COULD isn't SHOULD.

Dems can't just rely on Trump to tank himself.

Epstein. Tariffs. ICE. Texas. The “Big Beautiful Bill.”

Democrats COULD be feeling pretty good right now, considering all the headwinds President Trump is currently facing, with just about 15 months until the midterm elections.

As MAGA factions turn on the President, his DOJ and AG Pam Bondi, FBI heads Kash Patel and Dan Bongino, and all the other officials now derisively labeled “deep state” by Trump-loving conspiracy theorists, over the long-awaited but empty Epstein files, many from all corners are promising this COULD be the end of MAGA as we know it.

From the far right, Tucker Carlson warned the Epstein “cover up” could blow up the whole MAGA movement.

Steve Bannon has echoed the sentiment, while “MAGA influencer” Liz Wheeler posted in response to Trump’s dismissing the Epstein issue, “Trump is massively misreading his base on this one. It could cost him the midterms.”

On the left, Dems are gloating over the cannibalism they’re seeing inside MAGA.

“This is like me dunking on my 8-year-old and his friends on the short hoops at school,” Dem strategist Eddie Vale told The Hill. “They set themselves up for it with their MAGA base, and now the pedo chickens are coming home to roost.”

“Watching these clowns crash out because they put all their chips on Trump releasing the Epstein list, to only find out the real reason he’s not releasing it…it’s just too good,” Rep. Eric Swalwell posted on X.

And it’s not hard to imagine that some are secretly hoping the reason for the quiet Epstein disappearing trick is because it implicates Trump…and that proving it might (finally!) lead to his political demise.

“This raises the question of whether the White House has moved to prevent the declassification and public release of the full Epstein files because they implicate President Trump, and whether these massive redaction efforts and the withholding of the files were intended to shield your boss from embarrassing revelations within those files,” reads a letter from Dem Reps. Jamie Raskin and Dan Goldman.

In response to a preposterous post on X by the official White House account depicting Trump as Superman, one opponent responded, “Guess the Epstein list is your kryptonite, huh?”

But I promise you, as fun as it is to watch the MAGA tears flow over the failure of a conspiracy theory they created to deliver on the goods, in a couple weeks or so – maybe even less – this will no longer be a thing that threatens to break up Trump’s coalition. And by midterms, this will be a distant memory.

Just look at Iran. The initial uproar among the Trump influencers who declared their disgust at his intervention in another war – Dave Smith, Candace Owens, Jack Posobiec – have moved on to bigger beefs (ie, Epstein). We’re meant to believe the sincerity of their “regret” over voting for Trump on both issues, but also that they’ll vote for Dems in the midterms? Or a non-MAGA candidate in 2028? Puh-leeze.

What about tariffs? There’s certainly an argument to be made that intentionally wrecking the economy COULD directly threaten Trump’s raison d’etre – yup, the very same economy – and that that inures to Dems’ benefit. Sure, but Trump, for all his bluster, hasn’t really done much on tariffs outside of threatening them. He promised 200 new trade deals – he’s gotten three.

Another wing of Dems believe intently that the optics of ICE raids will do him in, that the images of dragging undocumented immigrants from Home Depot parking lots COULD make him and Republicans look like monsters. Those optics are indeed troubling, but only if you actually see them. Most voters aren’t paying that close attention, and polling suggests a majority wants some form of crackdown on illegal immigration.

The Texas floods COULD be Trump’s Katrina. DHS Sec. Kristi Noem, who seems more interested in how her extensions look during ICE raid photo-ops, is on the hook for the deaths of more than 120 people, including children, after her FEMA cost-cutting measures directly obstructed efforts to mitigate the human toll, per reports.

But just as Trump suffered no measurable consequences for his handling of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico in 2017, it’s unlikely most will be thinking about this awful tragedy when they head to the ballot boxes in 15 months.

That brings us to the “Big, Beautiful Bill,” which is massively unpopular. This also COULD be a major political win in the midterms for Dems, who understandably believe that cutting Medicaid benefits for as many as 20 million Americans, including many in red states, will imperil Republicans and Trump.

But it’s more complicated than that. The belief among Dems that Republicans will pay a steep price for those cuts and tax cuts for the very rich isn’t pie-in-the-sky – other parties have historically been punished for merely existing as majorities in the midterms, and those with toxic policy initiatives have faced disastrous consequences. (See: the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban, the 1994 midterm elections, and the “Republican Revolution.”)

But for all of Trump’s headwinds, there are few tailwinds helping the Dems. And they’re hardly helping themselves.

Their polling is still in the gutter. Dem voters have little faith in their own party leadership. The party is divided over both issues and strategies, on everything from whether NYC mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani should be a blueprint or a cautionary tale, to how to respond to Trump’s Iran strikes. And in trying to find a figurehead to coalesce the party again, no one person has emerged as a clear frontrunner.

But the biggest problem with banking on the Big, Beautiful Bill to tank Republicans in the midterms is inside the bill itself.

Per a Bulwark post this week by the always terrific Lauren Egan, the new sense of hope inside the party has begun to fade as the realities of the bill set in.

“Driving the change in mood are two factors. The first is how the bill itself is structured. The most politically toxic policy changes, like the cuts to Medicaid, won’t be fully implemented until after the midterm elections, while the more popular elements—such as $1,000 investment accounts for newborn children—will go into effect immediately. Some Democrats are concerned that their posture could alienate those parents aided by the new accounts.”

Dem pollster Celinda Lake tells Egan, “It’s a very clever bill. And I really worry about voters ultimately concluding, ‘Well, Democrats cry wolf again.’”

Another Dem operative, Steve Schale, says, “I’m not that convinced that a lot of pieces of this bill are actually going to be that unpopular. It’s not as black-and-white as I think some in DC feel like it’s going to be.”

Their concern is warranted. Dems’ screams that the sky was falling on any number of policy issues, or that Trump would mean the end of America as we knew it, just didn’t resonate with a majority of voters in 2024, who were less compelled by esoteric issues of democracy than they were basic affordability.

But the biggest problem with the bill and hoping that it or any of the issues above will tank Trump is that Dems have offered few if any alternatives.

Dems are against the brutal ICE raids, but what’s their solution for illegal immigration? Voters on both sides of the aisle want one, and Dems have given them protests and slogans.

Dems are against Trump’s economic policies as enumerated in the budget bill, but what are their solutions for lowering inflation, cutting government spending, and making goods more affordable for Americans?

I’ve been saying for years that Dems have had their heads in the sand, hoping their mere opposition to Trump would be a sufficient substitute for an agenda, and that telling voters things like the economy, crime, and immigration weren’t ACTUAL problems would never be winning strategies. And they demonstrably haven’t been.

Now, the bill presents an opportunity that Dems desperately need to offer up their own solutions, their own vision, a competing agenda.

As Lake told Egan, “You can’t beat something with nothing. It’s not a foregone conclusion at all that we will win back the House. These seats are very difficult.”

And:

“‘We have to figure out how to expand our brand in places that we’re losing, and that is a process that’s not going to happen overnight. So for me, the conversation around the ‘big beautiful bill’ and offering an alternative is as much about us restating our place as a party that fights for working families and the middle class,’ said Steve Schale, a Florida-based Democratic operative, who added that it was a ‘missed opportunity’ for Democrats to not put forward their own plan for cutting costs.”

While correctly identifying it, Dems have always overindexed the impact Trump’s insanity would have on voters. And they’ve yet to coalesce around, well, anything – a strategy to beat Trumpism, a strategy to stop Trump’s agenda, a strategy to win back the majority, the candidates who should be the faces of the party, the messages that can compel disaffected Trump voters, disaffected Dems, moderates and independents to come back to the Democratic party, and a cohesive agenda that all Dems could run on from now until 2028.

There are plenty of COULDS for Dems right now – the things hanging over Trump that COULD portend success for them in the midterms and beyond. But COULD doesn’t have the certainty of SHOULD. And if they don’t come up with anything more than mere “resistance,” Dems shouldn’t count on that certainty – nor will they deserve to.