Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

One of our most popular features in 2024 was the FITSNews’ Political Stock Index. This weekly format provided an inside look at the rising and falling fortunes of those vying for power in the American Republic – as well as the politically decisive Palmetto State, which hosts the “First in the Nation” (for Democrats) and “First in the South” (for Republicans) presidential primaries.

Last year’s index tracked an unprecedented and incredibly consequential election cycle – one which included criminal indictments, assassination attempts and a full-blown coup d’état on the Democrat side.

Never a dull moment, right?

As we enter the uncharted waters of 2025, we’ve decided to expand the format. Technically, it’s bifurcating. Or, to put it in stock terms, “splitting.”

***

Starting this month, we’ll be publishing a pair of political indices each week. The first one – the ‘FITSNews Political Stock Index’ – will appear each Monday and will focus on the national political scene. The second – the ‘Palmetto Political Stock Index’ – will drop each Tuesday and will focus on politicos from our home state of South Carolina.

With Trump 2.0 poised to assume power in two weeks, there’s never been a more critical time to keep tabs on happenings our nation’s capital. Also, with intra-party drama still roiling the “Republican” supermajority in the S.C. General Assembly – not to mention a furious battle forecast for South Carolina’s governor’s mansion in 2026 – it’s equally important to assess influence in the Palmetto State ahead of its starring role in the next presidential election cycle.

There’s so much happening one column a week won’t cover it…

Got a hot “stock tip” for these indices? Email Will (here) and/or Mark (here).

Where should you invest your national political capital this week? To the index…

***

DONALD TRUMP

***

STOCK: RISING

Any way you measure it, Donald Trump entered 2025 on a roll. Fresh off reclaiming his old job in last November’s elections (where he carried 31 states, 312 electoral votes and scored the popular vote victory denied him in 2016), the once-and-future president will blow into Washington, D.C. on January 20, 2025 with both the House and Senate in GOP hands.

Trump underscored his influence during last Friday’s vote for U.S. House speaker. Incumbent Mike Johnson‘s grip on the gavel has been shaky all along, but it looked especially precarious going into the House speaker election last week – the chamber’s first official item of business during the 119th Congress. Trump reportedly worked the phones hard, making sure GOP members stayed in line. Only three Republicans wound up defecting to other candidates. Of those, Trump talked to two of them (including South Carolina’s Ralph Norman) – presumably reading them the riot act — at which point they swiftly dropped their opposition and voted for Johnson on the next go-round.

Big Business has noted the new prevailing winds and promptly ponied up. Pfizer, OpenAI, Amazon, and Meta (formerly Facebook) have all made significant donations to the $150 million Trump inaugural kitty, with still more money expected.

And even New York supreme court justice Juan Merchan gets it. He announced last week that when Trump’s sentence is handed down this Friday (January 10, 2025) on nearly three dozen criminal convictions in his hush-money case, it won’t include jail time. Not only did the people deliver their own verdict at the ballot box on November 5, 2024, but putting a president in the pokey would thrust Merchan into a constitutional minefield he’d rather avoid.

So the world is, for the moment at least, Trump’s oyster. He wanted that rarest of all things in political life: a second chance. And he got it. Now we’re about to see what he’ll do with it.

***

DEMOCRATIC PARTY

***

STOCK: FALLING

We begin with a question: Who controls the Democratic Party these days? Take your time coming up with an answer; we’ll wait.

Technically, the outgoing president and/or the former presidential standard bearer are traditionally titular party heads. In this case, there’s one of each, with president Joe Biden and vice president Kamala Harris nominally in charge. But given their unpopularity as they head out of D.C., their influence doesn’t extend much beyond their first cousins… if that.

South Carolina’s Jaime Harrison remains head of the national party’s day-to-day operations, although his successor will be selected on February 1, and Illinois Congressman Jonathan Jackson —son of South Carolina native and activist Jesse Jackson — has expressed interest in the job.

But who is actually sitting in the Democratic driver’s seat?

The answer to that question was made abundantly clear during last summer’s “soft coup” – when Biden was forced out and Harris was shoehorned in as the party’s 2024 nominee. Nancy Pelosi made both happen.

However, the 84-year-old California congresswoman and House Speaker Emerita is recovering from hip replacement surgery following a nasty fall last month. (It was noted she showed up for Friday’s important speaker vote wearing sensible flats instead of her trademark stilettos).

Will Pelosi’s grip on her party loosen with age and a post-Biden-Harris landscape? We will soon find out.

***

THE D.O.G.E. DUO

***

STOCK: HOLDING

Washington has seen a lot of unusual characters come and go over the years. A case can be argued that these two are in a category all their own. Each a financial success story – a multi-billionaire and a mega-millionaire – now firmly ensconced on the highest rungs of the federal power ladder, jointly heading a “department” that doesn’t actually exist.

That’s where Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy find themselves today. Trump has tasked them to head a “Department of Government Efficiency,” commonly called by its acronym, DOGE. Despite its official-sounding name, only congress can create an actual department – meaning DOGE is essentially a glorified executive entity.

But unlike the plethora of presidential panels, task forces and blue-ribbon commissions convened over the last century, Trump wants DOGE to have real teeth – which he made crystal clear by having such high-profile figures head it.

But it’s been a mixed bag for the DOGE Duo of late. First, though both support increasing the number of foreign tech workers allowed into the U.S. via the H-1B program, Ramaswamy caused a firestorm when he posted on X the day after Christmas that “our American culture has venerated mediocrity over excellence for way too long… a culture that celebrates a prom queen over the math Olympiad champ, or the jock over the valedictorian, will not produce the best engineers.”

He suddenly found himself on a collision course with MAGA, which didn’t take lightly to being schooled by “the tech bros,” as one person called them. Even Nikki Haley seized the opportunity to finger-wag at the former presidential opponent who got under her skin like a bad rash eighteen months ago.

Musk sensed the danger and quickly (and smartly) extricated himself from it by changing the discussion. He redirected the conversation (at least his part of it) to a call for Britain’s King Charles III to dissolve parliament amid a growing Muslim rape gang scandal.

***

MIKE JOHNSON

***

STOCK: RISING

The 56th speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives is a political Houdini. Since assuming the office just over 14 months ago, he has survived several close calls – and an even closer reelection – thanks in no small part to help from Trump. Minus that help, he’d likely be hanging out his lawyer shingle back home in Shreveport, Louisiana right about now.

But as they say in politics, a win is a win.

His Trump-supported victory was the payoff for a big gamble Johnson took early on. He not only endorsed Trump’s reelection, but he also went full-throated MAGA. He traveled on Trump Force One (the president-elect’s personal Boeing 757) and appeared at multiple events with the president.

That political marriage assured Johnson and Trump would rise – or fall – together.

Johnson’s bet paid off for Trump when he won on November 5, 2024 – and for Johnson when he won on January 3, 2025.

Now comes a classic case of “be careful what you wish for.” Johnson enters his first full term as speaker riding herd on a deeply splintered Republican caucus with MAGA at center stage, GOP Establishment types still sullenly licking their wounds, a dwindling number of moderates angry at being forced to play second fiddle, and a Freedom Caucus willing to upset the apple cart if need be to disrupt a continuation of the uni-party environment.

Add to that a slender four-seat majority, a unified Democratic opposition nipping closely at his heels, and a president who doesn’t like to lose. The election may be over for Mike Johnson, but the headaches have just begun.

***

JOE BIDEN

***

STOCK: FALLING

He breezed into the White House, promising to be a uniter who would bring Americans together. He’s leaving it as the nakedly partisan swamp creature he always was. Just look at the nineteen presidential Medal of Freedom recipients he announced over the weekend.

This distinction is a very big deal. It’s no participation trophy; it’s the nation’s highest civilian honor. Those who receive it should be especially accomplished, right?

One would think. And in Biden’s case, one would be wrong.

The list included perpetual Democratic hanger-on Hillary Clinton, who’s been lurking along her party’s political epicenter in one way or another since the early 1980s. When Biden stumbled last summer, Clinton desperately hoped to be called back for one last hurrah – but her phone never rang.

There was 94-year-old uber-liberal billionaire George Soros, “the man who broke the Bank of England.” He used that loot to bankroll an array of political and social causes ranging from Left to Far Left to Radical Left. (You will recall he forked over $40 million to support 75 “criminal justice reform progressive prosecutors, including Philadelphia district attorney Larry Krasner.

And to make sure the list was “bipartisan,” Biden threw in one big GOP name, the Republican who Democrats love the most: former Utah senator, Massachusetts governor, and Trump impeacher Mitt Romney.

An outraged Elon Musk tweeted the recipient’s list was “a travesty.” We’ll leave it at that.

***

WANNA SOUND OFF?

Got something you’d like to say in response to one of our articles? Or an issue you’d like to address proactively? We have an open microphone policy! Submit your letter to the editor (or guest column) via email HERE. Got a tip for a story? CLICK HERE. Got a technical question or a glitch to report? CLICK HERE.

***

*****