A month ago, James Carville, the highly influential Democratic strategist, advised his party to “play dead” and allow President Trump and his Republican allies who control Congress to self-destruct under the weight of unpopular policies.

House Democrats are rejecting the strategy outright.

Heading into the high-stakes battle over Trump’s sweeping domestic agenda, Democratic leaders are instead launching a forceful, in-your-face battle over the GOP’s plans for tax cuts, tougher immigration laws and steep reductions in federal spending, vowing to take the fight directly to the public in hopes that voter backlash will sink the Republican wish list before it can reach the president’s desk.

"We are going to fight every day, tooth and nail, to make sure that the American people get the benefits they have paid for, like Social Security, and that they deserve, like good public schools,” said Rep. Katherine Clark (Mass.), the Democratic whip, who also singled out proposed cuts to veterans programs and health care benefits as particularly egregious.

“We are ready to match the fire we are hearing at home from people — the outrage and the fear — here in Congress."

From the minority, Democrats have virtually no power to block Trump’s domestic agenda on Capitol Hill, where Republicans control both chambers of Congress and GOP leaders are planning to move the legislation on an obscure procedural track, known as reconciliation, that makes Democratic opposition irrelevant if Republicans stay united.

But with Republicans clinging to slim majorities in both chambers, Democrats are ramping up a series of highly public campaigns designed to aggravate voter anxiety surrounding Trump’s domestic agenda — particularly cuts to Medicaid and other federal........

© The Hill