You know the old saying—when life gives you lemons…

Yesterday, life gave us Biden vs. Trump two-point-ohhhhh my. Nobody wants it. Everybody dreads it. Still, it’s’ what we’ll get. 

Lemons. 

But the old saying skips a few details. Exactly how do you make the lemonade? The answer is simple: you squeeze the lemons. You squeeze the juice out of them. Then you sweeten up that juice and drink it down. 

What is a president, after all? Little more than an actor, a figurehead who utters the pronouncements and signs the documents written by beurocratic writer eggheads working with bureucratic math eggheads and low-level White House Congressional liaison eggheads. (I probably don’t have to mention that none of these eggheads are octegenarians—only the politicians who stand in front of the cameras and spout whatever comes into their heads have that kind of job security.) 

The acts are getting stale, the actors losing their touch. We’ve seen this movie too many times. Thus our current national slow-motion malaise, amplified by a social media experiment gone awry, which will culminate in a moment next November that few want to see happen, regardless of the outcome. And those few are a scary few, at least on occasions when they sufficiently outnumber the objects of their projected self-loathing. 

Unless…

Because let’s face the cold, hard facts: Trump is ascendant in his GOP, while Biden is an albatross for Democrats. It doesn’t make much sense, but there it is. You can blame the media’s “Trump enrichment syndrome” or the gullibility of yokels, the fragility of gun-baring white men, or the ennui of an entire people who’ve had too damn much success on the hunt  for another cheap thrill. Or you can blame God, or the stars and planets. 

But it won’t change what you will get—not a lemon, but a dried up old orange. And a crazy one at that. 

We must ask ourselves, though: What else could we get? What good thing could we make from this MAGA obsession, which has resulted in the RNC going to the Trump family and Lara Trump declaring that “every penny” will now go to Trump’s campaign (which is also his legal defense fund)? What can we make from that?

The word is Orangeade. Another word is “super-majority”. And all Democrats would need to do is concentrate on the important Senate and House races, outspend strapped Republicans in strategic vulnerable and swing districts (leaving some non-MAGA GOP opponents in place), and sell this message to voters disgusted by Trump but also poisoned against Biden and wary of a “President Harris”: Trump will be contained in his White House like Sauruman in his tower. 

Rage as Trump might, a Congress helmed by Democrats in both houses—including a super-majority of 60 senators—can thwart practically every move he and his captured Supreme Court may try to make toward their dream of a post-democratic autocracy. 

(Oh yes, the Supreme Court which, at this time, appears in the tank for Trump but still cannot actually write the legislation they favor. That is the job of Congress, which can also write laws that shape an out-of-whack Supreme Court. So I hope you see I am describing a “twofer”.)

I know what you’re saying. “Impossible. It’s never been done.” Which would be correct. Kind of like there’s never been anyone elected back to the White House after attempting to seize power from the man who beat him in the previous election. Like there’s never been a president under mulitple criminal indictments, or a president who has been found guilty of sexual assault by a jury of his peers.

Oh yeah, there’s a lot of “never beens” these days. Aren’t you ready for another of your own, Democrats? After all, in 2008 there had never been a Black president. There had never been legal gay marriage in the US. Few nations offered women reproductive rights of any kind, and even fewer allow abortions (still). 

In 1919, women had “never been” voters, and only one (a fluke) had been a Member of Congress. 

In 1860, Black Americans had “never been” free. 

And remember, the Trump-inspired Congressional losses of his tenure, while modest, were also unprecedented.

So hammer this message home, from now until November: Instead of handing the nation to Trump and his amoral MAGA allies like Greene, Goetz and Graham, a coalition of Independents (like myself), Democrats, and Republican refugees can use the 2024 election to take it all away from them. We can box Trump in the White House, alone, with only his “hand-picked” (translation: incompetent,  self-interested and likely criminal) loyalists to defend him (for as long as that lasts). 

The coalition will be temporary by nature. We’re talking about Congress, where power shifts in the wind like the sands of the desert.

And how long would his presidency last? The Supreme Court appears poised to delay Trump’s prosecution until he can secure the presidency. The day he enters office, Trump’s Justice Department will end the prosecutions. On the next day, Congress can proceed with impeachment number three. And this time it sticks. As the new boss, his VP will have a stark choice: play ball with a re-empowered Congress, or get shown the door like the old boss.

And whatever Trump’s Supreme Court bloc tries to do, a robust Congress could undo. 

I would brand it a “velvet revolution,” seizing power from the executive and returning it to the people via ballot box patriotism. If this were to be achieved, not only would America be successful in containing MAGA fever and thus protecting vulnerable Americans from its worst instincts. It would also, in the process, re-empower the branch of government that should in fact wield the most conspicuous authority of the three—because it is the people’s branch, populated with the people’s representatives. At least in theory. Can we make it a reality? Why shouldn’t we? We have no king.

And who knows? Maybe Democrats can sweep Biden back in too, with a sort of reverse Congressional coattail effect. Not that it really matters.

Many will say an alliance of progressive and moderate Americans cannot do it, because the right-leaning Independents and nervous traditionalist Republicans will balk. But really they don’t want us to try, and their voices are louder, individually, than ours. They want it to stay that way. So the powerful of all stripes will shout down such an idea as unrealistic. Unfortunately, such rhetoric has its own power in our omnipresent mediascape.

But never forget what our collective power can do at the voting booth. Don’t forget the hope that was inspired in 2008, and don’t fear the backlash—that will happen no matter what you do.

The only alternative to victory is surrender to the loudest, angriest, and most ignorant voices among us.