Congress Could Be Our Last Defense Against Trumpism

The campaign hasn’t been able to devote much attention to this lately—it has been a chaotic and alarming few weeks between dismal debate performances and attempted assassinations—but the United States government is completely broken. While we have been wrapped up in the top tier headlines, the Supreme Court has awarded itself expansive powers over the structure and impact of federal authority; the administrative state has shriveled into a mere suggestion, and routine budget negotiations have become catastrophic clashes. The problems with the system have become more dire in recent weeks, but have persisted at different levels of dysfunction for years and across multiple administrations to the point where failure is more normal than success. The available answer—sold by the press and the campaigns they cover—will be the choice between an autocratic former president Donald Trump and the pro-democracy President Biden. The answer we will actually need is Congress.

As far as Democratic (and democratic) priorities are concerned, the legislative branch of government is the only one with the prerogatives and powers necessary to bring a renegade Supreme Court to heel, to repeal the anti-contraception Comstock Act still on the books and replace it with a national restoration of abortion and privacy rights, to impose punishments on the array of lawmakers and officials who granted material support to the January 6 Insurrection and are laying the groundwork for another. Worried about the consequences of a tense political atmosphere mixing with an unfettered gun culture? Congress would be the place to solve it. The most dangerous and draconian policies in the nightmare that is Project 2025 require a compliant Congress to turn them into law, while many of the successes of the Biden administration were the product of congressional efforts. More than any other branch of government or institution in Washington, Congress is responsible for the state of the nation—which explains why everything feels so futile.

Part of the blame belongs with officeholders who misused and distorted congressional authority. Newt Gingrich and his Contract With America reshaped the House and began the drift of the Senate toward unnecessary fights and dangerous brinksmanship with the well-being of the country, followed by the likes of Dennis Hastert and Trent Lott and Mitch McConnell, who turned hardball tactics into a full-blown destructive strategy. Another portion of the problem is the expansion of the executive branch, the slow and steady construction of the so-called “imperial presidency” as Congress handed its authority over to one president after another, aided by war powers that only ever grow and never fade. But the greatest share of the responsibility for this constitutional calamity belongs to us, the electorate, as we have dimmed our focus and abandoned our obligation to hold Congress accountable for our progress.

For decades, the national narrative has seduced voters with promises of easy answers and singular saviors, whose decision-making abilities would either whip Congress into shape or neutralize it altogether. We have been given myths of executive power in the form of FDR or Ronald Reagan using Congress as a pass-through for their accomplishments instead of the complicated and difficult truths of negotiating and managing desired legislation through often strained relationships with the co-equal branch of government. And that’s just for those of us who still have a choice and aren’t gerrymandered or suppressed into submission to one party or another, because politicians picking their constituents has become the rule rather than the exception. We have been so overwhelmed by problem after problem and crisis after crisis that it has become easier to abandon our government than ask it for solutions.

This surrender of self-governance has resulted in American democracy teetering on the brink of destruction, left to the whims of unelected judges appointed by an unpopular president, operating at the behest of unseen donors, who have sponsored a Congress unwilling or unable to discharge its necessary duties. Fortunately, we are in an election year.

Making control of Congress the centerpiece of the fall campaign seems counterintuitive with the existential threat of Trump at the top of the ticket, but a Congress-first strategy is both politically savvy and powerfully pragmatic for those of us who value small-d democracy. Especially with the manifestation of violence against the most visible political figures, more grounded and localized campaigns can help lower the temperature and remind us that our representatives are just regular people. A certain “bleach blonde bad built butch body” notwithstanding, most congressional campaigns rely more on policy than personality, allowing many candidates to focus on how they can serve their districts rather than how their districts can serve their ambitions. Given the appropriate focus, time, and resources, congressional contests can shift our electorate back toward evaluating the substance of government over the appearance of authority, a position that gives Democrats a significant advantage.

Furthermore, having a candidate for president who knows and respects the power of Congress and can speak to its essential function allows Democrats to highlight the importance of action everywhere. Many voters in states where the electoral college is a guarantee can check out of important contests further down the ballot because there’s no big news for them on Election Night. By defining the debate as one between visions of the country—between a government that defines and controls every decision of its citizens like Project 2025 and one that respects and supports people and their inherent rights—the top of the ticket can build support from the ground up. And that’s essential for any victory against Donald Trump, because it is how we beat him in 2020.

Despite the largest popular vote total in U.S. history, President Biden didn’t have a strong down-ballot effect in 2020. In fact, he had the reverse, as highly contested races for statewide offices like the Senate seats in Georgia buoyed him over the top as voters who had otherwise checked out from an incessant presidential campaign nonetheless ticked the box next to his name once motivated into the voting booth by their interest in other candidates. The Biden campaign itself has acknowledged this effect, as it invests less in Georgia—where down-ballot races are more cut-and-dry this cycle—and more into North Carolina, where the GOP candidate for governor has praised Hitler, attacked women’s suffrage, and called for violence against political opponents. A highly motivated electorate in the Tarheel State might just be enough to put the Democratic presidential ticket over the top, and a suitably structured campaign for Congress might make more highly motivated electorates across the country.

This, however, requires putting congressional-level priorities front and center and clarifying the consequences. It’s not enough to talk about what Democratic Congress-critters will try to prevent from Project 2025; a coordinated effort must be made to assert what a vote for a Democratic Congress will create. Repealing Comstock and restoring abortion and privacy rights is a plank that will get voters’ attention; putting those efforts and the several state ballot abortion initiatives beyond the reach of conservative lawsuits and unhinged courts by affirming the Equal Rights Amendment is something only Congress has the power to do. The legislative branch is also the only lever in the federal government capable of reining in a judiciary that has far exceeded its authority at every level—by digging deep into the corruption of judges under oath, establishing binding ethics rules, defining the limits of judicial review, and determining the size and shape of the courts—through its constitutionally granted authority under Article III.

And should the worst happen, and Donald Trump once again assumes the powers of the presidency, the only inhibiting force he can face is an aggressive and empowered Congress. Even as far gone as they are, some of the voters who are with Trump for tax cuts or immigration are unlikely to want him to be entirely unfettered to follow his every impulse. In places where Democrats are playing defense for either the House or the Senate (or both), arguing for a congressional leash on Trump could be the distinction that separates a moderate Democrat willing to tell the truth to a stubborn executive branch irrespective of party from an obsequious Republican willing to submit entirely to imperial power for the “right” one.

For as far gone as our polity and government seem to be, we are still a people who want to govern ourselves. There is a reason Donald Trump and Republican congressional candidates don’t want to be too closely tied to Project 2025, or give clear, unambiguous answers on the record about abortion, or discuss who is responsible for January 6th and how they will prevent another one. Despite handing Trump unprecedented powers, there is relatively little fanfare about how responsive and obedient “his” Supreme Court has been, or what new adventures in conservative jurisprudence they will foist on us next. It’s not because they don’t know what they want to do or say; it’s not because it’s too complex to understand or too boring to accept; it is because their plans for us and the country are deeply divisive, retrograde, and unpopular, and to be open and honest about it would be the end of their electoral chances.

The least we can ask then, of the party claiming to be the last defense of democracy, is to make Republicans fight in the open for the autocracy they so clearly crave. Trump can successfully deny and deflect from every attack, but it’s a lot harder for hundreds of Republicans in Congress to do the same. While the GOP tries to distance itself from Project 2025 by telling us all of the policies they won’t pass and all of the things they won’t do, Democrats should be louder about everything that we will. Because even though the presidency this cycle is a choice between electing an executive or crowning a king, Congress is a choice about who we will be as a country. And that’s an even easier decision to make.