There were plenty of great questions this week. Here is a sample of what you’ve been asking about:
Are there any potential candidates at this time who could win the presidency AND turn things around? If not, is there anything we can do now to start the process?
(Matt) It’s hard to say at this point, but the good news is we are closer to the start of the 2028 presidential campaign than we may realize. Democrats—and for that matter Republicans—are making decisions right now about whether to go for the big prize, and it wouldn’t surprise me to see the field begin to take shape even before the midterms next year. Once the campaign begins, we will start to focus on the future and the debate about what should follow Trump will begin in earnest. Given the level of interest I expect people to have in the campaign, and with the backdrop being the sum total of the destructive things Donald Trump has done, the general theme of turning things around should be prominent. Candidates will present their agendas, and in a field as crowded as I expect this one to be, there will be incentive to be bold in order to separate from the pack. In this environment, someone is likely to catch fire. We don’t know and can’t predict at this time who that might be, but if the resistance to Trump we’ve seen build this year continues to grow during the presidential campaign, it’s not hard to imagine a victorious candidate coming to office with a mandate to turn things around. For now, our goal should be to make the first stage of this process materialize by working to build a blue wave next year.
I am hearing rumors about privatizing Social Security. Is there anything to them?
(Chris) These rumors stem from comments that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent made on Wednesday to an audience at a Breitbart event. Referring to the new “Trump savings accounts” (see a PBS explainer on the accounts here), Bessent said the following:
“In a way, it is a backdoor for privatizing Social Security . . . If, all of a sudden, these accounts grow and you have in the hundreds of thousands of dollars for your retirement, that’s a game-changer, too.”
I read this as Bessent saying that the new saving accounts for newborns could result, in the very distant future, in Americans having a higher share of their retirement savings in funds from private investment accounts instead of Social Security, thus increasing the appeal of private investment. Bessent was speaking to an audience that was likely very favorable to the idea of Social Security privatization, so while this probably sounded good in the room it was politically tone deaf. He has since tried to clarify his remarks, and the White House has attempted to do the same.
Democrats and progressive advocacy organizations have jumped all over Republicans for Bessent's comments, in a way that I actually think has gone a bit overboard. There is no congressional or Trump administration plan underway to privatize Social Security, even if a lot of them support the idea, and everybody in Washington knows that. Mentioning Social Security privatization is a very good way to scare people though, and that is exactly why I have not jumped into the feeding frenzy on this one.
Part of the current problem, as I see it, is the fixation politicians have with winning. Political parties and their members, at least the good ones, confine most of their efforts to the needs and wellbeing of their constituents. For enough to change in a good direction, they would have to accept responsibility for the country's wellbeing as well. If such a thing is possible, how might it come about?
(Matt) I believe in the axiom that good policy is good politics, and that means members of Congress should represent their constituencies to the best of their ability. And they should be motivated by re-election, because that’s what keeps them working for their districts. But more elections need to be competitive. Most members hardly ever or never face real challenges. The open faucet of campaign money is part of the problem. And when the districts themselves become skewed by gerrymandering (in the House) and population shifts (in the Senate), minority and fringe perspectives assume an outsized influence over legislating. We are a divided nation where people advocate different views about what the country’s wellbeing should look like, but a legislature that accurately reflected these viewpoints would be better positioned to have this debate. If more members faced competitive general elections—where they are incentivized to seek compromise—we could produce such a legislature. When the dust settles on this era and institutional reform becomes possible, changing the rules to produce more competitive general elections and a representative Congress needs to be at the top of the list.
How likely is a government shutdown in the fall? Can Republicans get around a filibuster of a funding bill like they did with the “Big Beautiful Bill”? And how bad do you think it would look for Democrats to push it to a shutdown if the Republicans refuse to compromise?
(Chris): A government shutdown after September 30—when current funding for the government runs out—is a real possibility. All government funding bills, except for budget reconciliation bills like the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), are subject to the 60 vote threshold in the Senate. So, in order to pass additional government funding, Republicans need the support of everyone in their Senate caucus, plus at least seven Senate Democrats or independents. Because of the huge blowup over nine Democrats voting with Republicans to keep the government open back in March, Senate Democrats are spending a lot of time in internal discussions (see here and here) to develop a common strategy for September, so as to avoid a second rift this time around.
The two specific issues that are making congressional Democrats so angry, and thus unwilling to join in what is usually a bipartisan process, are the threat of future rescission bills from the Trump administration and the Trump administration freezing hundreds of billions of dollars in funding that was approved by Congress and signed into law. They believe—rightly in my view—that these actions make it impossible to strike any deal with Trump, because he could just freeze money both sides agreed to or axe it through a rescission package later on. The question is whether shutting down the government over this would be even worse, which is admittedly a difficult question to answer because it is a hypothetical.
I am personally on the fence. The issue for me is whether the courts, which are a safe venue but slow moving, are a better way to handle frozen funding than a government shutdown, which is dramatic and thus more satisfying for most activists, but also quite dangerous politically for Democrats and for the country more generally.
The gerrymandering is terrifying. Is there ANY way to avoid or undo it?
(Matt) There may not be a way to undo what Republicans are pulling in Texas, but I wouldn’t let it terrify you. As I wrote two weeks ago, it is far from a slam dunk that the new map will generate the result Republicans seek, and it may not even take effect until after the midterms if it is tied up by the court challenge that is guaranteed to follow. Their gerrymandering attempt may be brazen, but it telegraphs their weakness and fear. Trying to rig the results by changing district lines mid-decade is an admission that Republicans know their majority is in danger. Democrats are taking an aggressive retaliatory posture, threatening to squeeze additional districts out of states where they control the governorship and legislature, like California and New York. Some of these potential challenges face hurdles, but even if Republicans successfully redraw their maps and Democrats do not, remember that for every new safe Republican district they create they are leaving adjacent districts more vulnerable. So the best way to avoid a scenario where Republicans gerrymander their way to a majority is to work to build a blue wave next year, because if we do, the extra four or five districts they get out of Texas won’t matter.
How can interested citizens distinguish between hype and a genuine crisis to know when a tactical donation is warranted? Like most people, I am not a mega donor.
(Chris) I recommend looking at the formatting of the fundraising requests you receive. The consultants and staffers who produce fundraising emails and texts utilize formatting to increase the sense of urgency behind their request to boost the amount of money people will contribute. These include, but are not limited to, lots of boldface, italics, ALL CAPS, large font sizes, emojis, and multiple punctuation marks where just one would be fine!!! If you see formatting like this, there is a good chance what you are reading is overhyped. I would also watch out for donation matches, where an unnamed donor has supposedly pledged to match two, three or four-fold whatever total amount small donors give in a specified time frame. Maybe I just don't know how these work even though I have been in the email game a long time, but the truth is that I am skeptical about these matches and would ignore them.
What do you see as the biggest hope that our Democracy will be preserved despite this president's best/worst efforts to bury us in a dictatorship?
(Matt) We are the best hope for preserving democracy. In fact, we are the only hope. And the preconditions for surviving this dark moment have been coming together since January. People needed to become aware of what Trump is up to, and by acting rapidly and recklessly he made it impossible to hide his intentions. Then they needed to push back against what they were seeing by registering their disapproval in town meetings with members of Congress, through email and phone calls to elected officials, and through peaceful demonstrations. All of this has been happening. Opinion polls tell us that Trump spent his first six months losing the country one group of voters at a time. His agenda is deeply unpopular and his party is worried about holding their majorities. Many of the guardrails that protect democracy have been damaged or abandoned, but federalism, the courts, and our efforts remain. If we keep doing what we’re doing—if we keep the pressure on—we will survive this.