The November Midterms Are Upon Us
The November Midterms Are Upon Usby Mark M. Bello
So, I’m watching television the other day—what looks like a political ad shows up during the commercial break. Plenty of red, white, and blue. Fireworks. Spotlights sway back and forth. Mount Rushmore. And Donald Trump basks in the glow. Finally, these words flash across the screen:
“Paid for by the United States Government.”
Wait. What?
A half-hour later, another one shows up. This one’s worse. “Tough guy” Trump takes a perp walk toward the camera, glaring at the viewer, as if he’s an action-movie actor. Again, at the end, these words:
“Paid for by the United States Government.”
So, I did some digging. It turns out that the taxpayers really are paying for these commercials. Twenty million dollars in government money has been allocated to an advertising campaign that closely resembles Trump’s 2024 political campaign advertising. $6 gas for us; a political advertising treasure chest for him. What’s wrong with this picture?
For a change, even some Republicans have objected to this pathetic waste of taxpayer dollars.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune said he liked the message, but taxpayers shouldn’t be paying for it. Senator John Kennedy said public officials shouldn’t use public money to promote themselves.
Had to be said. Now do something about it! Saying something is wrong and doing nothing isn’t a check and balance, especially when you have the actual power to check and balance.
Words are cheap— political bullshit. At a time when taxpayers are paying through the nose for just about everything, because of this president’s policies, twenty million dollars should not be wasted on a narcissist’s ego ads.
The President? Or Trump, Inc.?
These commercials have me considering a larger issue that has plagued our government since Trump first took office.
Is this stuff about the presidency or the “Trump brand?”
It’s difficult to determine where one starts and the other ends. During Trump’s first term, multiple lawsuits argued that Trump’s continued ownership of hotels, resorts, and other businesses violated the Constitution’s Foreign and Domestic Emoluments Clauses—provisions concerned with financial benefits a president receives while in office.
Because the voters wisely kicked him out of the White House in 2020, those cases never produced a definitive Supreme Court decision on whether Trump’s arrangements violated the Constitution. But the underlying concern didn’t disappear when the lawsuits did.
And unwisely, we, the people, gave him another golden opportunity to screw us even worse than he did the first time.
Take cryptocurrency, for example.
Multiple crypto ventures bear the Trump name, including something called the $TRUMP meme coin. Buy enough of this crap, and you qualify to attend exclusive events with the president.
Do we even realize how unprecedented this stuff is? We finance television ads devoted to nothing more than Trump’s ego. Lights, camera, action, pizzazz—do these ads feature a single policy achievement? Are there any?
Well, yes, there is one. And it is “policy,” but I am not sure I would call it an “achievement.”
The Big Beautiful Bill
This Trump-branded meme coin is part of a larger grift to curry favor with the world’s wealthiest people. But it’s hardly necessary, because Trump’s signature domestic legislative accomplishment took care of that. This legislation offers another window into what his second presidency has prioritized.
The Congressional Budget Office analyzed how the 2025 reconciliation law affects Americans at different income levels. People lie; numbers don’t, and the numbers tell us that Trump’s signature bill may be big, but it is not so beautiful, especially to America’s lowest-income earners.
Averaged over 2026 through 2034, the CBO estimates households in the lowest income bracket will lose approximately $1,214 per year because of the “Big, Beautiful Bill.”
What about those at the highest-income level?
They gain approximately $13,622 per household per year.
Worse, those at the highest levels receive nearly 64 percent of the law’s total net benefit. And while some middle-income households benefit too, the top-down trickle is hard to ignore.
But wait! There’s more!
This bill substantially reduced revenues while increasing government spending. Certain legislative fiscal hawks didn’t care for that. So they decided to take away healthcare for 7.5 million American citizens by 2034. At the same time, this far less-than-beautiful bill dramatically increases funding for ICE.
These are choices, ladies and gentlemen. Trump’s Congress chose where to reduce and increase spending, who to tax less or more, and how much to blow up the deficit.
Julian Gets the Bill
Do you guys have grandchildren? I have ten. My youngest, Julian, will be three in October. He doesn’t know Donald Trump, John Thurn, or John Kennedy. He doesn’t know what Medicare or Medicaid are, whether health insurance is a benefit or a right. He doesn’t understand taxes, tax brackets, deficit spending, or debt service. He prefers Gummy Bears, cookies, ice cream, mac-and-cheese, Spider-Man, Paw Patrol, and Batwheels. And, let’s not forget, he’s not old enough to vote.
But his generation will inherit the financial consequences of what these guys in government are doing to our country. The CBO estimates that the Big Beautiful Bill will increase the federal deficit by roughly $4.1 trillion through 2034.
That’s right: because Trump is so fond of decreasing tax revenues while spending more than many presidents combined, the debt held by the public (upon which the U.S. pays interest) is skyrocketing.
Today’s rich get richer, and politicians who help them get richer benefit, directly or indirectly. We get higher taxes, fund chaos in the streets caused by ICE, and chaos overseas caused by another endless war.
Reasonable people can debate how the government spends its money. Infrastructure? Defense? Medical research? Social Security? Health care? Immigration enforcement? Tax relief? Ending Homelessness? All fair game. Progressives and conservatives have very different beliefs about what matters in America.
But can we agree that our government should live within its means? Taxpayers must do that—we don’t get to borrow endlessly. We don’t get blank checks. Borrowing isn’t some magic sleight of hand.
When government collects less than it spends, somebody eventually pays—through future taxes, reduced government services, inflationary pressures in some circumstances, additional borrowing, or the opportunity cost of spending hundreds of billions servicing yesterday’s debt instead of solving tomorrow’s problems.
Julian doesn’t get to vote on any of this. We vote on his future.
Are You Angry?
The polls say you are. Donald Trump’s approval rating recently fell to 32 percent in a Reuters/Ipsos poll. Americans are deeply disappointed with Trump’s second term. That’s good. You’re angry—you should be. But I’ve got to ask:
What did you expect?
I’ve been angry at Donald Trump for years, but I’m not surprised by his behavior in office. He’s been telling us who he is since 2105. Why didn’t we listen? We could have saved ourselves a lot of pain and even more money.
You wanted to try something different? Fine. You get a pass for 2016. And after four years of chaos, you did the right thing—you kicked him out of the White House.
But 2024? You knew:
- His temperament
- His governing style
- His narcissistic tendencies
- His serial lying
- His treatment of the press and his critics
- His grifting
- His criminal past
- His treatment of the less fortunate
- His other abuses of presidential power
- His multiple conflicts of interest
And knowing all of this, America bought into him again.
Insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting a different result. It’s an old expression, not a clinical definition, but it’s a pretty good description of what bothers me about politics in the Trump era.
Trump I was the preview. Why did anyone expect Trump II to be a different movie?
And there’s an important difference this time. He can’t run for reelection. There’s no political consequence like there was in 2020.
This time, where does restraint come from?
Congress
Which brings us full circle back to Thune and Kennedy. Congress is the only restraint on Trump’s worst tendencies. The Framers didn’t create a monarchy; they created a democratic republic with divided governmental power. The president has enormous power. But so does Congress. It writes and passes laws. It appropriates money and restricts how it is spent. It approves or disapproves presidential requests. And it can defend its institutional authority when the president seeks to encroach.
So, why don’t you?
It’s your job, isn’t? It’s one of the reasons we elected you guys. And it’s why comments like those from Thune and Kennedy drive me crazy. If our Republican Congress believes that taxpayer-funded political ads are inappropriate, how about doing something rather than just saying something? You have the power. Use it.
But you won’t, will you?
And that’s why the 2026 midterms are so important. We made a horrible mistake in 2024—We gave this guy the nuclear football again. And we gave him a Republican Congress.
What were we thinking?
In 2026, we have an opportunity to restore the checks and balances that our forefathers intended. I’m not suggesting we waste time, energy, and money on more impeachment proceedings. I’m not proposing two more years of televised Trump investigations.
Trump is at his best when he can play the victim card. His ‘poor me, aggrieved fake-news’ act played out during the Biden years and helped Trump retake the presidency.
Let Hollywood present him with an Oscar for Best Political Actor. But We, the People, should do something dramatically different in 2026. In 2026, we should elect people who will tell this president “no.”
- No to taxpayer-funded political ads.
- No to using the presidency to line your family’s pockets.
- No to out-of-control spending and tax breaks for the ultra-wealthy.
- No to abusing citizens and non-citizens on the streets of America.
- No to depriving the less fortunate of needed government benefits.
- No to endless wars and higher prices.
- No to dangerous policies with no oversight.
- No to trampling over our civil and social justice rights.
- No to forgetting you are the president of all the people, not just a chosen few.
- No to trampling on the 1st Amendment.
- And no to sacrificing the financial futures of people who can’t yet vote, especially since you won’t be around when the bill comes due.
November 3, 2026
Divided government is not always a good thing. It sometimes produces obstruction, paralysis, and partisan warfare. We’ve seen both parties play this game.
But divided government can be a tremendous tool in 2026. It can prevent Mr. 32% from acting on his worst impulses until he is safely shipped off to Mir-a-lago for the last time.
In 2026, Congress needs the power to say NO.
We, the People, put Donald Trump back in the White House. Perhaps we are now getting what we deserve. But we have an opportunity to undo some of the damage, because some very good candidates are running for office in 2026, and they’re willing to do what our current Congress won’t:
Check and balance this president.
Julian can’t vote in November. He can’t protect his own financial future. He can’t tell Congress what kind of country he wants to inherit. But we can do that for him and all American grandchildren.
We, the People, created this mess—We, the People, have the constitutional power to restore some balance.
Donald Trump and his 2024 United States Congress will eventually leave office. Julian and the rest of America’s grandchildren will still be here holding the bag.
In 2024, we weren’t careful about what we wished for. Let’s be more careful in 2026. It is our last chance to exercise our voting power over Donald Trump.
Let’s not waste it.
Mark M. BelloMark M. Bello is an attorney and award-winning author of the Zachary Blake Legal Thriller Series, ripped-from-the-headlines, realistic fiction that speaks truth to power and champions the rights of citizens in our justice system. These novels are dedicated to the social justice movement. They educate, spark discussion, and inspire readers to action. One of these was “Betrayal of Justice, a blistering novel about presidential misconduct and hypocrisy” For more information, please visit www.markmbello.com.