detroit got the same treatment: hospitals, casinos and arenas where the factories used to be.Rubio Drew the Line in AthensRubio traced the Western mind to the Greek conviction “that there is a rational order to the cosmos,” governed by laws “the mind can come to understand.” Then he laid out America’s choice: “to reindustrialize our economy, to rebuild our defense.”Susan went straight to the economics. “Whether he knows it or not, he just obliterated Adam Smith,” she said. Smith taught that man cannot know the consequences of his actions, so he should leave them to an invisible hand.The American System says the opposite. Your mind is in constant dialogue with the universe, and the universe grades your ideas by whether your society grows or collapses. Barbara called the speech “a history lesson in 20 minutes” and told viewers to send it to their kids.For the opposite of Athens, look at New York. On October 7, Zohran Mamdani was shouted down at a pro-Palestinian rally on his own side of the aisle. Barbara’s point was that Jacobin revolutions eat their own and end in terror and a dictator, and France is running that script now.Barbara’s pamphlet on how oligarchs run these revolutions:The Real Revolution: The British and the Communists Are Trying to Kill AgainBarbara Boyd’s new 47-page briefing is free for paid Promethean Action members. It names the real enemy in the 2026 midterms: an Empire that has used both Wall Street and the Communist mob against the American System — and is trying again.Promethean ActionBarbara Boyd$26 Billion in Nine Days: Build Things, Don’t Hold OpinionsSusan brought the scorecard: $26 billion of signed, concrete investment announced in about nine days.a big steel plant in Iowanew developments in Nebraskaa $3 billion port facility in Texasthree Ohio announcements, including keeping the Perry nuclear plant openthe Sparrows Point shipyarda major facility in AlabamaThat figure doesn’t count Alaska LNG or the eight nuclear plants still being negotiated with South Korea.”You build things. You don’t have opinions,” Susan said. That is why Elon Musk keeps launching rockets that blow up, because each failure teaches him how the universe works. Barbara added that Apollo returned an estimated $8 for every $1 invested.Barbara also recalled NAWAPA, the great western water project Congress nearly adopted, as a record of “how we used to think” before environmentalism shut that thinking down.The bottleneck is people. Mike Rowe says the country was already 300,000 electricians and machinists short for submarine work before Sparrows Point.Your Pain Is Real. Now Vote on Where the Country Is Going.The gas and grocery questions came from every direction. Anne asked why the world’s top oil producer pays world prices, and Charles asked about London speculators and record oil profits.Jane, a single mom in Kansas, said she can’t feel any boom, and retirees on fixed incomes asked why their budgets are still being eaten up.Susan didn’t dodge. The U.S. mostly produces light sweet crude, but our refineries were built for heavy crude. That mismatch comes from a 30-year globalist system built for profit, not sovereignty.A new Texas refinery is about three years away. In the short term, the President is bringing in diesel from Europe and suspending the federal gas tax.Barbara reminded viewers how we got here. As Bessent put it, Americans got run over by “a Mack truck” under Biden. The way out is the one Hamilton and McKinley used: tariffs and growth, so the productive economy outgrows the debt.Then Susan named the real fight. The consultant class wants you to vote on what you feel today. Vote instead “as a citizen of a republic,” for where you want this country to be in a year or two.Our Job, Not TheirsSeveral subscribers asked why the White House isn’t louder. Barbara said the media block is complete. “It’s not to ask the question, why aren’t they doing more,” she said. “It’s, we ourselves have to do more.”Susan votes early, so Republican ballot chasers know she’s covered and Election Day lines can’t send her home. Decide what works for you, she said, then bring 10 others.Don’t like the names on your ballot? It’s still a numbers game for the House, the Senate and the state legislatures. And after November 3, the Midterm Bootcamp gets a new name and keeps going.”There’s no end point to this fight,” Susan said, “because there’s no end point to man discovering how the universe works.”Your AssignmentGet your 10 people. Barbara will close every show this way until the midterms, because if everybody makes it a mission, we win.Then, when you and your 10 vote, follow Susan’s line and “vote as a Promethean, not as an Epimethean.” Promethean means forethought, and Epimethean means afterthought.Here’s what we covered (links jump straight to the chapter)Adam Opens: The Midterms Will Be Won on the Economy — Ballots are in the mail.Trump at Sparrows Point: Taxpayers Get a 40% Stake — Biggest shipyard since WWII.Anduril’s $3.7B and the Navy’s $2.9B — The next generation of subs.Barbara Sets Up Rubio in Athens — A line for the West.Rubio: Reindustrialize or Accept Decline — In his own words.Barbara: Why We Fight, Beyond the Immediate — Past the gas-price game.Mamdani Shouted Down: Jacobins Eat Their Own — The DSA’s French Revolution.Susan: Rubio Just Obliterated Adam Smith — The mind can know.Barbara’s Sparrows Point Story — 30,000 steelworkers.Why Bethlehem Steel Died — No loans to modernize.Susan’s Economic Wins: $26 Billion in a Week — The scorecard.Build Things, Don’t Hold Opinions — The universe grades you.Adopt a Founder as Your Friend — The night before the Declaration.Your Gas-Price Questions — You asked.Light Crude, Heavy Refineries — The refining mismatch.Diesel From Europe, Gas Tax Suspended — Short-term relief.NAWAPA: The Water Project We Abandoned — How we used to think.Early Voting or Election Day? — Either way, bring 10.Apollo Paid Back $8 for Every $1 — On to Mars.The Race to the Moon’s South Pole — Racing China.Skilled Trades: 300,000 Workers Short — Training the builders.Getting the Whole GOP on Board — Your messaging questions.Barbara: The Media Block and Our Job — We have to do more.Prices Still High: Fixed Incomes Ask Why — Danny, Gene and Jane.Susan: Vote for Where the Country Is Going — Not today’s pain.Barbara: How We Got Here — Biden’s mess, Hamilton’s fix.Thumos: Passion Guided by Reason — Susan on Plato.”I Don’t Listen to Old People” — Answering young leftists.France Burns: A Jacobin Replay — History repeating.What Comes Next for Britain? — Your fate rides on ours.Susan: Find the Republicans in Your Own History — Leibniz to Shelley.How the Empire Works, and How Trump Flips Wall Street — Big Pharma and FDR.Rabbit Holes and Secret Rescues — Don’t get sidelined.The Cornell Seven and the War on Young Men — Psychological warfare.Why Trump Doesn’t Say “American System” — His cabinet does.Bad Republicans? It’s a Numbers Game — Hold the seats.Closing: Everybody Get 10 People — Your assignment. Next Midterm Bootcamp — Monday, October 12th, 8pm Eastern / 5pm PacificConnect with activists in your state and turn your 10 people into a plan, with 25 days to Election Day.