Americans are done with MAGA. But they’re not quite ready to get behind Democrats.
Democrats are almost certainly going to win back at least one chamber of Congress in November by simply being the anti-MAGA party. But in order to build on those likely victories, they’ll need to do more than simply oppose Trump and his lickspittles in the House and Senate.
It’s important for the opposition to not count their chickens before they hatch. Even though Democrats hold a 50-44 advantage over Republicans on the generic ballot in November according to an NBC News poll conducted between February 27 and March 3, voters aren’t exactly thrilled with Democrats either.
A Fox News poll conducted between February 28 and March 2 found that while 57 percent of respondents disapproved of President Donald Trump’s leadership, and 64 percent of those surveyed disapproved of Republicans in Congress, 70 percent of respondents disapproved of Democrats in Congress — a record high. Republicans’ approval rating was at a dismal 36 percent, while Democrats’ approval is in the gutter at 29 percent.
Americans have made it clear that they don’t want MAGA policies. A Reuters/Ipsos poll from February 28 to March 1 found that only 27 percent of Americans support Trump’s attack on Iran. That same pollster also found in February that only 38 percent of respondents approved of Trump’s handling of immigration, after Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents killed US citizens Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis. NBC’s March survey found that just 36 percent of Americans approved of his handling of the economy. This is despite Trump being elected to a second term largely due to his economy and immigration platforms.
This is incredibly ripe political territory for Democrats to exploit with eight months to go before the midterms. Trump has been on the ropes for months. His regime had no choice but to conduct a strategic retreat from Minneapolis and sideline Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino, who was the face of that operation. Trump also fired Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem after her disastrous testimony before Congress, and he’s consistently had to play defense over his Department of Justice’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files.
It isn’t just Trump who is in political peril. Republicans’ paper-thin majority in the House of Representatives is just 218 to 214, with three vacancies. The American Enterprise Institute found that since 1946, presidents with approval ratings below 50 percent typically see their party suffer significant losses in the subsequent midterm elections. Democrats could win a 218-seat majority by flipping just four seats. In March of 2018, Trump’s approval rating was similar to where it is in March of 2026, and Democrats went on to flip more than 40 House seats.
Republicans’ chances of holding the Senate in November are slightly more favorable, but not by much. They currently have a 53-47 majority in the US Senate, though Democrats could retake the chamber by flipping four winnable races between Iowa, Maine, North Carolina, Ohio, and even Texas, where Republicans fear a loss if MAGA extremist Ken Paxton wins the Republican primary runoff election in May. Democrats would also need to hold onto their seats in Georgia, Michigan, and Minnesota, though they’re currently favored in all three of those states according to Larry Sabato of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics.
One major question remains: Given Republicans’ massive weaknesses, why are Democrats still so unpopular?
Nobody Knows What Democrats Stand For
Democrats’ failure to turn around their bottom-of-the-barrel approval ratings may be due to their lack of focus and message discipline. If you asked me — a political journalist who follows the news all day, every day — what Democrats stand for, I honestly couldn’t tell you.
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I can’t say Democrats are the anti-war party, because Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Arizona), who is rumored to run for president in 2028, has said he would vote to fund the Iran war if other countries contributed to the cause. Reps. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas), Jared Golden (D-Maine), Greg Landsman (D-Ohio) and Juan Vargas (D-California) voted with Republicans to defeat the House’s War Powers resolution to rein in Trump’s ability to wage war, while Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pennsylvania) voted with Republicans on the Senate resolution.
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I can’t say Democrats are the party that supports LGBTQ+ rights, because former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel — who was chief of staff to former President Barack Obama and served as former President Joe Biden’s U.S. Ambassador to Japan — has made it clear that he doesn’t believe transgender women are women. California Governor Gavin Newsom (D) has also indicated support for discriminating against transgender women while making nice with far-right activist Charlie Kirk in 2025. Both Emanuel and Newsom are also considered to be 2028 Democratic presidential candidates.
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I can’t even say Democrats are the party that supports immigrants’ rights, given that Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Connecticut) was the chief sponsor of a 2024 bill that would have codified even more draconian immigration restrictions. That bill would have allowed a president to completely shut down the Southern border, tighten the asylum application process, provide more funding for Trump’s border wall, and increase space at various immigrant detention centers. Pro-Trump Sen. James Lankford (R-Oklahoma) celebrated the bill’s “huge wins” for conservative policy priorities in a statement posted to his website, and 2024 Democratic nominee Kamala Harris championed the bill on the campaign trail. Like Emanuel, Gallego, and Newsom, Murphy is also considered to be a 2028 presidential contender.
Democrats could stand to learn from New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani. He went from polling at just 2 percent in February 2025 to eventually triumphing over the Cuomo political dynasty and the billionaire-funded New York political machine to become the mayor of America’s largest city. His not-so-secret weapon? Honing in one issue that unites everyone, and tying his political identity to that issue and spreading an intensely disciplined message on every platform, every day.
By the time voters cast their ballots in New York’s June 2025 Democratic primary, everyone knew Mamdani was the candidate running to make New York City more affordable. Whenever Mamdani was asked a question about policy — whether it was about housing, education, transportation, trash pickup, or public parks — he brought the focus back to affordability. Mamdani’s success can be replicated at the national level if Democrats simply focus on a singular, unifying issue and hammer it consistently until voters subconsciously associate Democrats with that issue.
The One Issue That Could Unite Democrats Through 2028 and Beyond
As a party with no power in either the White House or in either chamber of Congress, Democrats may be able to still enjoy big wins in November by simply being the anti-Trump opposition. Trump and his Republican majorities are easy targets, and forcing Republicans in tough reelection races to defend the indefensible is a simple and effective strategy. But should Democrats win back power, they will be expected to embrace a bold policy platform and run on it in order to take back the White House in 2028.
In 2018, Democrats ran on lowering skyrocketing healthcare costs in order to win what became one of the biggest Democratic wave elections in recent history. But the stakes in 2026 and beyond have arguably never been higher, and Democrats will need to shoot for the moon in order to reverse their dismal polling and inspire voters to put them back in power. There will undoubtedly be plenty of conversations about what policies they should pursue and embrace, but a uniquely powerful and compelling policy vision should be simultaneously memorable and inspiring. One proposal: A GI Bill for everyone.
The GI Bill remains one of the US government’s greatest accomplishments, as it provided a way for men and women who served their country by donning its uniform and risking their lives to have stability and security for themselves and their families. Expanding the GI Bill for all Americans would not only provide that level of stability to the entire populace, but it would contain numerous side benefits for society as a whole, by expanding the definition of what it means to serve one’s country (which we’ll get to in a moment).
Currently, one of the most significant expenses for an American family is college. The high cost of tuition is a significant financial barrier for Americans seeking a higher education and the careers that require a college degree. The GI Bill covers up to 100 percent of tuition costs for public, in-state colleges for eligible veterans. It also provides a monthly housing allowance based on the ZIP code of the university, and up to $1,000 for books and supplies each year.
Another key component of the GI Bill is the Department of Veterans’ Affairs (VA) Home Loan program, which assists veterans with the cost of buying, building, or repairing a home. Since the GI Bill was signed into law in 1944, the VA has backed more than 24 million home loans for veterans. And more than 80 percent of those home loans were backed with no down payment. Between 2009 and 2019, the VA also saved more than 851,000 of those loans from foreclosure despite the crash in the housing market. A GI Bill for everyone could provide a similar path for all Americans to achieve the American dream of homeownership and stay in their home even in a depressed economic climate.
And while it’s not part of the GI Bill, TRICARE — which covers veterans, retirees, and their families — is a huge perk of military service that could be expanded to all Americans as part of a GI Bill for everyone. TRICARE aims to provide comprehensive, medically necessary health coverage that includes doctors’ visits, hospital visits, inpatient/outpatient surgery, maternity care, mental health, and prescription drugs. TRICARE also covers preventative care, specialized services like home health and hospice care, and other services like counseling, therapy, and substance abuse rehabilitation services.
It’s fair to point out that veterans deserve GI Bill benefits and TRICARE coverage in return for their service to the country. But if service to one’s country was an expected part of citizenship, these benefits could be justifiably expanded to all US citizens.
Serving Your Country and Receiving Lifelong Benefits
The definition of service doesn’t have to be limited to military service: Americans could serve their country in a variety of ways that don’t involve putting on a uniform and deploying overseas. During the Great Depression, for example, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (who also signed the original GI Bill into law) launched the Civilian Conservation Corps as a way to help more than three million young men have employment through building park trails, planting trees, and maintaining and updating US infrastructure.
AmeriCorps also provides a blueprint for what non-military public service could look like. Currently, AmeriCorps connects more than 70,000 volunteers to thousands of nonprofits focused on education, environmental causes, public health initiatives, and other causes. AmeriCorps volunteers provide tutoring services to students in rural communities where educational resources are scarce, build affordable housing in areas where the need is great, and respond to natural disasters by providing critical emergency resources, among other things.
Numerous countries like Austria, Brazil, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Israel, Norway, South Korea, Sweden, Switzerland, and others all require mandatory military service for citizens for anywhere from a handful of months to a year or more between the ages of 18 and 45, depending on the country. And in Austria and Switzerland, citizens have the choice of serving in either the military or performing civil service in a non-military capacity. These countries all offer universal healthcare and education through the college level as a part of citizenship. Yes, you’re required to serve your country. But after your service concludes, your country takes care of you.
Compulsory public service — either military or otherwise — could also provide a side benefit to society by building national solidarity across political, ethnic, and socio-economic lines. In 2019, then-Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg briefly flirted with the idea of national public service to help heal the increasingly polarized political climate. Buttigieg proposed that all Americans over the age of 18 be asked to serve their country in some capacity for one year as a way to address “the threat to social cohesion.”
Former 2020 Democratic presidential candidate John Delaney proposed a similar idea while campaigning in New Hampshire. Delaney’s vision was threefold: One non-military path was a “community service component similar to Americorps;” another was “infrastructure apprenticeships” to teach young Americans practical skills by updating and maintaining critical infrastructure; the third was a “climate corps” that would “boost conservation, sustainability, and efficiency efforts nationwide.”
“We have to restore a sense of common purpose and unity to our country,” Delaney said in April of 2019. “In addition to serving in the military, we need a new emphasis on national service. I’m worried that if we don’t act, the next generation will grow up in a divided nation, a country where people are only exposed to people just like them, where they view those in the next county over as wrong about everything they believe.”
Americans who are already firmly on the political left believe that things like universal healthcare, free public education through the college level, and assistance with buying homes should be services citizens receive in return for paying taxes. But for everyone else, the bitter pill of giving services previously reserved for military veterans to all Americans may be hard to swallow without a component in which Americans “earn” those benefits through service.
It shouldn’t be far-fetched to say that the US could one day model Austria and Switzerland’s example of providing these benefits to all citizens in exchange for serving their country through compulsory military or civil service. It’s obvious that college education, healthcare, and housing are the biggest obstacles in the way of Americans achieving financial stability and economic security. Providing that security in return for public service is something all Americans should feasibly be able to get behind.
The byproduct could actually be more significant than those immediate material benefits: If all Americans regardless of their political beliefs, racial backgrounds, and economic standing were required to serve together and learn from each other to achieve a goal as a cohesive unit, it could be what helps future generations heal from the division that’s plaguing our political system.
Carl Gibson is a journalist whose work has been published in CNN, USA TODAY, the Guardian, the Washington Post, the Houston Chronicle, the Louisville Courier-Journal, Barron’s, Business Insider, the Independent, and NPR, among others. Follow him on Bluesky @crgibs.bsky.social.
