WHAT CAN CONGRESSIONAL DEMOCRATS DO? FOR ONE THING, THEY CAN DO THIS.

We know that many Democrats in Congress are annoyed because their voters want them to do more. What can we do? they say. We're in the minority.

Here's something they can do.

Congressional Democrats with decent communications skills can get out there and talk about what, specifically, is being destroyed. They can make and post short videos telling Americans what we're losing, in real-world terms.

They can talk about this, for instance:

Half of the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention's Epidemic Intelligence Service officers — a group known as the CDC's "disease detectives" — were among the cuts made Friday by the Trump administration....

The CDC's Epidemic Intelligence Service or EIS officers are hired in annual classes through a competitive process.

As part of the fellowship, they serve for two years around the CDC or deployed to health departments across the country, often on the front lines of public health responses....

"The country is less safe. These are the deployable assets critical for investigating new threats, from anthrax to Zika," said Dr. Anne Schuchat, a former top-ranking CDC official and alumna of the program, in a message.

Anthrax! Mosquito-borne illnesses! We've trained people to look at these diseases so we know what to do when we see them in America, or when they might be coming to America. Now -- with zero debate, in Congress or in the rest of the country -- Elon Musk has just decided to gut the program that does this training.

This is part of a massive staff cut at the Department of Health and Human Services -- roughly 5200 people. It's bad, and it's part of a massive wave of cuts to scientific research all over the country.

Democratic members of Congress could be making videos talking about this, maybe reporting on what's happening in their own districts.

Democrats in Congress could spread the word about stories like this one -- although this story is starting to break through:

The National Nuclear Safety Administration was struggling Friday to rehire some of the nation’s top nuclear specialists after they were fired by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency in an apparent massive mistake, according to reports that triggered security fears.

Sources told CNN that DOGE staffers apparently did not realize that the agency oversees America’s nuclear weapons stockpile when the employees were fired Thursday. The terminations were quickly rescinded Friday, CNN reported.

The workers were fired because “no one” had “taken any time to understand what we do and the importance of our work to the nation’s national security,” one source told CNN.

Or this:

The administration this week began aggressively laying off thousands of government employees across multiple agencies, hitting veterans hard....

A third of all federal employees are military veterans....

For an already understaffed VA, this is a disaster. Veterans’ medical care, disability claims, and support services depend on an adequate workforce. Slashing hiring ensures growing backlogs, worsening care, and increased suffering for those who rely on VA services. With an aging veteran population and an expanded VA mission under previous administrations, now is the time to invest in the VA, not gut it.

The makers of these videos wouldn't need to be sitting members of Congress. Maybe aspiring Democratic candidates could be the ones talking about what's going on.

At a time when many Americans no longer get their news from traditional news sources, Democrats could decide that they should be a news source for the public.

But the videos should be real and immediate. I don't always agree with the commentator who wrote the following posts, but he's right about the tone of Democratic messaging. He's talking about the Democratic response (or lack thereof) to the Eric Adams/Justice Department story, but he could just as easily be talking about the Democratic (non-)response to DOGE cuts.

Go to a place where good work is being done -- or was being done until Musk's goons showed up with their meat ax. Explain what we're losing. A side benefit of this is that you might communicate the message that Americans are actually getting something of value for their tax dollars. The predominant message about government spending for at least the past half-century is that it's all waste, fraud, and abuse. No one ever pushes back on that message. But Democrats could.

I know this won't happen. But the opportunity is there.