Auchincloss: Democrats have to become the party of 'big ideas'
ATTLEBORO — Democrats have to become the party of “big ideas” if they are going to counter President Donald Trump’s efforts to remake the federal government, the area’s congressman says.
“We have to play defense” against the president’s overreach, U.S. Rep. Jake Auchincloss said Wednesday, “but also have to go on offense,” making the case to voters that the new administration’s policies are going to come at a cost to their household income. “That message is a winning message if we stay disciplined.”
The Newton Democrat, whose Fourth Congressional District encompasses the coverage area of The Sun Chronicle, sat for a wide-ranging discussion with The Sun Chronicle.
Auchincloss, 37, now in his third term in the House, said that his party has to make a case to voters. “We have to have big and bold ideas as a party,” he said. “It’s insufficient to say we are angry about Donald Trump. We have to say how we are going to do better.”
That doesn’t mean he’s not angered by the course the president has set in the weeks since his inauguration. And he’d like voters to feel some of that as well as Republican cost-cutting moves target Medicaid and other programs.
In the coming weeks, he says, people will notice that the costs of cars and housing are going to rise. “The chaos of these executive orders and Elon Musk and the self-dealing, they are taking away your home care and coverage for kids to hook up all the people who sat at his inauguration with tax cuts,” Auchincloss said, noting the various tech and industry leaders Trump invited to watch him sworn in.
Auchincloss admitted that the president is enjoying a bit of a honeymoon with the public as well as Congress, where the Republican Party holds slim majorities in both houses.
President Joe Biden, he noted, also enjoyed his highest popularity early in his term as the country was just coming out of the pandemic and was feeling pretty good about itself.
But he said President Trump is issuing reams of executive orders -- which do not have to be approved by Congress -- as a form of misdirection away from cuts to Medicaid. “It’s a magic trick,” he said, using Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency “and MAGA on the march is meant to distract from giving three to four trillion dollars in tax cuts to people who don’t need tax cuts.”
(Trump, in an interview on Fox News this week, pledged that he would not touch Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid as Republicans in Congress seek to cut federal spending.)
And in bypassing Congress, he’s treating members of his own party like “courtiers,” Auchincloss said,” rather than members of a coequal branch of government. “And that’s how they see themselves. As employees of Donald Trump Inc.” House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-Louisiana, he said, seems thrilled to take selfies with the president. “‘Dude,’ Auchincloss said, “‘You’re the leader of Article I (in the Constitution which establishes Congress), meant to be a check on the ambition of the president.’”
It’s that ambition that Democrats on Capitol Hill have to fight. “We are not playing in the rage Olympics, but where (Trump) violates the Constitution, we are going to contest.”
They will impose presidential overreach in the courts, by oversight in the legislature and by presenting a viable alternative to voters.
That’s something Democrats failed to do in the last election, he said. Incumbents throughout the developed world suffered rejection by voters in the wake of the pandemic and the economic pain it caused. And Democrats, in addition, got burned on issues from inflation to immigration and a cultural vibe shift that favored Republicans.
But the solution, he said, “is not to offer MAGA-lite.” Democrats must demonstrate that they have plans “to make sure that housing and health care and taxes do not take up more than half your wallet.” It has to do that while maintaining its values as a party that supports things like an assault weapons ban and LGBTQ rights.
Somewhat surprisingly, Auchincloss doesn’t oppose every Trump effort. The president’s proposal to rebuild Gaza, while presented with his usual bluster, is one of them. “The proposal is outrageous, but the strategy is not.” While Auchincloss does not see the possibility of removing 2 million Palestinians from the region as realistic, he said Trump’s plan has at least “got Arab autocrats to care about Palestinians for the first time since World War II. You have the Jordanians, Egyptians, the Saudis scrambling to reconstruct Gaza. That’s progress.”
And Trump’s “maximum pressure on Iran, I think that’s the right approach.”
Along with President Joe Biden’s staunch support for Israel in its war against Hamas, American policy is reshaping the Middle East. “Our support for Israel must be ironclad,” Auchincloss said.
But not all Trump’s foreign policy gambits are working. Auchincloss, a supporter of Ukraine in its war against Russia, thinks the administration is being played by Russian President Vladimir Putin in its effort to bring the conflict to an end.
“Russia has won round one,” in negotiations, Auchincloss said. The Trump administration has left Ukraine and NATO out of the initial talks “and Russia gave up nothing to get that.” An exasperated Aucincloss added, “We looked like a bunch of knuckleheads over there.”
Another Auchincloss position that might surprise progressives is his support of nuclear power as part of a green future. The Trump administration’s “drill baby drill” slogan is “a bit of a solution in search of a problem,” as the U.S. is already producing plenty of oil. But, he said, environmentalists are starting to come around to the idea that nuclear power is needed to meet future energy needs along with solar, wind and geothermal resources. Massachusetts needs to be part of that solution, even though the sole nuclear plant in the state, Pilgrim Station in Plymouth, recently closed. “We need to reopen it.”
There’s no “magic bullet” to get these ideas across, Aucincloss said. It means going on news shows, podcasts and “one conversation at a time.”
By: Tom Reilly
Source: The Sun Chronicle