How should Democrats respond to Trump's megabill? The 3 C's.
Democrats need to have a frank conversation — with themselves.
We must acknowledge where we are and appreciate what we can realistically accomplish. Yes, we should oppose the MAGA agenda at every turn. But given that we control neither the bully pulpit nor any congressional gavel, we need to focus foremost on what's winnable — next year's midterm elections. At core, the 2026 campaign will be a referendum on President Donald Trump and his rubber-stamp congressional Republicans. Our task is to help the public understand what the Republicans are doing and how it affects them. That job begins with Trump's audaciously named One Big Beautiful Bill.
This will likely be the most significant piece of legislation to pass during Trump's term and should be understood by the public in one phrase: tax cuts for the wealthy, health-care cuts for the many. The simplicity of that binary is its virtue. Trump is a chaos machine — a disciple of professional wrestling who will try to distract from the underlying reality — see his comment that he's 'not going to touch [Medicaid].' We can't chase every shiny bauble — we need to laser focus on points that will deliver strategic value. This is our opportunity to define Trump and his congressional enablers.
Recall that we spent 2024 trying to convince Americans that our democracy was in Trump's crosshairs. That message failed. We now need to paint the reality we know and the public perceives, but which the Trump Show often obscures: The administration and its Capitol Hill minions are beacons of the three C's: corruption, chaos and cruelty. Set aside the rhetoric about fascism, oligarchies or Democratic weakness. Any utterance that fails to burnish the public's understanding of the three C's is our own distraction. The present fight over the budget bill, which the House approved Thursday morning, is the ripest opportunity we'll have to lift the fog that can define 2026.
Recent history is clear. When a single party controls both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue, as the GOP does today, the midterm political landscape adheres to a certain architecture. The opposition's base is energized. Swing voters steer clear of the entrenched party. And the incumbent party's base is depressed by comparison to the prior election. In 1994, Republicans stormed to victory by focusing the public's attention on the Clinton administration's lurch to the left, as exemplified by its health-care failure.
In 2006, Democrats stormed back to power by pounding at the quagmire in Iraq and the GOP's domestic corruption scandals involving the likes of Rep. Tom DeLay (Texas) and lobbyist Jack Abramoff. In 2018, Democrats made a showcase of Trump's ruthless efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act and separate families at the border. The question before Democrats is how to focus the public's attention and make 2026 a referendum on the three C's.
To be sure, Trump will try to flood the zone with distractions. That's a trap. Incensed by each successive outrage, our ill-defined and unfocused reactions too often make us appear like defenders of the status quo. At heart, Americans really do want reform — but they also want protection against Trump's chaos. Once voters understand that congressional Republicans are a rubber stamp, they'll be looking explicitly for a check on his chaotic corruption.
That's why the One Big Beautiful Bill is target rich. Trump and the GOP Congress want to cut taxes on well-connected billionaires by slashing health care for working families. That might not be corruption the way Washington good government groups define it, but it's how the public sees a corrupt system at work. Democrats have yet to make this the signal through the noise.
If we want to win, we need to narrow our critique — to hammer home the notion that Trump is rewarding his inaugural donors and friends by immiserating everyone else. On the political front, a focus on the three C's would harness three benefits for 2026. First, it would pull Democrats and independent voters into a singular bloc. Second, it would drive a wedge between independent voters and the GOP. Most important, it would cleave MAGA populists from the (very few) fiscal conservatives that remain in the GOP. The populists understand the Medicaid cuts will close rural hospitals and cut the MAGA faithful's health care — the fiscal conservatives, meanwhile, see pain as the sole purpose.
This is the binary choice we need to sharpen. Set aside Trump's crypto schemes and his solicitation of Qatar's 'free' plane — that's baked into the electorate's deep-seated cynicism. As recent polling has shown, the public is poised to believe they're being fleeced by the Trump 'system.' That's what the rubber-stamp Republicans will have done when this bill cuts more people's health care than any other in history. The goal of a Democratic counterproposal is not to bring peace among the Democratic factions — it is to bring disquiet to the GOP.
Which brings us to the last point: In this situation, less is more. Democrats don't need to produce a whole budget plan. The counterproposal is not going to become law. They simply need to compel Republicans in swing districts and states to take a vote that raises taxes on the well-to-do and restores health care for the many.
Raising taxes on people making more than $2.5 million, eliminating the tax break for carried interest and restoring the corporate rate to the previously proposed 27 percent would give Congress enough money to leave the nation's health-care system harmless — no cuts to Medicaid, to the Children's Health Insurance Program, or to the premium support for coverage purchased on the Affordable Care Act exchanges.
This is how we put marginal GOP members at grave political risk, forcing them to choose between their districts and loyalty to Trump. For 2026, we need to burnish the three C's in the public's mind. Trump's agenda is unchecked and out of control. We need to hound that narrative until it becomes the essential question animating voters casting ballots in November next year.
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