We can still call the MAGA Murder Budget the "MAGA Murder Budget"

THE FARCE fights fascism with fearlessness. Subscribe to fuel the Farce—free or paid, your support matters.

I admit it. I read Punchbowl. I read Punchbowl because tracking down GOP press releases takes too long. I’d rather know what Republicans in Congress would like me to think straight from the guy they believe best reflects their PR spin, Jake Sherman. 

Occasionally, you also get some insight into the internal dynamics of Democratic politics, as told from the perspective of how Republicans and/or Democratic pollsters would like you to understand it. 

That happened on Wednesday morning when the newsletter reported on the messaging House Democratic leadership wants to use to try to defeat Trump’s signature piece of legislation working its way through Congress, which is the worst single transfer of wealth from the rich to the poor in US history. 

One particular note stood out:

I’d been a fan of the “MAGA Murder Budget” frame since Stephanie Wilson brought it as an example of the good messaging that’s “out there” but not being used. It was no surprise to hear it had come from Anat Shenker-Osorio—the messaging mastermind, host of the fantastic Words to Win By podcast, and a personal hero I once got to break bread with at Zingerman’s Roadhouse.

I didn’t tag Anat when I posted the above skeet, but I—unfortunately for her and fortunately for me—summoned her spirit, triggering her into a quick discourse on how effective messages are tested and what the House Democratic leadership instead. 

I share it in full because it’s an incredibly enlightening read for laypeople like myself, and it might help those who are critical of establishment Democratic politics to focus their criticism.

Receiving information from Anat always feels like I’m a plant being watered, so I'll say that I buy into every word. However, I feel obligated to examine the arguments against her clarity and explain why they aren’t well-suited for these times.

The case for extreme caution is killing us

As someone who lives near an Elissa Slotkin-sized disturbance in The Force, I get the hesitation in House leadership. 

They think of everything in terms of how you win those extremely 50/50 swing districts like Slotkin won three times. And on Wednesday night, with the horrific antisemitic murder of two people in Washington, DC, I sense the fear from anyone who has to fear losing even a handful of votes. We can’t say murder. They’ll murder us! 

This cautiousness makes sense to those operating from a typical brain that prioritizes preventing loss over pursuing a strategy that could win.

I’ll remind you that the last House race decided in 2024, which made the margin in the House historically slight, was won by Adam Gray, with a mere 178 more votes than the Republican incumbent.

Trump has a story. What’s ours?

The case for sitting back and letting Donald Trump destroy things has to be very appealing to the sort of people who got into this mess. This is because they still underestimate Trump and how the GOP has rigged our elections in their favor.

You can mock Trump’s “Big, Beautiful Bill” frame or even reinforce it with some “Big, _____” variation. But it’s a story. 

It’s not a story for the public. It’s a story for the members of Congress whom Trump understands are his only target. He’s saying—be a part of my story, or pay the cost.

He doesn’t care about alienating his base (impossible) or turning off the middle. He doesn’t care about the middle yet because he has a story for them. He’s going to tell him that this godawful looting of the poorest Americans in the depths of Gilded Age/French Revolution-levels of inequality is all about “waste, fraud, and abuse.” 

You know this is bullshit. But you aren’t a swing voter.

This ruse is all about punishing poor people and taking their health insurance, but generations of GOP tropes have made that one of the most powerful frames out there.

And what are we going to do? We’re going to come back with our accurate yet unpersuasive list of why all these policies are horrific. People will generally agree. 

But no minds will be changed, no uproar will prevent this entirely preventable disaster.

What would Republicans do?

My first rule of politics is that if you want to win, you do what Republicans do. 

Now that rule is problematic in the most problematic sense of the word.

We can’t do what Republicans do. Unfortunately. Not exactly

We can’t do it for financial reasons, namely, we can’t go back in time to spend billions creating an alternative media universe to help our ideas and messages fester.

And we can’t do it for moral reasons. Republicans break people’s brains. 

They break brains and connections to our neighbors and the promise of America. They break brains so bad that we’ve sent $79 trillion from the bottom 90% to the top 1%. They break their brains so bad that they blame a trans kid who wants to play Lacrosse in Racine for why their stepfamily hates them. 

These brain breakers even got a bunch of raging homophobes doing the YMCA. 

It’s cold-hearted and cruel, and it’s also comic, which can make you realize how cold-hearted and cruel it is. And it allows them to do terrible things, as Jared Bernstein noted:

Past R budgets at least scattered some crumbs to lower-income households. Ignoring the imbalanced magnitudes of their largesse, they could say “everybody gets something.” They gave MUCH less to the poor than to the rich, but they gave something.

But this time, they literally take from the poor to give to the rich.

But Republicans can sell this slow-motion atrocity because they’ll do what Democrats often refuse to do: They’ll actually sell it, using sales tactics, marketing strategies, and, yes, Hyperbolic Rhetoric.

So what can we do?

House Democratic Leadership isn’t going to risk anything. They’re going to try to make sure their members don’t do anything to make their vulnerable members have to come up with something clever like “I don’t use the words MAGA Murder Budget, but I do get why someone might. Here’s why…”

I’ll point to a note Anat brought up about “Death Panels.” Olds will remember that Sarah Palin single-handedly introduced that vicious canard into the bloodstream of the debate about healthcare reform. It was about one of the wonkiest parts of the bill, technical procedures to help older Americans plan their end-of-life care. And she used it to frame the whole debate.

I get why Leader Jeffries might not want to be the Palin of this debate, as he’ll get used as a cudgel in so many swing district ads just for the color of our skin.

However, I can see why some other Democrat—perhaps someone who wants to stand out in early positioning for the 2028 presidential primary—would like to be the catalyst that wakes America up to what’s being done to us.

When discussing why we need to use the “F-word,” Anat stressed that our task is to create a “break from any sense of normalcy.” 

This is not something we can expect from Democrats in Washington, DC at this point in history. Either they don’t get the stakes, strategically believe in letting the GOP overplay their hand, or are literally traumatized by the power of a man who sent a mob to murder them four years ago and then pardoned that mob.

But we can call this bill what it is—the MAGA Murder Budget. And we can try to summon those who will be heard across this land to do the same. It’s the moral thing to do. And, ironically, it’s what Republicans would do.

And that’s why they win.

If you appreciated this, consider dropping us a tip to support our work. THE FARCE fights fascism with fearlessness. Subscribe to fuel the Farce—free or paid, your support matters.