'Punish them again': Dems gear up to hammer GOP on key government program

When Donald Trump started his first term as U.S. president on January 20, 2017, Republicans controlled both branches of Congress. But that changed with the 2018 midterms, which found Democrats flipping the U.S. House of Representatives with a net gain of 41 seats.

That blue wave didn't extend to Congress' upper chamber: Republicans held the U.S. Senate in 2018. But in the House, Republicans suffered what former President Barack Obama would describe as a "shellacking" or former President George W. Bush would describe as a "thumping." And Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-California) became House speaker again in January 2019.

Pelosi and other Democrats hammered Republicans relentlessly on health care during the 2018 midterms, and GOP efforts to overturn the Affordable Care Act of 2010, a.k.a. Obamacare, proved politically toxic. Now, in 2025 — with Trump back in the White House and Republicans controlling both branches of Congress again — Democrats are, according to Politico, "preparing" to use the health care issue to "punish them again."

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Obamacare was House Republicans' downfall in 2018. And in an article published on February 25, Politico reporters Elena Schneider and Nicholas Wu cite Medicare cuts as the issue Democratic strategists view as a major vulnerability for Republicans.

"Private messaging guidance from party leaders, sent to Democratic lawmakers ahead of a planned Tuesday budget vote and obtained by Politico, urged them to accuse Republicans of 'betray(ing) the middle class by cutting Medicaid while giving huge tax breaks to billionaire donors,'" Schneider and Wu explain. "And it encouraged members to 'localize' the effects of slashing billions from Medicaid."

A Democratic memo sent on Monday, February 24, according to Schneider and Wu, read, “It is critical that you make the damaging local impacts of this legislation real for the people you represent."

That "messaging guidance," the Politico journalists report, "reflects a consensus among Democrats that Medicaid may be their best opening as they scramble to find an effective line of attack against President Donald Trump and his Republican majorities in Congress."

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Schneider and Wu note, "Republican lawmakers faced angry constituents at town halls last week, while protesters showed up to decry Medicaid cuts at district offices in Arizona, California, Iowa and Pennsylvania…. One internal Democratic survey conducted in late January found 81 percent of registered voters oppose cuts to Medicaid and Medicare, including 76 percent of Republicans, according to a presentation obtained by Politico."

Democratic pollster Brian Stryker told Politico, "It's the first thing that will be such an obvious big deal to voters. It's a really big deal to voters, and the story isn’t complicated: They want to cut health care. There isn't a complicated story on fiscal policy or process here."

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Read the full Politico article at this link.