Democrats are about to win a majority. Here’s how they can keep it.

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Pop quiz: It’s 2028, and Democrats have held both chambers for almost two years. Which of these realities would you prefer?

• A) We tried to pass an anti-corruption bill, but it got filibustered.
• B) We passed an anti-corruption bill, but President Donald Trump stood in the way of it becoming law.

Here’s one more:

• A) We passed a bill that put healthcare back where it was before Trump’s disastrous “One Big, Beautiful Bill.”
• B) We passed a package that redefines healthcare in America, but Trump vetoed it.

You probably didn’t need long, and neither will other voters. B is bold, which is exactly what turns one win into a series of wins. But for Democratic leadership, the time to figure out how you get to B is now.

The good news is that the planning is happening. 

NBC News reported earlier this month that House Democrats are working on a plan for the first 100 hours and first 100 days. 

And on Thursday, Punchbowl News reported that the House healthcare working group—run by Democratic Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Terri Sewell of Alabama—sent its report to Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. It includes Medicare for All; the addition of dental, vision, and hearing to Medicare; and a cap on out-of-pocket costs.

Jeffries gets a lot of arrows slung at him, and I’m not relitigating any of that here. But on this one, he’s thinking the right way, and some of what is coming out of the caucus is encouraging.

But so is the hesitation, unfortunately. 

Punchbowl says that there are “obvious limits” to how much of that report can pass with Trump in the White House and a potentially Republican Senate. 

NBC also reported that a major focus of Democrats’ may just be reversing Trump’s cuts, but that’s backwards. They should pass the big thing in 2027 and make Trump veto it, then spend 2028 running against the veto. 

Nancy Pelosi’s House spent 2007 making former President George W. Bush veto children’s health insurance—twice. And a year later, Barack Obama won the presidency, and Democrats won 60 Senate seats.

As I see it, there are two places where the circles of left, liberal, and center already overlap, but getting either one to Trump’s desk takes some bold maneuvering.

First is healthcare, and it’s good that AOC and her group started there. The last time that Democrats had this choice, the House passed a public option in November 2009—and the Senate dropped it to get former Sen. Joe Lieberman’s vote, then dropped even a watered-down Medicare buy-in for people over 55 years old. 

Democrats took the 2010 “shellacking” over what survived.

The pieces for round two are now in a report on Jeffries’ desk, with AOC telling Punchbowl that “Medicare for All is of course included.”

And the bold fix is fiscal, so most of it can ride on reconciliation with 51 Senate votes. Nobody has to touch the filibuster to put “Medicare for Anyone Who Wants It” on Trump’s desk.

For the average American, a health plan that you buy into through your taxes instead of a monthly bill—and that stays with you no matter where or whether you work—priced without a profit margin is transformative.

So Democrats pass it, it sits on the Resolute Desk, and only one man keeps it from you. It’s THIS CLOSE to being real for you and your family. The 2028 question for voters answers itself: We must keep Democrats in the majority and get Trump and the GOP out.

The other issue working for Democrats is corruption, where the overlap might be even bigger. 

A Brennan Center poll from earlier this year found that 92% of voters view corruption as a big problem. End Citizens United’s battleground survey even has it running even with inflation, with 46% of voters not trusting either party to fix it. 

That’s a vacancy that Democrats could fill. 

A stock-trading ban is a no-brainer, and Jeffries is already for it. But Democrats shouldn’t stop there: The president can’t profit off of the office (yes, that needs a law now), we need disclosure and regulation for lobbyists, there should be no more anonymous money in elections, and there needs to be an ethics office that doesn’t answer to the White House. 

And going even further, we must harden every contribution limit that the Supreme Court hasn’t struck yet, then introduce a constitutional amendment for the rest—one that goes past overturning Citizens United, so people can see where the bill stops and the Constitution begins.

A bill that bans stock trades and leaves the rest of the machine running is the same “reform” package we’ve seen before. What gets noticed goes after the whole racket—the Democratic side included—and visibly costs the party something. Get that one to the Resolute Desk, and the story tells itself.

None of this has to wait for spring. The legislative calendar is slow, sure, but a caucus that walks in with the bills drafted and the Senate signed on can move quickly. 

Biden’s rescue plan went from budget resolution to signature in five weeks with a 50-50 Senate. So the bills need to hit Trump’s desk in the first 100 hours, and they need to keep coming—each with a veto waiting. Everything that fits in reconciliation can get to him that way.

And then (insert dramatic tense music here) the rest runs into the filibuster.

The corruption bill can’t ride reconciliation, so the filibuster question lives in that one bill.

I’m not going to litigate the “if we kill the filibuster, one day Republicans will pass horrible stuff and we can’t stop it” argument. It’s real, but I don’t care. At some point, people need to see the true impact of their vote—and that the two parties are wildly different.

Let’s go back to the quiz and say the filibuster line to that guy in Saginaw, Michigan. Democrats have 51 votes and a rulebook they control, and they’re telling him that the rulebook won. 

Now say the veto line. He already knows whose fault it is, because only one guy in this country can veto a bill and everybody knows his name. People forgive a wall you can’t move. But a rule you could have changed and didn’t, well, that’s on you.

This has screwed us before. The For the People Act—a package of voting rights, campaign finance, and ethics reform—got filibustered in June 2021. To keep Joe Manchin, Senate Democrats stripped out every ethics provision and reintroduced the rest as a voting bill with minor campaign finance tweaks. Republicans filibustered that too. 

And in January 2022, when Schumer moved to change the rules just enough to pass even the watered-down version, Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema joined every Republican to keep the filibuster, in a 48-52 vote. Ten months later, the Democrats just barely lost the House. 

Had Democrats even managed to pass that voting bill through a filibuster carve-out, they might have held the House against all odds.

I don’t know how many Democratic senators would vote on the filibuster in January. That’s the argument for putting Senate Democrats and candidates in the room with Jeffries’ working groups now. 

Democrats have seven weeks. They can restore what Trump broke in the first hour, sure. But then they must pass something that people will still be talking about in 2028, put it on his desk, and make him say no to the whole country.

And if those same bills get signed in 2029 because voters did the obvious thing, then a Democratic majority has delivered a change that people will feel in their own lives. That’s how we used to hold majorities for decades.

So let’s get moving.

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