What the Democrats should do
It's imperative that they do something. Voters turned out in the tens of millions to give them a massive mandate -- even if their main motive was anger at the effects of Trump's policies, they will expect the Democrats to do something to correct those effects. Beyond that, the country has an abundance of problems, some of which have been festering unaddressed for decades. If the Democrats want to keep their mandate, they need to actually do things, not just try to do things and then blame the Republicans because it all got filibustered or vetoed or whatever. The voters expect results, not excuses.
It is actually very unlikely that the Republicans could retake the Senate majority in 2028. But the House is always in question -- and whether the Democrats keep the majority there, and whether a Democrat or a Republican is elected president in 2028, will depend largely on how much the Democratic Congress gets done in the intervening two years.
For this reason, to start with, they should abolish the Senate filibuster. "We couldn't get things done because Trump vetoed everything" might just barely be survivable. "We couldn't get things done because of a rule which we could easily have abolished any time we wanted, but chose not to" would be political suicide for 2028. I don't want to hear a word from them about the sacred traditions of the Senate. Nobody outside the beltway gives a crap.
Most Congressional action will also require some amount of working with some Republicans. There's no way around this. Democrats will need to either work with Trump (or probably Vance, after a few months) to get him to refrain from vetoing things, or else get enough House and Senate Republicans on board to override vetoes. Either of these should be doable in many cases, given the intimidating size of the Democrats' mandate and the risk to Republicans that voters will further punish them for obstructing the people's will. Trump has been all over the map in his reactions to the blue tsunami, from "Mr Veto" to saying he would "work with" Democrats. He may or may not be open to negotiating on this or that issue. But to actually get anything done, Democrats must try.
The activist fringe wants the Democrats to plunge into political infighting for its own sake. Mainstream voters want actual concrete action to deal with the problems afflicting them. It's imperative that Congressional Democrats choose wisely. Part of the voters' frustration with Trump was that he focused more on vendettas and infighting than on solving the country's problems.
So here, from my point of view, are some specific things the new majorities should work on accomplishing. Some of these may be doable via working with the Republicans, while others may need to wait until there is a Democratic president. But getting as much as possible done in the next two years is the best way to ensure that there will be a Democratic president elected in 2028.
Cost of living: In setting priorities, Congressional Democrats should take their cue from the priorities of the voters. Grocery prices, fuel prices, and health-care costs top the list. Dealing with these will be complex, but the simplest way of doing something about the first two will be to roll back Trump's tariffs. Tariffs are taxes on Americans (on importers directly and on consumers indirectly), and taxation is a function of Congress, not of the president. Congress re-asserting its authority in this area would be a start on rolling back the steady shift of power from Congress to the president over the last century or so, which contradicted the intent of the Constitution. In addition, while foreign policy is under the authority of the president, Congress should do what it can to disengage the country from the Iran war. Regime change is a worthy goal, but as long as Trump is in charge, the war will not be managed competently and will merely cause pointless death and destruction. Finally, restore federal support for solar and wind energy, to reduce US dependence on unreliable foreign sources of fossil fuels and make energy cheaper in the long term.
As for health-care costs, the immediate priority must be the restoration of the ACA subsidies which have been cut. In the long run, a public option is needed -- "Medicare for all who want it" -- but this will most likely need to wait for a Democratic president.
Personal freedom: Enact a federal law protecting the right to abortion nationwide.
Science: Restore funding for science that Trump and his gang have cut, to restore the country's position in medical research, climate science, and other fields.
Supporting democracy overseas: Full restoration of military aid to Ukraine and Israel, with measures in place to stop Trump from continuing to jerk those countries around as he has been doing. They, not American interlopers, are the best judges of how to most effectively defend themselves against the genocidal threats of Russian imperialism and jihadism respectively. We should also intensify military and diplomatic support for Taiwan and India, democracies facing analogous threats.
Supporting democracy at home: Enact a nationwide ban on gerrymandering and on excessively onerous requirements for voting.
Immigration: Abolish ICE. It has become hopelessly corrupted by implementing Trump's grossly abusive policies, and probably can't be reformed. A new agency for internal immigration enforcement should be created from scratch. Like the majority of Americans, I support mass deportation of illegal aliens, but it needs to be done humanely, with full respect for Constitutional rights and due process, and with provision to allow the economy to adjust. Future policy on legal immigration must be based on the interests of American workers, not the interests of American employers or of the immigrants themselves.
Data centers: Strict limits on the carbon footprint of data centers, and a requirement that voters in the local community have a veto over data center construction in their area.
Epstein: Congress must work to fully enforce the Epstein Files Transparency Act which it passed in November of 2025. All information relating to Epstein's crimes must be made public, with no redaction other than what is needed to protect the victims -- and the names of all of the clients who participated in these revolting abuses of children must be made public so that they can be prosecuted and their careers ended by public rejection. In addition, Pam Bondi and anyone else at the Justice Department who was involved in its flagrant refusal to obey the law at the time must be prosecuted and imprisoned.
Class struggle: A national wealth tax on billionaires, and not just some paltry 5% either. This would be the start of engagement with the central problem of American society today -- the ever-growing concentration of wealth in the hands of a tiny, parasitic oligarchy at everyone else's expense. In the long run this is the most important thing for Congress to do; it will also be among the most difficult.
The election result was largely a backlash against oligarchy. The Democrats' own billionaire donors will be going all-out to stop them from acting on the voters' will in this area. They must not succeed.
The Supreme Court: Enlarge it. Nothing else will suffice to fix the flagrant ideological hijacking of its functions. A code of ethics would be evaded regardless of enforcement mechanisms, while term limits might help in the future but would be of little use to stop abuses now. Needless to say, this would be pointless until there is a new president -- creating new Supreme Court seats while Trump is still in office to fill them would just exacerbate the problems. But if the Court is excessively obstructive during the intervening two years, Congress can strip it of jurisdiction over certain matters. The Constitution gives Congress near-total control over the Supreme Court's powers as well as its size.
Impeachments: The House should impeach cabinet officials who are obviously guilty of abuses and for whom there are likely to be 67 votes in the Senate to remove them. The second condition is absolutely essential; impeachments where there is no real chance of removal from office are mere political showboating and a distraction from getting real work done. Hegseth and Miller are obvious possible targets, if enough Senate Republicans can be brought on board to remove them. I would be all for impeaching Trump, too, if the 67 Senate votes were there, but that seems very unlikely.
The states: Aside from Congress, Democratic wins in the states offer opportunities -- especially the sweep of statewide offices in Texas. If the new state leadership can show Texas voters that Democrats give them a better deal, they may be able to keep the state blue in future elections -- which would have nationwide ramifications, especially if Texas with its 40 electoral votes goes Democratic in future presidential elections. In particular, Hinojosa ran and won on her opposition to data centers, and she now needs to deliver by cracking down hard on them. State governments can also expand and protect abortion rights, upholding the personal freedom of millions of women and girls.
DC should be made a state or absorbed into Maryland, if the inhabitants choose, reducing the federal district to just the area around the key government buildings. Puerto Rico should hold a referendum to choose between statehood and independence. It's anomalous to have millions of people in these areas who are US citizens but with a different political status than the residents of the states.
These are the things I'll be watching for, to evaluate whether the new Democratic majorities are succeeding or failing. The voters last week punished the Republicans for not solving the country's problems, and indeed making them worse in several cases. The Democrats had better see to it that they do not earn the same fate two years from now. The voters expect results, not excuses.
posted by Infidel753 at 2:03 AM
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