LARRY KUDLOW: Call it swag, swagger, rizz, aura, or just plain messaging, the GOP doesn’t have it

Larry Kudlow says the GOP has lost its swagger, and honestly, it's hard to argue with the vibe he's describing even if the word choice is a little dad-explaining-slang. Republicans hold the House, the Senate, and the White House right now, and somehow the party still looks like it's playing defense in every news cycle. That's not a policy problem. That's a communications problem, and those are supposed to be the easy ones to fix.

The frustrating part is that the substance is often there. Energy production, border enforcement, trade leverage, these are areas where the administration has actual wins to point to. But wins don't market themselves. Somebody has to say them out loud, with confidence, in a way that sounds like a person talking and not a press release. Democrats have spent years getting outmaneuvered on economics and border policy, yet they still manage to dominate the tone of the conversation. That should bother Republicans more than it seems to.

Kudlow is right that this isn't really about slogans or catchphrases. It's about whether a party sounds like it believes in what it's doing. Voters can smell hesitation from a mile away, and right now too many Republican messengers sound like they're apologizing for their own agenda instead of selling it. Confidence is a policy position too, and it's one the GOP keeps forgetting to run on.

None of this means Republicans need a rebrand or a new set of buzzwords. It means the people delivering the message need to actually believe it's worth delivering with some force. Swagger isn't manufactured. It comes from conviction, and conviction is the one thing no consultant can hand you.