Newt Gingrich didn’t mince words on Life, Liberty & Levin, blasting the current crop of Washington operatives and calling their behavior “crazy” as he compared today’s chaos to the shutdown fights he lived through in the 1990s. The former House Speaker laid out the raw lesson: principled toughness beats timid dealmaking when the future of limited government is on the line.
Gingrich reminded viewers that the 1995–1996 showdown wasn’t a stunt but a fight over out-of-control spending, Medicare gimmicks, and the size of the federal state — fights that forced Democrats to negotiate and produced real fiscal results down the road. Those shutdowns were painful, yes, but they helped change the conversation about government at a time when Washington was racing toward permanent expansion.
He’s never been shy about the political calculus: standing firm can win you long-term victories even if you take short-term heat, a point Gingrich has made repeatedly in op-eds and speeches urging Republicans not to cave. Conservatives should take note: the alternative to standing your ground is becoming another promise-breaking, Washington-dominated sellout — and America’s working families pay the price.
To hear Gingrich describe it, too many inside the swamp today behave like spoiled elites—more interested in power and perks than in principle. That’s not just political sniping; it’s a moral indictment of a ruling class that would rather expand the federal leviathan than protect the freedoms that made this country great. If Republicans want to be more than a permanent minority of complainers, they must act like a party that believes in something.
Critics will lecture about optics and polls, but lessons of the past are blunt: serious pressure on the purse strings led to meaningful reforms and forced concessions when Republicans had the courage to hold firm. The balanced-budget outcomes that followed the 1990s fights did not fall out of the sky—they were won by relentless pressure and refusing to normalize runaway spending. That truth matters more than the media’s daily outrage cycle.
So what should conservatives do now? Listen to Gingrich: stop letting fear of a political hit define strategy, and start defending taxpayers, borders, and constitutional limits with the same intensity they defend culture. The country’s future isn’t a negotiation with the permanent political class; it’s a fight for the freedoms of everyday Americans, and that fight requires leaders who aren’t afraid to be called “crazy” by the elites.
Hardworking Americans deserve representation that treats their paychecks and their liberty as sacred, not as bargaining chips for Washington’s insiders. If Republicans rediscover the backbone Gingrich championed, they can turn temporary pain into lasting victory — otherwise we’ll keep trading principles for polls and losing the country in the process.
