It was a rare occasion. The headlines of the corporate media provided a succinct analysis of the U.S. mammoth budget bill that became law July 4. 

First, you had to hate Trump and all Republicans for pushing the bill through. The Qatar-owned Al Jazeera summed it up: “Donald Trump’s bill will raise top-tier wealth, erode health care for poor people and raise the deficit by $3 trillion.”

We at Workers World could hardly have put it better. The bill will cut taxes mainly for those with incomes more than $460,000 a year, diminish Medicaid and SNAP Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly food stamps), close hospitals, increase the climate catastrophe, hike funding for ICE repression of migrants and increase weapons purchased for policing the world.

But if the MAGA criminals inspired anger, the Democrats competed by inspiring contempt. True, all Democrats in the House and Senate voted against the bill. But a page 1, New York Times headline on July 4 summed up how the Democratic leaders reacted: “Democrats See a Chance to Win Voters Back.” The continuation headline was even more deadly: “Expecting Backlash to Bill, Democrats See an Avenue Back to Power in Congress.” 

The article was true to the headline. The Democratic Party leaders’ main reaction — and they spoke about it without shame — was to express something close to joy at the opportunity to blame the Trump administration for the horrors the poorest people will be experiencing as the budget bill’s provisions become law. 

To make it clear what is planned, Republicans voted almost unanimously for the greatest transfer of wealth in history from the many poorest to the few richest U.S. residents. 

The Democrats — except for a symbolic filibuster speech in the Senate by Cory Booker and a similar eight-and-a-half-hour delay in the House by Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries — did hardly anything to stop the bill from being passed. 

Don’t think there was nothing they could have done. Remember all the Republicans did to sabotage the Affordable Care Act, both while it was being passed and to undermine its effectiveness. The Democrats could have mounted a real Senate filibuster with more than one participant. They could have mobilized the entire collection of House Democrats to ask questions of Jeffries and keep him going beyond the weekend.

Having delayed the passage of the bill and depriving #47 of his big 4th of July victory speech, the Democrats could have started mobilizing those millions of people hurt by the bill to protest. 

Instead, the Democrats were saying: The people will suffer, and then they’ll vote for us. This is the stance of a party that, although it knew five million people took the streets for the June 14 No Kings protests, cannot even put up a decent show of opposition in Congress. When polls show that 70% of the people opposed the bill, the Democrats wouldn’t go all out to stop it.

The lesson of all this is that while it’s a good idea to hate the Republicans and Trump, it’s a bad idea to look to the Democratic Party for the solution.