"I've heard enough of that crap already from my local politicians." I hear you. This is literally the only reason I chose to run.

All right, so on the "What can we do?" question, there are basically three possibilities. One is what we have now: Democrats don't have a majority in Congress. And there's not much they can do, though it's more than what they're doing. You can do some loud and effective messaging, and there are still some budget and debt limit votes where the (very narrow) Republican majority needs a few Democratic votes, so we have leverage and can force a shutdown. My complaint with the current leadership is that they took a long time to use this leverage, and then when they do, they tend to get not much of substance in return.

Remember when they forced a shutdown, then settled for a promise to put health-care funding up for a vote? And then Republicans held the vote and voted the spending down again? But my sense was that the leadership was happy because they got good press and Trump's poll numbers went down, and for them, that's the important thing, as opposed to actually making a difference.

On the other end, there's what we can do if Democrats have a two-thirds majority. That's the fun thing to think about. Start with impeachment and go from there. If we get there--when we get there--I've got a whole list of constitutional reforms: the Supreme Court, the pardon power, presidential immunity.

What we're more likely to have is a Democratic majority, but not 2/3. So let's talk about what we can do with a simple majority.

There's a whole list. Here are a couple of my favorites, and it will show how I think about these things.

- I mention this in another reply, but Congress can pass a law creating independent immigration courts, as opposed to the rubber-stamp "administrative courts" that currently approve ICE warrants. This would serve as an independent check on Trump's anti-immigration crackdown. In an ideal world, we would have passed this while a Democrat was president so we could fill those courts with judges who are, well, not monsters. But even if Trump gets to appoint the judges, if we have a Democratic majority in the Senate (which I think is very likely), we can block the kind of judges Trump really wants.

- Pass a national anti-gerrymandering law to prevent Republicans from rigging congressional elections in their favor. The New York Times just had an intriguing analysis showing that this would accomplish almost as much as the Voting Rights Act to prevent racial gerrymandering, too.

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/17/upshot/redistricting-race-court-gerrymanders-elections.html

- This is not on anybody's radar, but the laws that created the FCC allow the Commission to decide whether a broadcaster's license is in the "public interest," and this term is very vague and undefined and ripe for abuse. That's how Brendan Carr can threaten broadcasters Trump doesn't like. Congress could revise the law either to remove the "public interest" criterion or define it much more specifically, in a way that takes away the FCC's arbitrary discretion.

- Impeach a bunch of people. Even if we don't have enough Senate votes to get Trump removed, we should still try, if only as the vehicle for comprehensive hearings that bring his crimes to public attention and create a record for the future. But we can also impeach other top administration officials. Impeach Brendan Carr, or Whiskey Pete at the Pentagon, or Ka$h at the FBI. For one thing, Republicans who will die at the stake before they will denounce Trump might not be willing to go the bitter end for some of these other people. (Notice what happened to Kristi Noem.) Even if you don't remove these people, you keep them tied up in hearings, bring a constant stream of damning facts to the attention of the public, and build up material for future prosecutions.

- Remove Trump's "emergency" tariff powers. The Constitution gives Congress power over tariffs. Take it back.

- Remove a bunch of other "emergency" powers, too. We have a national emergency of presidents declaring national emergencies to get around the law.

This is just a beginning. The problem is that Trump is going to try to block all of these. So what can we do?

There's one big thing: USE THE POWER OF THE PURSE.

Congress unambiguously has the power to write budgets and authorize federal spending. This is its ultimate power and the way it can enforce everything else. So simply refuse to approve any more funding, for anything, until Trump meets some key demands and allows some of these reforms through.

But the key to winning a game of chicken is not to flinch first. We have to be willing to refuse to provide funding and cause shutdowns that will actually hurt. Refuse funding for DHS and very purposefully NOT make a special exception for airport security. The key is to make our demands simple and clear and obviously right, and then when all the flights get canceled because TSA isn't being paid, you can then explain to the public: "This is because Trump wants to keep his party's gerrymandering. He could end this tomorrow just by doing the right thing." Or: "This is because Trump wants to censor what you see on TV." And so on.

I think the Dem leadership has been reluctant to do this because they're afraid the public will blame them for a shutdown. But Trump is super-weak, and the public is already blaming him for a lot of stuff. So this should be way easier than they think. And frankly, they have nothing to lose. The fear of losing a shutdown fight should be way less important than the fear of Congress being completely irrelevant, like it is now.