Two events in recent weeks serve to illustrate the current situation in United States and its many conflicts: on the one hand, Donald Trump’s insistence on signing his budget package that will increase the country’s debt on July 4, the country’s Independence Day. On the other hand, the unexpected victory of Democratic Party candidate Zohran Mamdani in the primaries of the elections for mayor of New York, the most expensive city to live in the United States.
For Trump, the signing on such an important date for Americans is yet another populist effort that uses the national flag to sell the idea of a patriotic president concerned with the well-being of ordinary Americans. The actual content of the bill – which is expected to increase the country’s public debt by more than 3 trillion dollars – tells a different story. Trump’s “Big and Beautiful Bill”, as he called it, maintains tax cuts for the rich, while eliminating funds for government programs that support social benefits for those who need them most.
At the last minute, just before the law was approved in Congress, Elon Musk, Trump’s former best buddy, joined the legislative dispute, apparently angry that the bill would remove subsidies for the purchase of electronic cars. He called on Republicans to oppose the legislation and promised to finance candidates who run against those who voted in favor of the bill. Although his effect on trying to block the bill seem to have been nil, that did not stop Trump from threatened to take away Musk’s U.S. citizenship.
Several days later, the richest man on the planet announced he was forming the America Party to challenge Trump’s supporters in future elections. Although in U.S. politics a third-party alternative to the Democrats and Republicans rarely gets much traction, it could drain off some of Trump’s voters and offer an advantage to Democrats, should Musk manage to legalize the new party in key states.
The week before Trump signed the new bill into law, the resounding electoral victory of Democratic Socialist Zohran Mamdani to be the Democratic Party candidate in the November 2025 mayoral elections shook that party’s political establishment and opened the door for a discussion on electoral strategy. Party leaders argued that Mamdani’s radical social democratic agenda might turn off moderate Democratic voters, thus sinking the chance to take control of the House.
At the same time, Mamdani’s victory suggests the possibility that many young people who didn’t vote in the last presidential election may rally around the Democrats in the 2026 congressional elections should dynamic and progressive candidates like Mamdani challenge Republicans. This would be especially significant in polarized electoral districts, where either party could win that seat in Congress and getting people to the polls is essential for any electoral success. Revealing Trump’s fear of this rising progressive tide, the president threatened to take away Mamdani’s citizenship to thwart his electoral changes.
Both Democrats and Republicans are now clearly setting their eyes on the 2026 November elections for all 435 members of the House of Representatives and a third of the seats in the U.S. Senate. Democrats insist that once the public understands the full effects that the budget legislation will have on their lives, it will turn to the party that voted unanimously against Trump’s bill. Republicans contend that the legislation, which includes a few populist provisions, such as eliminating income taxes on tips, overtime, and social security benefits for some, while increasing funds for Immigration and Customs Enforcement to deport undocumented workers, will please its base of support, as well as independent voters aligned with neither party.
Indeed, with a slim majority in both the House and the Senate, and a conservative 6 to 3 divide on the Supreme Court, the only real line of defense against Trump seems to be seventeen months away, when Democrats hope to win back the House of Representatives. If they do so, they will have the power to block Trump’s legislative proposals and hold investigative hearings into the ways he has enriched himself as the president, among many illegal and unconstitutional activities that he has committed since returning to office.
Getting the bill through Congress, however, was no easy matter. After days of intensive negotiations among Republicans to retain majority support for the bill, it was narrowly approved in the Senate, with Vice President J. D. Vance having to break the 50-50 tie, since three senators had broken with their party to vote against the bill. It passed the House on a similar close vote of 218 to 214. That razon-thin victory did not stop the president from claiming that the legislation was “the most popular bill ever signed in the history of our country.”
Recent polls tell a different story. A Fox News survey conducted in mid-June revealed that 59% of registered voters opposed the bill, 38% supported it, and 3% had no opinion on the matter. A late-June Quinnipiac University poll recorded 55% of registered voters opposing the legislation and 29% supporting it with 16% undecided. However, most ordinary citizens have only a vague knowledge of the content of the 850-page budgetary package. Republicans are now attempting to convince the public that the legislation is to their benefit, whereas Democrats are arguing that it is the most radical transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich in the last half century.
In the immediate future, Trump is running a tremendous political risk for having pushed through the budget bill, which the independent, non-partisan Congressional Budget Office estimates will increase the national debt by $3.4 trillion over the next ten year. So many provisions will negatively affect those who voted for him in the last election that some Republicans fear it could cost them control of the House. To be fair, during the electoral campaign, Trump announced his plan to continue tax cuts for the very rich, which were slated to end this year, and increase spending for defense, energy production, and border security. However, he promised not to touch Medicaid, a health care insurance program for the disabled, senior citizens, and low-income people.
Once again Trump lied to the public.
An estimated 11.4 million children and adults will lose some or all their benefits, as the bill pushes the responsibility for guaranteeing some coverage to the states. It is important to understand that while the federal government is allowed to accumulate a deficit—currently at $31 trillion and growing—states must balance their budgets. This will force governors and state legislators to allocate supplement funds for these programs if they are to survive. Many states will, as a result, be forced to cut benefits or eliminate other government services to subsidize this medical insurance. Rural hospitals will lose 21% of their Medicaid funds meaning that hundreds might be closed, largely affecting voters who have overwhelmingly voted for Trump in the past. Similarly, other cuts to Medicaid, which subsidizes the cost of many elderly people in nursing home, will have a negative effect on millions of low-income seniors from both political camps.
The legislation also increases the defense budget by $150 billion and provides funding for the armed forces to develop a “Golden Dome” missile defense program, which critics say will be extremely expensive and likely inoperable. Funds for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) will jump from $8 billion annually to $170 billion. Of that amount, $46.5 billion will pay for border wall construction, and $75 billion is dedicated to hiring more personnel and doubling the capacity to detain migrants, making ICE the largest federal law enforcement agency.
These funds for ICE are designed to ensure the implementation of Trump’s campaign pledge of massive deportation of undocumented workers, which will have a major impact on the U.S. economy. According to the non-profit think tank, the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, undocumented workers pay almost $100 billion in federal, state and local taxes, a third of which are deducted from their wages to fund government programs that they are not eligible for.
The increase in the detention and deportation of immigrants in factories, fields, and on the streets will also eliminate a significant source of cheap labor that will be hard to replace with U.S. citizens unwilling to take these low-paying jobs, generally without much labor protection or benefits. The drain on the work force will likely encourage inflation, keeping in mind that the high cost of living was one of the major reasons why millions of “swing voters” cast their ballot for Trump in the last election.
Politicians from both parties are now shaping the narrative around the bill to fit their electoral aspirations. Democrats hope that the tax cuts for the rich and a reduction in benefits from government programs will broaden their support among disillusioned undecided and low-propensity voters, encouraging them to turn out in the 2026 congressional elections. Republicans insist that cuts to many programs are merely designed to eliminate waste and fraud. However, as people realize the direct effects of the bill on their lives, Democrats hope to have an advantage in electoral results.
Key to a Democratic victory in the House of Representatives in 2026 is turnout, since voting in the United States is not mandatory. This was among the reasons that the more progressive wing of the party lauded Zohran Mamdani’s electoral victory in the Democratic Party with 43.5 % of the votes in the first round of the elections against a prominent but flawed opponent. Former Governor Cuomo, who resigned from office in 2021 after eleven women accused him of sexual assault, ran a lackluster campaign with huge donations from moderate Democrats. He received 36.5% of the votes in the first round. In the last round of the rank-voting system implemented in New York, Mamdani defeated Cuomo 56% to 44%.
Mamdani is a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, along with Senator Bernie Sanders. He ran a dynamic campaign mobilizing 50,000 volunteers that went door to door, neighborhood to neighborhood, reaching voters in all corners of the city. Mamdani also made creative use of social media in a campaign that addressed the economic difficulties of many New Yorkers, who live in the country’s most expensive city. Campaign promises focused on universal childcare, free bus fares, and a freeze on rent increases.
Moderate Democrats argue that his program is too radical and unrealistic. They also fear that his criticism of Israel’s war in Gaza will alienate the large Jewish population of the city, which has traditionally voted overwhelming for Democratic candidates. His supporters point to the fact that he mobilized young and male voters, two groups that either stayed home or voted for Trump in large numbers in the 2024 presidential elections. Some commentators fear that fact that he is a Muslim of Indian descent, whose family lived in Uganda before moving to the United States, could also harm his electoral chances.
Trump has not lost time in attacking Mamdani, calling him a radical communist and threatening to deport him, in yet another illegal misuse of his presidential power. Progressive Democrats point to his impressive victory and youthful campaign style as a model in other electoral races for winning back many working-class voters who have moved away from the Democratic Party in recent years. Whether similar candidates will emerge across the country in 2026 and have similar electoral results remains to seen.
And, on July 4th, while most American celebrated the declaration of independence from Great Britain 249 years ago with picnics, barbeques, and fireworks, protests against “King Trump” took place in over 300 separate events in all fifty states, indicating that opposition to Trump’s rule has not waned.
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