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Donald Trump after boasting his renovations of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool on the eve of the midterm elections on Nov. 2, 2026, in Washington, D.C. Photo: Aaron Schwartz/Bloomberg via Getty Images
For two years, Donald Trump’s Republican Party has worked to push the United States further and further into a state of fascist rule. Trump’s regime has turned the federal government against ideological enemies, enriched and entrenched the power of billionaire allies, and done its utmost to decimate any checks and balances on the actions of the despotic leader and his loyalists.
It is, then, an extraordinary and overdue moment of relief to see the processes of democracy — however flawed in our barely representational system — offer the opportunity to take an off-ramp away from technocapital-backed fascism. Across the nation, Democrats secured historic victories. Even in Republican strongholds including Texas, Georgia, and South Carolina, voters delivered a rebuke to Trump’s GOP.
Democrats in Congress now have a mandate to do two things: Stop Trump, and improve the welfare of the U.S. working class. This should be understood as no less than a moral imperative to act immediately to curb the regime’s fascism in every possible way.
Americans are above all furious at the dire economic conditions in which they’re expected to struggle. The midterm results reflect a limit of Trumpian false consciousness: People know when they are poor, and they can see when billionaires, federal armed forces, genocidal governments, and presidential family members are profiting.
Democrats now have a mandate to do two things: Stop Trump, and improve the welfare of the U.S. working class.
Despite their newfound congressional majority, Democrats now face an uphill battle to deliver legislation that will improve people’s material conditions. But that is not an excuse for inaction, mealy-mouthed gestures, or nods to bipartisanship. Democrats must push legislation that Republicans cannot stop, as well as legislation that Trump is all but sure to veto.
For one, Democrats must immediately roll back cuts to programs like Medicaid and supplemental nutritional programs. They must go further, too, and deliver on campaign promises for robust healthcare provisions, welfare spending, and restrictions on the ruinous depredations of Big Tech.
Trump bypassed Congress to prosecute his illegal war of choice on Iran, which has cost over $47 billion to date. But Congress has the power to curb military spending. Democrats must pass further resolutions to end the war, and they must pull the plug on military budget, directing funds instead to healthcare, housing, and investments in green infrastructure, to name a few urgent priorities. Though a flailing Trump finally announced that he would end military aid to Israel on Monday, it is Democrats who must pass further legislation to end all U.S. complicity in Israel’s apartheid regime and genocide.
Democrats must also propose laws to defund and abolish Immigration and Customs Enforcement. This is no outlandish proposal; the impunity-drenched militia was only founded in 2003, and it is only by virtue of Congress that it now receives more funding than any other federal law enforcement agency. It is in Congress’s power to dismantle the agency and pass legislation to nullify the $170 billion-plus allocated to the border regime in Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill.
Democrats should do whatever possible to roll back and end political prosecutions and the Trump administration’s brazen efforts to criminalize dissent.
The Democratic program must, in short, reject the austerity logics that have dominated the party for four decades. As sociologist Melinda Cooper has pointed out, and Trump’s Republicans have again and again proven, such austerity is not even austere: Pro-austerity governments since the Nixon administration in the 1970s have overseen lavish public spending in the shape of tax cuts and subsidies for holders of financial wealth (which does not trickle down), as well as funding for policing, border enforcement, prisons, and war machines. These are choices, and Democrats have been given a mandate to make choices that instead benefit — to revive a classic — the many, not the few.
Democrats such as Rep. Pete Aguilar, D-Calif., have stressed that their focus will be on the “affordability agenda” on which the party has run. This must include taking swift action to investigate and impeach the president and the worst offenders in his Cabinet, including Secretary of War Pete Hegseth and Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. In no way does insisting on accountability for Trump and his acolytes’ lawlessness distract from an economic focus. No affordability agenda can be achieved with an authoritarian executive in place. Challenging Trump’s despotism and self-dealing with every possible tool goes hand in hand with legislating to deliver on so-called kitchen-table issues.
Will Democrats in Congress, many of whom continue to reject the progressive and left-wing energies that have helped drive this blue wave, succeed in this anti-fascist political and economic agenda? No doubt, they will be thwarted at every turn by a desperate and dangerous executive and an embattled Republican minority. That is no reason to compromise, and constant pressure must be kept on Democrats who pretend otherwise. As the votes tonight make clear, in their millions, Americans know who to blame.
The post Democrats, Don’t Mess This Up appeared first on The Intercept.
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