Democrats are in the middle of an internal battle over how to react to Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and their depredations. That Democrats are divided is nothing new. But the stakes are higher than ever.
On the one side, we have old bulls like James Carville and David Axelrod, with allies inside Congress like Virginia Senator Mark Warner, cautioning Democrats not to confront Republicans. For Carville, it is a belief that the Republican Party will destroy itself with its own divisions and destructive policies. With Axelrod, Warner, et al., it is a distaste for confrontation, a belief that Americans will reward a responsible party still committed to norms of civility and bipartisanship.
On the other side are those who see the battle as unlike anything we have faced in our lifetimes: an existential threat to the country and its democracy, requiring a very different and much more aggressive response.
We are in a headlong rush toward autocracy—and that requires a full-fledged counterreaction. Donald Trump said during the campaign that he would be a dictator only on day one. More than 30 days later, the dictatorship is steaming ahead, fueled in part by the Supreme Court’s reckless immunity decision and in part by the out-of-control Department of Government Efficiency and its leader, Elon Musk. Eviscerating government across the board, using the threat of government power to intimidate businesses, individuals, the press, and our allies, blowing up our alliances and siding with the world’s worst dictators—and so much more.
Despite the protestations during the campaign by Trump and JD Vance that they had no connection to the radical Project 2025, Trump’s actions and that of his administration prove that they are using it as their core blueprint, driven by its architect, Russell Vought, now the confirmed head of the Office of Management and Budget.
The narrowness of his popular vote victory margin and the slim majority of Republicans in Congress notwithstanding, Trump is both claiming a giant mandate and acting in a headlong rush to secure absolute power. There has been some pushback from the judiciary, with an army of lawyers and a set of state attorneys general challenging the illegal acts and the wholesale axing of appropriated programs and mass firings, but each time a judge rules against DOGE, Musk, and Trump, Musk and his followers, including powerful legislators like Utah Senator Mike Lee, call for their impeachment and directly challenge their legitimacy and authority. And Trump and his allies hint at their capacity to defy judges when it suits them.
The other guardrails of our democracy are, at best, problematic. Republicans in the Senate bent to Trump’s will, confirming every top nominee despite their lack of qualifications, moral failings, and extreme views. House Republicans have shown even less willingness to protect their institution’s own prerogatives, much less show any sensitivity to the damage done to their own constituents and the fabric of democracy and the rule of law.
Then there is the press. First Paramount and Disney caved to Trump’s threats, then the owners of the Los Angeles Times and The Washington Post joined the Trump amen chorus. When Trump barred the Associated Press from most White House press events because it refused to refer to the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America, the White House Correspondents’ Association did nothing—and the weakness shown there led to Trump’s next step, taking the power to choose which outlets would be involved in White House press coverage away from the WHCA and handing it to himself directly, a move out of the dictatorial playbook.
What is left? The answer is congressional Democrats, even with their minority status. Commendably, we have seen House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries bring his entire caucus together to vote against the radical, deficit-busting House budget and hold a press conference showcasing real people devastated by the policies. Voting in unison against reckless actions should be a given—including when House Republicans can’t find the votes on their own to keep the government from shutting down and ask for Democrats to bail them out. But that is only one clear step to resist.
Lacking the majority means not prevailing on blocking horrific actions. But the ability of the minority to delay and deter, in both houses, is significant. And the ability to use their megaphones to highlight the damage, focused on individuals and families and not just abstract policies or personnel moves, can help to counter the power of the Trumpist wind machine that includes Fox News, talk radio, podcasts, and social media like X and Facebook.
Here is what congressional Democrats should do:
- Create a congressionally driven Democratic communications infrastructure. The danger of sitting back and letting Republicans destroy themselves is that the Republican P.R. effort, from the White House to Fox News to X, will blame any failures on George Soros, Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, and Barack Obama. Democrats should start each day with a unified message of a particular outrage or theme, keyed as much as possible to examples of individual Americans, including Trump voters, damaged or destroyed by the actions of Trump and Republicans, crafted by a leadership-designated message group. It should be pursued and coordinated on the House and Senate floors, in morning sessions, during the day, and in special orders in the evening, and pursued by lawmakers on every available media outlet. And most important, there should be a high-profile Democrat holding a daily press briefing to hammer home the point. Many observers have suggested Pete Buttigieg would be perfect for this role. No one has been more effective, on Fox News and elsewhere, at taking on the criminality and fecklessness of Trump and his cronies. Jamie Raskin, Chris Murphy, Madeleine Dean, Brian Schatz, Jasmine Crockett, and Sean Casten are among the lawmakers who could do the job.
- Do town meetings and office hours—in Republican districts and states. The first town halls conducted by Republicans in deep red districts did not go well. Overflow crowds, with both Democrats and Republicans, peppered their representatives with tough questions, and the responses were often risible. So it is no surprise that Republican leaders have told their members not to do them anymore. What an opening for House Democrats! A mix of House Dems, from the same or adjacent states, using their communications tools, should fan out to Republican districts and red states, especially those with Senate races in 2026, and hold town halls showcasing voters, including Trump ones, damaged or destroyed by Trump, Musk, and congressional Republicans’ policies and actions. They would be guaranteed to get a lot of coverage, including locally. And they will spotlight the cowardice of those representatives and senators hiding from their own constituents.
- Add field hearings to the town halls. You don’t need to be in the majority to go into red districts and states to hold your own field hearings. Go to rural hospitals and hold field hearings on their dependence on Medicaid, including hospitals already shuttered from the stresses. Go to Texas and hold field hearings on the measles outbreak and the damage and deaths ahead due to Trump and Rober F. Kennedy Jr., and their conspiracy-driven anti-vax moves. Go to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta and hold a field hearing nearby on the bizarre ploy to cancel work on research to prepare a vaccine for next year’s deadly flu epidemic. Hold hearings on the damage to families who have kids with special needs when federal funding through the Department of Education dries up. Go to farms where the cancellation of aid programs has eviscerated their markets. Go to the Central Valley in California to look at the disaster ahead for farmers after Trump recklessly emptied their water supplies before they are needed in the summer season. There are endless opportunities to put a spotlight on the damage to the country and its citizens.
- Use every tool in the rule box to delay, obstruct, and showcase the deeply destructive Trump–Musk–congressional Republican policies. While those tools are limited in the House, the most significant is unified opposition to put the pressure on the razor-thin majority Republicans have in that body. Democrats need unity, especially on key votes like slashing Medicaid and food stamps while implementing debt-busting tax cuts for billionaires, moving to expand the debt ceiling by a staggering $4 trillion, and keeping the government open. This will put the onus where it belongs. And a full-court press, using the House floor in morning hours, during regular debate, and in the evening special orders to hammer this idea home, might pry a few Republican votes to block the destruction. If not, it will make clear who is doing it.
In the Senate, the weapons of the minority are much more expansive—and many were used to the hilt by the Mitch McConnell-led Republicans when Barack Obama and Joe Biden were in office. That starts with holds and filibusters on every Trump nominee for an executive post or judicial vacancy. While the threshold for cloture on these has been reduced from 60 to 50, there are lots of places to slow down the confirmation train. And every Trump nominee, whether Cabinet level or lower posts, will be chosen for radical views and willingness to bend the knee and break rules and laws to do what Trump and Musk want. Moreover, Senate Democrats should make clear that they will filibuster every legislative step Republicans take, raising the bar to 60—which was standard policy by McConnell.
Beyond that, the Senate operates through unanimous consent. Denying unanimous consent—requiring that the journal of the previous day’s proceedings be read in its entirety, that committees cannot meet when the Senate is doing business on the floor, and more, can make it much harder for Republicans to act. Of course, they will still prevail, ultimately, on much of their radical agenda. But big speed bumps will make doing so more onerous and will head off at least some of the awful nominations and actions.
The pushback I have gotten on these ideas from some in House and Senate leadership is that this approach could endanger their most vulnerable incumbents in 2026. My reaction to them has been that if they do not rise to the occasion, there may not be elections in 2026! Moreover, to prevail in 2026, Democrats will need an energized base and a demoralized group of Trump voters who will sit it out. These steps can help with both.
To be frank, many Senate Democrats simply don’t want to discombobulate their own lives by having nighttime and weekend sessions. But beyond those concerns, this is no time for timidity. The threat we face—to the economy, the world order, and our democracy—is greater than it has been in our lifetimes. If congressional Democrats treat this largely as business as usual, the media will do the same, and we will rush headlong into autocracy. Perilous times demand bold action.
