U.S. Congressman Jamie Raskin (D-MD) has been among the most outspoken opponents of President Donald Trump‘s agenda — and especially of how he has moved, through an Executive Order blitz, to implement it in a way that largely bypasses Congress.
Raskin, like many Democrats has been churned up in the MAGA “flood the zone” strategy, honing in to criticize one Trump policy only to be waylaid as another move — equally objectionable from his standpoint — emerges from the White House.
Tariffs, DOGE cuts and allegedly disingenuous reporting, the firing of government watchdogs, the gutting of aid agencies, controversial ICE deportations, the strong-arming of tribute and obeisance from law firms and universities — Raskin, in the video below, characterizes these Trump moves and more as an “encyclopedia of things that DOGE and Elon Musk and Donald Trump are destroying in America today.”
Acknowledging that the “flood the zone” often produces its desired effect — Steve Bannon said Democrats can’t fight more than two battles at once — Raskin says below that he doesn’t want, in the midst of the deluge, to “lose sight of some of the smaller things.”
President Trump is reportedly taking a hammer to IRS Direct File, which allows millions of Americans to file their taxes for free. Just another pathological way the White House is making life more difficult and expensive for our people. pic.twitter.com/D6JudSO41b
— Rep. Jamie Raskin (@RepRaskin) April 17, 2025
Raskin uses the video to talk about what he sees as the unnecessary and harmful elimination of an IRS program called Direct File, which allowed people to receive their tax forms essentially already filled out, and to file accordingly, making it cheaper and easier for taxpayers, and also removing friction from the tax collection process.
“We just learned,” Raskin says, “that the Trump administration is dismantling it, destroying a great advance in government efficiency” — with the implication that DOGE is working against its own mandate to enhance, not quell, efficiency.
Raskin then makes a promise that sounds easier to say than to keep. The Congressman vows to “reinstate” the IRS Direct File tool “when we get the government back from MAGA and the extreme right.”
Choosing what he describes as a “little thing” he doesn’t want to lose track of — or at least choosing this particular one — isn’t winning Raskin a lot of admirers in the comments on X, where anti-Trumpers rarely receive a warm welcome.
Many contend that filing taxes is simple and already free, and that in particular Direct File was inefficient and costly, though Raskin says half of the states adopted it and it was “great” for Maryland.
Who reported it, e-file works fine. Plenty of cheap tax programs.
— Dcguinn (@dcguinn) April 18, 2025
Others on the left believe the Congressman, a Harvard-trained lawyer, is most valuable when tackling larger issues brought to a boil by the President’s initiatives. They want Raskin to focus on big issues that address foundational threats, issues where they see autocracy undermining American checks and balances and imperiling the rule of law.
Raskin addressed that kind of issue this week too, broadcasting his concern that Trump may “invoke the Insurrection Act as part of his administration’s escalating campaign against immigrants and U.S. citizens.”
NEWS: Ranking Member Jamie Raskin addresses concerns that Trump may invoke the Insurrection Act as part of his administration’s escalating campaign against immigrants and U.S. citizens.
— House Judiciary Dems (@democrats-judiciary.house.gov) April 18, 2025 at 10:24 AM
That concern and issues like the allegation below, shared by Raskin, that DOGE may have exposed Americans’ personal data to Russian intelligence, are what get Raskin’s constituents most animated.
These heavy constitutional issues also show that — whatever convenience something like Direct File provides to a subset of Americans — the presumption Raskin makes when he says “when we get the government back from MAGA” is not one that any Democrat in the present moment should speak of as an inevitability.
Apparently not content to wipe out hundreds of thousands of American jobs, DOGE is now putting Russian computer hackers out of work by personally giving our data directly to the Kremlin and Vladimir Putin!
— Rep. Jamie Raskin (@raskin.house.gov) April 18, 2025 at 2:37 PM