If Democrats win back the House of Representatives and the Senate this election, which looks increasingly likely, they have an important and contentious question to face right away: How hard should they go after corporations?
Voters are increasingly angry about the state of the economy, and the crisis is about much more than “affordability.” The economy seems fundamentally unfair. Goliath always wins. Basics cost more, and families aren’t getting paid enough. And it’s not a situation that feels temporary: More and more, Americans say they can’t achieve the American Dream.
If Democrats regain power and want to hold it, they need to help the electorate that keeps demanding change, swinging wildly between Democrats, who promise the status quo, and Trump, who promises to destroy democracy altogether. To solve the fundamental problem, more Democrats are championing the idea that the party needs to take on corporations in a way that addresses not just Trump-era corruption, but also stops working people from getting steamrolled. Democrats, even progressives, are torn about whether this would work. But do enough understand the stakes, and are they willing to do what they need to right the scales?
This issue has been at the heart of tension amongst Democrats all campaign season. On the one hand, pundits and candidates in the abundance camp have blamed progressive interest groups, from environmentalists to trans rights activists, for slowing down progress on big economic projects like building housing and new transit, or for focusing too much on culture-war issues. They’ve argued that Democrats need to speed up building things so they can have something to show for their time in office. This has translated largely into a deregulation agenda. A bipartisan group of senators are now pushing through a bill that would make permitting energy projects easier while potentially ignoring environmental safeguards.
On the other side, the economic populists have followed the mode of Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders by blaming the oligarchy, the wealthy, and corporations, arguing that they should pay more in taxes to grow the safety net for working people. Progressives won several prominent victories that drew attention this year by championing this idea, like Abdul El-Sayed’s win in Michigan’s Senate primary, but moderates won more overall. In other words, in the next Congress, there will be plenty of voices on both sides of this debate.
The party was fairly unified on the need to fight inflation but torn about who to blame for it other than Trump. Just how far to take populist anger is an open question, and whether Democrats who win this fall should name and blame corporations as the villains in the U.S.’s story of economic woe. In an article from October 5 in Politico, many Democratic lawmakers seemed torn about how tough to be on corporations should they regain oversight power. Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren and others have already sent letters to corporations about contributions made to Trump’s ballroom, potentially in exchange for favors from the federal government.
Some of her colleagues worried about taking too aggressive an approach. “We don’t want to turn into a banana republic where you lose an election and it’s all about retribution,” Illinois Rep. Bill Foster, a senior member of the Financial Services Committee, told Politico.
In an emailed statement, Derek Kaufman, president of Inclusive Abundance, said he favored a more targeted approach but did open the door to specific corporate attacks. “There are many examples of corporations that benefit from having undue influence over people who set the rules that benefit their business and not their customers. Some utilities, for example, are ripping off the public by making it hard to build and connect cheaper new sources of power,” he said. “Going after powerful corporations that abuse the system is perfectly compatible with the abundance approach.”
Nevada Senator Catherine Cortez Masto has also cautioned against appearing to weaponize the federal government. “I have always said that Democrats’ number one priority should be helping Americans who are being harmed by President Trump’s economic policies, but that doesn’t mean we should turn a blind eye to this administration’s blatant corruption,” she said in an email. “Throughout his second term, we’ve seen the president and those around him take advantage of government to enrich themselves and their friends. A Democratically controlled Congress can and will focus on both affordability and accountability.”
What seems clearer to others, however, is that these are not two separate issues, but one and the same. They argue that life is unaffordable in part because corporations are unaccountable. The corruption during the Trump administration has involved executives, especially from Big Tech, cozying up to the administration in order to ease regulations at the same time that they’re building data centers in neighborhoods around the country, polluting water, and raising gas and energy prices. Silicon Valley promises that AI will be used for the greater good, but they’ve hidden the harms of their products in the past.
The way Americans view Big Tech is emblematic of the way they view corporations as a whole right now. Yes, they want answers about corruption, but they also want to rein them in.
Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy promised this broader approach on CBS’s Face the Nation Sunday. “We’re going to take on this corruption, not just Trump’s corruption, but the entire corruption of the federal government,” he said. “If you elect us, we’re going to work to get billionaire and corporate and anonymous money out of politics.” He’s introduced bills to ban private equity ownership of hospitals and tackle corporate price discrimination.
Alvaro Bedoya, a former commissioner of the Federal Trade Commission, said that an incrementalist approach risks missing the big picture when it comes to helping working families. “Now is the time to pass the next Sherman Act, the next Clayton Act, the next Robinson-Patman Act to protect people from the forms of corporate power that exist today,” he said, referring to the landmark legislation regulating corporations of the last century.
Even with Trump in the White House, a Democratic Congress could have the power to investigate and break up corporations, Bedoya said. The problem is that Democrats tend to not think that way. “Democrats in particular are incrementalists,” he said. “Instead of thinking how do we actually solve this problem, they inevitably think, how can we patch up this old solution to an older version of this problem so it kind of, sort of seems to fix the problem we face today? And now is not the time for that.”
The problems Americans face today weren’t built only during the Trump era, and facing up to the fact that the Democratic Party itself has played a role in building corporate power might be the biggest challenge facing incoming majorities. “The system was always corrupt,” Bedoya said. “The ability of lobbyists to basically have access to almost every member of Congress by giving that member of Congress a lot of money is fundamentally corrupt. What we have now is open, brazen corruption, and that is kindling to the crisis that was already burning… But both parties got us here.”
People who watch public opinion are torn about whether going after specific corporations is an effective strategy worth even worrying about at all. “If corporations are doing bad things or receiving unfair treatment, by all means name them,” said Adam Jentleson, a former Democratic adviser and founder of the Searchlight Institute, a center-left think tank. “But I do think this whole debate is overblown for the precise reason that it doesn’t matter much whether you name them or not, and the idea that this is some deep strategic insight is silly.”
He pointed to the socialist-aligned Center for Working Class Politics, which found that more adversarial messaging was less effective on economic issues in a survey released in August. But other strategists have found in their own surveys that there’s a real need to point out the role corporations play in raising prices and causing inflation. Anat Shenker-Osorio, a strategist who hosts a podcast called Words to Win By, has repeatedly advocated that illustrating the role corporations play in economic inequality is a way to recapture the economic story from Republicans, who blame government spending, immigrants, and people of color as sources of government waste.
The next Congress, if Democrats win the majorities, will choose whether to continue its long-standing practice of electing senior officeholders to head committees or injecting some new blood, and perhaps new thinking, into the bodies that will shape the way Democrats form policy going forward. Maryland Representative Jamie Raskin is ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee and rarely backs down from a fight. Foster, of Illinois, is on the Financial Services committee.
A spokesperson from his office, Grace Bouton, said he would go after the Trump administration and family as warranted. “In his role on the Financial Services Committee, he will push for answers about abuses of power and demand accountability from those responsible, including giant corporations that helped carry out this administration’s corrupt schemes in order to enrich themselves,” she wrote. “He and his fellow Democrats will issue subpoenas, hold hearings, and if there is a hint of quid pro quo then there will be criminal referrals—which is what Congress can do.”
In the next two years, voters will watch this fight to decide what Democrats really stand for, who they fight for, and if it’s worth it to them to give them a shot at the White House again in 2028. Policies that help working people are only part of the battle: Americans need to see who’s on their side, so they know who to credit and who to blame when conditions improve. Or not.
