Ugliness as Beauty - Donald Trump’s Big Win in the US-Congress

Donald Trump has taken branding to a new level. He has sold a bill to the US-Congress that is cruel and ugly as being “big and beautiful”. He has turned populism into a “reverse Robin Hoodism”. He is robbing the weakest in society of their medical cover and gives millions in tax cuts to the rich. Why? Because he can do so. And how? Because the Republican Party as been “gleichgeschaltet” as other parties have been in the history of fascism. So far, the question was why many Republicans voted for Donald Trump but did so against their own interests. Now on the way to an authoritarianism with American characteristics, the question is why Republican Senators and Congressmen cast their votes against the interests of their constituents – and by extension their own? And what that means for the future of American politics. 

On the 4th of July, when Americans are celebrating the birth of their nation, President signed a bill into law that will strip an estimated 12 million citizens of their health insurance (Medicaid) over the next decade and cut Food Stamps. It will slash tax credits for renewable energy. At the same time the “Big Beautiful Bill” (BBB) will also give a giant tax cut to wealthy Americans. This will increase the already-bloated budget deficit by another $ 4.3 trillion. And it pours $ 170 billion into immigration enforcement, an increase in the budget of the Immigration Agency (ICE) by 265%; thus creating an “anti-immigrant police state in America” as Bill Clinton’s former Secretary of Labor, Robert Reich, puts it. 

Its critics describe the 870-page long megabill with a litany of outraged comments: “The most monstrous piece of legislation I ever voted on in my time in Congress” (Senator Chris Murphy); “The Disaster that just passed the Senate” (Podcaster Ezra Klein); “A showcase for fiscal incontinence and ideological exhaustion” (The Economist). 

Indeed, the bill’s economics do not add up. Other Republican Presidents like Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush have performed their own acts of “voodoo economics”, but that was during a time when the United States could still afford a certain profligacy. And afterwards Democratic Presidents like Carter and Clinton would rein in the out-of-kilter state finances. This time, most critics agree, it will be different. America will end up with a public debt of 120% of GDP and an annual fiscal deficit of about 7 %, further hollowing out its stature of a superpower. 

But how could such a reckless bill come to pass? What has turned Republican lawmakers into North-Korea-like stooges? What explains their collective spinelessness in the face of policies that will be hurting their constituents particularly in “middle America” where Medicaid covers more than 40% of children born in the rural counties of Kentucky, Alabama and Mississippi.  

When I asked people on my trip through those regions in April and May if they were not afraid that Donald Trump would cut down on Medicaid, most said he would not dare. And most of the Republican candidates had promised during their election campaign that they would not agree to somebody touching the health coverage for low-income, elderly and disabled citizens. Well, with BBB Trump did dare, and they acquiesced. 

But why did they sign on to the “Big and Beautiful Bill?” Firstly, because it contained some core promises of Donald Trump’s election campaign: to make the temporary tax cuts from his first term permanent; to roll back the clean energy initiatives of the Biden Administration; to increase spending on border and immigration enforcement; and to eliminate income tax on tips and overtime for workers in the hospitality sector. 

Secondly, because most Republican lawmakers have given up on common sense or political judgment. Some are enthralled by their political master Donald Trump and surfing on the political momentum he has created. Others might even believe the absurd calculations that the promised economic growth from tax relief and the income from tariffs will balance the books. Some might have grown immune against any warnings of a pending catastrophe or damage to their political career, because, hey, everything has worked out fine. In the past the administering of cuts to the welfare system used to hit mainly Democratic voters. That many of those voters have now become members of the new Republican coalition has not yet dawned on most Republican lawmakers. Ideology trumps political understanding. 

Thirdly, and most importantly, their sycophancy is driven by fear of losing their seat at the next election when the President threatens to punish naysayers by supporting yes-men and women as alternative candidates at the next Republican primaries. Under Donald Trump the Republican Party has become a party of fear. 

But shouldn’t the Democrats be happy about the act of political self-harm their opponents in government are just performing? Maybe. Given the negative polling numbers about the BBB its passing should increase their chances at the midterm-elections in November 2026 and at the presidential elections two years on.  

But who knows what political conditions the actual “Gleichschaltung” of the Republican Party, the ongoing dismantling of the rule of law, the systematic destruction of democratic institutions and the replacement of public discourse by a platform-driven influencer culture will have created by then. 

Donald Trump’s forcing the BBB through the legislative is only the most recent demonstration of power by a victorious but unhinged President in a debased political environment. There was his performative bombing of Iran’s nuclear installations and his victory over the Nato allies in Brussels on the 5%-demand on armaments. There has been the dramatic start to his anti-immigrant campaign in Los Angeles and the celebrated win at the US-Supreme Court limiting the ability of federal judges to block his executive orders and his administration’s policies. And there is better than expected economic data on the job market and a record high at the stock market that seems to contradict the dire predictions of his liberal critics, at least for now.  

With his big, beautiful win in Congress on the eve of Independence Day Donald Trump is on a roll. Or to quote the indomitable Robert Reich again: “That such a regressive, dangerous, gargantuan, and unpopular piece of legislation could get through Congress shows how far Trump has dragged America into modern fascism”.