Approaching the national “Hands Off” Rallies on Saturday, April 5 and then the “First 100 Days” benchmark, Americans deserve a theory-of-the-case to stop Donald Trump from ruining our lives and rights.

I.

Abraham Lincoln is best remembered of course for winning the Civil War. That epic event however has obscured a different enduring success of our greatest president — the first progressive income tax to help finance public works essential to a growing economy.

So it’s odd that the self-proclaimed “Party of Lincoln” is now run by two billionaires who always exaggerate the costs of federal action while ignoring its benefits in the hope enough voters will instead swallow their hollow slogans about the “Deep State” and “the Swamp.”

But today’s regulated economy and social safety net didn’t just materialize after an invasion of socialists from Mars. They took generations of struggle by ordinary citizens who didn’t believe that monopolies, pollution, bank fraud, racial bias, unsafe products and workplaces and extreme income inequality had to be the price of progress.

Yet a century later, Donald Trump and Elon Musk keep insisting that we take our country back to levels of “waste, fraud and abuse” not seen since the robber baron era. Despite this administration’s reverse Darwinism, Democrats appear stuck reacting one by one to Trump’s “disinformation overload” –  rather than reframing the narrative to retake the offense.

To do that requires a brief history lesson, namely that America is built on competition and regulation as two sides of the same coin of capitalism …because markets without rules is piracy:

• After Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle exposed how limbs of factory workers were ending up in our food, Congress enacted the 1906 Pure Food & Drug Act.

• The 1912 Triangle Shirtwaist Fire incinerated 146 mostly immigrant women and over time led to the creation of the Wagner Act, the National Labor Relations Board and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

• Outraged farmers exploited by railroad cartels demanded and won the 1890 and 1914 anti-monopoly laws.

• After pregnant women took Thalidomide causing thousands of infant deaths and deformed babies, a public outcry spurred passage of the 1962 Drug Safety Act requiring proof of “safety & efficacy.”

• Because of unsafe cars, Congress unanimously created the 1966 auto safety agency that, over the next 60 years, avoided an estimated 4.2 million deaths and far more millions of serious injuries.

• When the Cuyahoga River in Ohio sensationally caught fire, Senator Gaylord Nelson created the first Earth Day in 1970 — which led to the EPA, since pollution travels between Red and Blue states.

All this positive change happened when people came to understand that it was better to locate guard rails at the top of a cliff rather than ambulances below — that a Rule of Law was preferable to the law of the jungle, for rich and poor alike.

The result was what one historian called Moral Capitalism after we created Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the Affordable Care Act, Americans with Disabilities Act, Freedom of Information Act, Keynesian economics — and our consumer, environmental, labor, securities and civil rights laws. When JFK was asked if he was a liberal, he replied yes, if that label meant taking credit for such social gains.

It’s hard to imagine an America without them or Americans knowingly agreeing that corporate oligarchs in the 19th century should be our model for the 21st.

II.

A Republican party yearning for the glory days of spoiled meat, child labor and exploding Corvairs began anew in 1970 with a Virginia corporate lawyer, Lewis Powell. As the author of a widely distributed memorandum entitled “An Attack on the Free Enterprise System,” Powell sounded an alarm to Chambers of Commerce to fund and organize a multifaceted propaganda campaign — involving the media, textbooks, foundations, universities, courts, elections — against perceived enemies of America, Inc.

The Powell Memo came to be shrewdly adopted by President Reagan, who evangelized against “Big Government” since that slogan proved more persuasive than cheering for dirty air and killer cars. Now President Trump has picked up that flag and waved around fake and exaggerated examples of silly spending and over-regulation.

The Trump-Musk theory-of-the-case is simple and radical — Public Sector Bad / Private Sector Good.

That is, while there’s no evidence that, say, Biden’s Department of Justice “weaponized” the law against Trump, #47’s emolumental corruption, chaos, lies, gaslighting and incitement to violence are far too voluminous to list here. (A recent, good summary was written by Dana Milbank; for a longer chronicle of Trump’s yearning to join the Axis of Autocrats, see this author’s book, The Inflection Election: Progress or Extremism in 2024?)

Trumpists who believe the world should end up with three spheres-of-influence — China, Russia, America — might try reading less Ayn Rand and more histories of the 1920s and 1930s.

III.

Yet somehow the Democratic Party — with far more popular policies grounded in actual facts — appears to be losing today’s rhetorical war-of-the-words between devotees of Lewis Powell on the one hand and those of Louis Brandeis on the other.

Indeed, some smart allies like Mark Cuban and James Carville doubt that Democrats can outshout the Trump-Musk MAGAphone, or should even try. They argue that Democrats should best play dead and wait it out.

In the arena of debate, however, you’re either on offense or on-the-ropes. Staying on the sidelines in the battle for public opinion risks losing the larger war over what we should expect from government protections. It brings to mind Churchill’s admonition after the Dunkirk retreat, that “wars are not won by evacuations.”

Short-term, the frustrating fact is that there’s no easy formula to retake Congress and the national narrative from Team Trump. One baby step would be at least to constantly remind the mainstream media that, while losing the presidency by 1.4 percent is a BFD, it’s neither a landslide nor mandate for revanchist policies. That’s true no matter how often Trump brags about how great he’s doing and how he carried so many more counties than Biden (i.e., it’s not called The Electoral Counties Act).

Over time, a Democratic party will need to pursue a four-pronged counter-attack to reverse the GOP’s steady march to the far-right (Trump/Graham) and the further-right (Bannon/Miller): first, highlight resonant stories about Trumpism’s devastating real-world impacts; second, contrast the competing narratives between privilege and the common good; third, embrace blunt, vivid language to gain attention; and last, develop a winning Program for Progress.

1. Facts about Impacts. When it comes to laws and lying, Trump appears indifferent or contemptuous. Not so when it comes to polls, the GDP and the Dow. He understands that, as they sink, so will the wealth of fellow oligarchs, his SCOTUS super-majority and hope of being succeeded by a Donald mini-me.

His game of Russian Roulette over Ukraine and vaccines are only the most lethal examples of unpatriotic incompetence. On-again/off-again proposals about high tariffs, mass federal layoffs (and then rehirings), deep Medicaid cuts, decimation of Social Security staff and benefits and betrayal of the NATO alliance do generate breathless headlines that focus on him, which is a plus for a malicious narcissist.

Moderate voters, however, won’t be able to shrug off these coming distractions:

Planes keep crashing due to FAA and air-controller cuts…the abortifacient Mifepristone—found safe by the FDA for three decades and now used in a majority of abortions—may well be nationally banned …inflation returns and the GDP shrinks in a Trumpcession….your kids may contract measles or bird flu that spread because of eviscerated public health agencies…taxpayers won’t receive timely and expected refunds or retirees their Social Security checks…thousands of Americans will lose their farms after China imposes retaliatory tariffs on food exports and as immigrant workers flee mass deportation…your niece may not be able to marry the woman she loves… and that’s just the short list.

Did voters who were excited by “owning the libs” expect that? The issue over the next two or four years is whether lower income Red State voters, who benefit the most from federal assistance and regulation, will connect-the-dots between Trump’s chesty predictions and their own eroding living standards.

2. A Contest of Narratives. Americans cannot solve problems that they cannot admit.

That’s why it’s essential to have a government grounded in truth and trust—for without truth there can be no trust and without trust there can be no Democracy. Scholar Sissela Bok explained why in her classic book, Lying: Moral Choice in Public and Private Life:

“Imagine a society where word and gesture could never be counted upon. Questions asked, answers given, information exchanged—all would be worthless…Trust is a social good just as much as the air we breathe or the water we drink.”

We now have a life-long fabulist who embraces the axiom that “the first lie wins.” The biggest obstacle to a greater America is not hyperbole about federal spending but the president’s “habit of lying,” as a New York Times headline gently but accurately put it last month. Truth and trust are the glue that bind citizens together in a Democracy of reciprocating obligations.

Why should any rational voter or any judge take Trump’s words at face value when he distorts not one thing but everything? He claimed that January 6 was “a day of love,” blames DEI for fatal plane crashes, embraces authoritarian Russia over ally Germany, insists on a “meritocracy” and then appoints inexperienced relatives and Fox TV hosts to top positions and announces that “the world respects us again” when Canadians — Canadians — boo our national anthem at NHL games.

These and hundreds of other examples document a cocooned President who doesn’t simply tell “lies” as most presidents have but one who is not remotely on-the-level. One tempting response is simply to quote the irrepressible commentator John McEnroe: “YOU. CANNOT. BE. SERIOUS!”

But he is. So today’s Loyal Opposition has to keep vividly contrasting the two theories-of-governance for 2026 and 2028 since one is far more popular than the other—a fear-based plutocracy versus a reaffirmation of our American experiment in equality and self-rule.

(A good step in this direction can be found in the actor John Lithgow’s stirring reading of Twenty Lessons, drawn from the book On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the 20th Century by Timothy Snyder, the Yale historian and renowned expert on 20th century fascism.)

3. Tone & Tactics. For too long, most Democratic leaders have pulled their polemical punches, seemingly afraid of losing someone’s vote or offending the Beltway ideal of staying within the boundaries of Reagan-O’Neill bipartisanship. Think of Senator Chris Coons’s every public comment over the past decade about Trump (remember any?)

But that’s a proven loser in our “Attention Economy,” as Chris Hayes and Ezra Klein have explained in their recent books, especially when Trump routinely calls opponents “scum, sick, socialsts, communists, fascists.” Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, for a leading example, suggested a contrary approach for his party. “The only way to stop a bully is to punch him in the nose.”

Several leading Democrats are indeed now adopting such more blunt, vivid, emotionally powerful pugilism. This growing cadre includes representatives Jamie Raskin, Eric Swalwell, AOC and Jeanine Crockett as well as Senators Chris Murphy, Sheldon Whitehouse, Elizabeth Warren and Cory Booker. The tour de force by the New Jersey senator this week recalled Joseph Welch’s defining moment in the McCarthy hearings and came as close as anyone has to defenestrating Dictator Don.

This new tone can also help puncture Trump’s “divide and conquer” strategy as he picks off individual critics by credibly threatening to ruin them via the federal budget. Here, the best counter is not merely tone but also the tactic of collective rebuttal, which means Bar Associations, university presidents, etc., banding together to rebuff Trump’s imitation of a mob boss.

4. What’s Next? Former House Speaker Sam Rayburn put it best: “Any jackass can kick down a barn, but it takes a good carpenter to build one.”

Will Democrats be “good carpenters” with an aspirational agenda by the coming elections? Since their declared top policy goal is to reduce inflation and steep economic unfairness to boost working Americans, there’s some low-hanging fruit already in view:

Democrats want to raise the minimum wage now frozen at $7.25 an hour for the past 25 years so workers can afford to live on their earnings — the GOP doesn’t.

Democrats want to cap Insulin charges to $30 per month for seniors on Medicaid and then for all seniors — the GOP doesn’t.

Democrats want to save rural hospitals with Medicaid — the GOP doesn’t.

Democrats want to extend the Child Care Tax Credit to reduce the number of children in poverty by half — the GOP doesn’t.

But since we’re less than three months into a new presidential term, the fact is that big new ideas and a comprehensive Economic Populism will only slowly emerge over months from the collective energy of thousands of elected officials, citizens, civic groups, town halls, scholars and from millions protesting on and after Indivisible’s upcoming national rallies called ”Hands-Off”.* Rep. Jamie Raskin understood that ”defeating fascism only really works when you have a cohesive legislative opposition AND a civil society that’s fully engaged and rising up.”

* Such a “Project 2029,” built on a program for economic populism, will not start from scratch. There’s been enormous and ongoing efforts by candidates and advocates to help average workers involving: fairer taxes financing childrens’ programs; climate violence; affordable housing; elections-for-sale; voter suppression; limits on presidential power over tariffs, “insurrections” and Executive Orders; boosting trade schools and community colleges. Pitching them now won’t gain much public traction…but in 2026 and 2028, they would.

So while the big book on Trump’s aspirational fascism is now being written day-by-day, the good news is that the final chapter hasn’t yet been drafted.

IV.

No serious analyst or citizen should now underestimate a) the combined political throw-weight of the world’s leading strongman in tandem with the world’s richest person, b) their joint capacity and willingness to purchase or subvert politicians and elections, c) their ability to leverage a seven trillion dollar federal government to coerce or reward decision-makers at the highest levels of American institutional life (see Columbia, Harvard and Princeton Universities and the Paul, Weiss and Skadden, Arps law firms), along with d) oligarchical ownership of legacy and social media.

The trend-line appears ominous. Until someone or something stands up to him, Trump will just keep quadrupling-down until he actually orders his compliant Attorney General to indict his “enemies of the state” and tries to get rid of the two-century-old Marbury v. Madison decision that established judicial review of laws, the Miranda warning, the Sullivan rule, Medicaid, the Americans with Disabilities Act and the broadcast licenses of his critics. Defense Secretary Mark Esper refused his request in 2020 to shoot demonstrators after invoking the Insurrection Act. Would Secretary Pete Hegseth?

Frightening and plausible? Yes. But as Norman Cousins sagely observed in the 1950s, “no one’s smart enough to be a pessimist.”

There’s a very different and no less plausible future also on the horizon. Imagine the combination of an economy in “cardiac arrest,” massive street rallies, more amateur-hour ineptitude like Signal-gate, Democratic wordsmiths skilled at vivid stories and language, disgust over a president and ketamine-ingesting, bribing, chain-sawing, Nazi-saluting sidekick out of Clockwork Orange and a judicial process that keeps blocking his lawless Executive Orders. Now throw in issues with 90-10 favorability ratios, like taking over Greenland and rendering legal immigrants to foreign prisons without due process.

Might all that create a 1974-level backlash in the coming two national elections that realigns our politics and restores our commitment to freedom and pluralism? Something sure appears to be going on this month when protests at Tesla dealerships and local town halls in Red districts keep blowing up in anger, several recent off-year elections swing 15 or more points towards Democrats, and the MeidasTouch website eclipses Joe Rogan. Should that continue, the odds will shift between a party of hope and one currently in thrall to a felon skilled at lining his own pockets by picking those of average taxpayers.

At the same time, might some Democratic Lech Walesa emerge from the Democratic nomination process as a force-multiplier to communicate compelling narratives and policies to turn what now seems impossible into something inevitable?

Whoever might rise would do well to channel the fighting spirit of FDR in an earlier era of unprecedented threats. Before a crowd of 100,000 at the 1936 Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, he assailed “economic royalists who hide behind flags…Better the occasional faults of a government that lives in a spirit of charity than the constant omissions of a government frozen in the ice of its own indifference.”

This final chapter will not depend on the traditional political contest of Left-Right that’s framed earlier eras but rather a more fundamental question — whose side are you on and will you enlist? All eligible voters — including the 70 million who didn’t show up in 2024 — will now get to choose either of two very different theories-of-the-case in 2026 and 2028 — between billionaire bullies or average families; laissez-faire or moral capitalism; and between corporate pirates boarding our ships of state to sell off public assets…or an Economy-for-All.

Mark Green was the first NYC Public Advocate and the author or editor of two dozen books on policy and politics, including Changing America — a 1992 agency-by-agency transition volume at the request of Governor Bill Clinton — and most recently The Inflection Election: Progress or Extremism in 2024?