The Midterm Elections took place this week and the Democrats are now set to take control of Congress in January. The results represent a clear rejection of the Trump administration’s policies by the population — a clear statement of opposition to ICE, cuts to social services, the war in Iran, the skyrocketing cost of living, and the chaos the Trump administration has unleashed.
Looking more deeply into some of the results, they showed just how massive the opposition to Trump and Republicans runs, even in more traditionally Republican areas. For example, Kansas, a long-time Republican stronghold, elected its first Democratic senator since 1932. This comes as no surprise as Kansas has seen one of the largest increases in the average price of gas in the country, with a 53% increase since the Iran War started.
In other places like Texas, majority-Latino counties that voted for Trump in 2024 swung sharply back toward Democrats. This was in part a clear rejection of ICE and its racist attacks on immigrant communities.
These results came despite the billions of dollars Republicans poured into these races, and despite Republican efforts to suppress the vote and spread false claims of voter fraud.
These results show a widespread opposition to the Trump administration and the social and economic situation we are facing. But we still need to be clear about what’s coming, and what the Democrats will or won’t do.
Trump’s record Medicaid cuts will still take effect soon, leading to millions becoming uninsured, and could lead to public hospital closures and budget cuts across the country to the hospitals that treat the most Medicaid patients. ICE is already on our streets fueled by a massive budget and will not stop terrorizing immigrants. And they have billions of dollars to acquire and build more detention centers. Billions of dollars is still pouring into AI and data center construction across the country, sucking resources away from our communities, and threatening many jobs.
On top of this, the Iran war has no end in sight, with the U.S. threatening further strikes. And the Trump administration is working to pass a military budget of around $1.5 trillion dollars for next year. While some Democrats may express opposition to that figure, they still support large military budgets, and many are not opposed to the war on Iran or the continued genocide in Gaza. The Democrats have no solution to reduce the price of gas which has skyrocketed since the U.S. war on Iran. The truth is the Democratic Party will have some small ability to block or frustrate aspects of Trump’s agenda through their control of Congress, but they don’t have solutions to the multitude of social crises we face. And Trump has already said openly to the media that he intends to use the power of executive order and the presidential veto to get around the Democratic control of Congress.
What this means is that even though this election shows a widespread opposition to the Trump administration and its policies, it’s not going to be the Democrats and Congress that will be the force to push back.
The only way to fight the escalating attacks waged against us is to organize our own forces. When ICE comes to terrorize our neighborhoods, it’s not Congress that is going to do anything — it’s us. The same goes for every other attack waged by this administration.
This couldn’t have been made more clear than during the massive ICE operation carried out in Minnesota last January. It wasn’t the Democratic mayor of Minneapolis or the Democratic Governor that stood up to ICE terror in the streets. It was the massive, organized resistance of working people across the region. In neighborhood after neighborhood, ICE couldn’t make a move without being monitored, followed, and confronted in the streets, which culminated in a day of mass strike involving over one hundred thousand people. That’s where our real strength lies: in the collective, mass action of working people.
The Democrats certainly don’t support many of the Trump administration’s policies, but they represent the same system that defends the interests of billionaires and corporate profits over the interests of working people. In the face of all of these problems, no one, including the Democrats, is coming to save us. It’s up to us.
These election results confirm that there is a widespread opposition to this administration and its attacks. Their world is not the world that most people want to live in, one that sacrifices the lives of ordinary people for the profits of the billionaire class. But to actually stand up to these attacks and to fight for a world that truly represents the interests of most people, this election is not enough. This will take a much bigger fight, one that relies on the collective organized power of working people. That is the struggle we still have to wage.
