President Donald Trump’s MAGA train keeps rolling. Since his return to office in January, Democrats have offered little, if any, effective opposition to slow it down.
By any reasonable standard, the president’s first 100 days in office were historic. Jonathan Alter, in an essay for Washington Monthly, compared Trump to President Franklin Roosevelt, who promised “action and action now” in his first inaugural address. “So did Donald Trump in his second inaugural, and both men provided it,” Alter wrote. “Unfortunately, Trump has inverted FDR’s actions at every turn, replacing construction with destruction and compassion with contempt.”
In July, Democrats were largely ineffective in stopping passage of Trump’s infamous One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which had been effectively dismissed by the mainstream media and political insiders as being dead on arrival. That vile legislation is, in many ways, the embodiment of the right’s revolutionary plan to remake nearly every part of American society in their own image. According to one analysis, the president has already seen 47% of the Project 2025 agenda, which seeks to turn the country into a White Christian authoritarian plutocracy enacted.
But now, with an imminent battle in Congress on preventing a government shutdown, Democrats have an opportunity to assert themselves and extract some concessions — and even win a modest victory — from MAGA Republicans.
But now, with an imminent battle in Congress on preventing a government shutdown, Democrats have an opportunity to assert themselves and extract some concessions — and even win a modest victory — from MAGA Republicans.
With funding for the government set to expire on Oct. 1, House Republicans unveiled a stopgap bill on Tuesday that would fund government agencies through Nov. 21. The legislation also includes funding increases for security assistance — $30 million for members of Congress and $58 million for the Supreme Court and the White House — to address widespread safety concerns that have emerged in the wake of right-wing podcaster Charlie Kirk’s recent assassination. As POLITICO reported, Trump has urged “congressional Republicans to stiff-arm [Democrats] in government funding negotiations.” So far, they have complied.
But Democrats have, in the words of a Wall Street Journal report, “name[d] their price” to prevent a shutdown. On Wednesday they announced their own spending demands, including restoring tax credits for the Affordable Care Act, which are scheduled to expire at the end of the year, and reversing drastic cuts to Medicaid. Both provisions were part of budget cuts in the GOP’s “Big Vile Bill.” The spending patch, which would fund the government through Oct. 31, would also strengthen security for lawmakers by $326 million.
The Democrats’ counteroffer reflects the party’s realization that the GOP will, at some stage, need Democratic votes, and underscores their apparent willingness to play hardball and “[hold] the threat of a shutdown over Republicans’ heads.”
But congressional Democrats have a history of compromising with Republicans when the stakes are high. In March, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York faced a torrent of criticism — and calls for him to step down as leader — after he caved to pressure to support a Republican stopgap proposal to avert a shutdown. Some in the party have justified this weakness in the name of bipartisanship and being “the adults in the room.” Democrats, it seems, have convinced themselves they have to be more reasonable precisely because the Republicans are so unreasonable, irresponsible and destructive.
To be fair, Democrats were seeking bipartisan cooperation because their voters demanded it. NBC News reported that in April 2017, 59% of Democrats supported compromising with Trump and Republicans on legislation, while 33% wanted them to play hardball.
Now, according to a new NBC News poll conducted in March, “that sentiment has completely flipped.” Sixty-five percent of Democrats want their representatives in Congress “to stick to their positions even if that risks sacrificing bipartisan progress.” Only 32% favor compromising with the GOP.
Over the past nine months, it’s become clear that Trump and the larger right-wing are playing for keeps. In the aftermath of Kirk’s killing, the president is in war mode. The administration is planning to go after organizations on “the left” and to police free speech. These moves are part of what German legal theorist Carl Schmitt called a “state of exception,” where getting and keeping power by any means available is all that matters. This is the logic of authoritarians.
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Bipartisanship and cooperation will not stop Trump’s authoritarian moves. Democrats need to draw a line in the proverbial sand and take a strong stand on what they want in exchange for keeping the federal government open. There is also the deeper question of whether the Democrats should even consider cooperating with the MAGA Republicans in keeping a government open if it is being used as an authoritarian weapon against the American people.
The party faces an uphill battle.
Although Republicans hold narrow congressional majorities, they have changed the rules to cement their control over Congress. They have also ceded the power of the legislative branch to the executive to act as a subsidiary of Trump and MAGA.
Democrats also face challenges of their own making. The party and its leaders are deeply unpopular with the general public and among their own supporters. They are disorganized and do not have a compelling story to tell — and they are still locked in a circular fight over former President Joe Biden’s physical decline in office and who bears responsibility for former Vice President Kamala Harris’ election loss to Trump.
The party has failed to craft an emotionally engaging story and vision for the future that offers tangible deliverables for the American people. New polling from Data for Progress suggests that Democrats’ message should be “focused on holding billionaires accountable, cracking down on corporate greed, fighting political corruption, and delivering real, economic wins for working people,” which “significantly outperforms a more traditional Democratic message centered on ‘defending the rule of law’ and ‘promoting opportunity.’”
Democrats have also failed to adapt to the new reality that America is a failing democracy which is rapidly collapsing into a state of competitive authoritarianism. In such a crisis, a functional and committed opposition party must do more than issue statements and file lawsuits. Democrats should form coalitions, coordinate resources, obstruct and slow down the GOP in government and across society, continue to compete in elections, mobilize the public, think tactically and strategically about political power, make moral claims about democracy and freedom and consistently explain why they are the better alternative Trump and MAGA Republicans.
Benjamin Feldman and Jennifer McCoy of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace issued a warning: “Our analysis shows that the hard task of building a big-tent, cross-ideological electoral coalition substantially increases the probability of defeating a democratic backslider. But it also shows that oppositions often wait until media freedom and democracy erode significantly before they form coalitions. By that time, the odds are stacked even higher against them.”
But the upcoming shutdown battle offers Democrats an opportunity to prove they aren’t approaching the grave threats posed by Trump and MAGA Republicans as if it’s business as usual. Taking a stand on behalf of the American people could be the first step in turning their fortunes around.
As New York Times columnist Ezra Klein wrote, “The 2026 midterms are 14 months away…I’m not going to tell you I am absolutely sure Democrats should shut the government down. I’m not. At the same time, joining Republicans to fund this government is worse than failing at opposition. It’s complicity.”
Will the party’s leaders have that much steel in their backbone? Are they prepared to unapologetically wield power in defense of American democracy and freedom? Or will they keep firing off angry letters and staging sad Capitol sit-ins?
The question is no longer whether Democrats will fight back — it’s if they even remember how.
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