Democrats were expected to do well last Tuesday. Instead they broke the laws of nature. They won in places that the universe says they cannot. On election night Democrats travelled faster than the speed of light. They made water flow uphill. If you had dropped a hammer the other night it would have risen to the ceiling.

So, what should they do with their newfound power?

Let me suggest that their north star should be restraint. They did not just win the World Series. They should not have a parade and a rally. They should keep the Miller Lite on ice.

This should be read as a massive rejection of all things Donald Trump. He started a war nobody wanted which drove gas and diesel prices into the stratosphere. He started trade wars nobody wanted (who knew Canada was our sworn enemy?) and that, along with the war, has kept prices high on everything. Closing the border and deporting violent criminals was popular, but nobody signed up for masked agents terrorizing peaceful neighborhoods full of otherwise law-abiding citizens. And people finally seem to have had enough of his deep corruption. At last, they’re tired of watching him and his family make out like bandits off his public gig.

But, let’s be clear. Voters did not give Democrats any kind of mandate. So they need to be cautious in how they proceed. The next two years should be about 2028, when they can win back the presidency and, if they play their cards right, keep or even expand their legislative majorities. So they need to focus on popular things.

That does not include impeaching Trump for a third time. Sure, he richly deserves it, but we’ve seen this movie before. There is simply no way that the Senate, even in Democratic hands, will ever muster the super majority to convict him. It will be seen by the public as a waste of time and it will send the message that Democrats aren’t focused on them and their everyday life concerns.

Congressional Democrats also need to understand that they’re not likely to get much of anything enacted over Trump’s vetoes. Because what they pass will be mostly symbolic, they should put Trump in a position where he has to veto popular legislation. That might include reinstating the lapsed Obamacare subsidies and the child care tax credit. It could also include a handful of ethics reforms proposed by Rahm Emanuel that will serve to highlight the Trump Crime Family’s corruption.

At the state level, the Democratic trifecta has a nice problem: what to do with about $3 billion in a state budget surplus.

What they should not do is spend it on any recurring expenses. This is one-time money that needs to be used for one-time investments, like capital projects or paying down debt or a one-time taxpayer refund.

My own favorite idea is a state parks and roads investment plan. Use half of it to attack the estimated $1 billion in deferred maintenance in our state parks and trails plus another $500 million to revive the lapsed Knowles-Nelson Stewardship Fund to protect land for public outdoor recreation and habitat protection. Use the other $1.5 billion for targeted road repair. I’m not talking about massive freeway projects, but rather local road repavings that will be noticed by drivers all over the state.

Then do something about property taxes, schools and child care. If state Democrats have a mandate for anything it’s to address fast-rising property taxes and the increasing need for school districts to go to their voters for those increases. And the cost of child care has also been a growing issue, especially with the expiration of COVID-era federal subsidies.

Those are all big ticket items, but Democrats could create a pool of funding from four sources. First, paying cash for that parks and roads program would save $120 million a year in interest payments, since normally the state would borrow for those needs. Second, legalizing recreational and medicinal marijuana would bring in an estimated $170 million a year (sorry, Illinois). Third, repealing the sales tax exemption for data centers would yield another $370 million, but that’s just for the projects currently in progress. So, conservatively, let’s say we can count on $500 million a year going forward. And finally, we could enact Gov. Tony Evers’ proposal to add another tax bracket for incomes over a million dollars. That would add another $650 million each year.

All told, that’s somewhere in the neighborhood of $1.5 billion a year or $3 billion over a biennium. Democrats could make an impact on property taxes, school funding and child care with that kind of money.

All of these proposals would be popular with the broad public and all of them could be done without raising taxes on average people. And they would go a long way toward improving the currently negative general image of the Democratic Party, setting them up for more success in two years.

Parks, roads, property tax relief, schools and child care. Not a bad handful of things to rebuild a party around.

Dave Cieslewicz is a Madison- and Upper Peninsula-based writer who served as mayor of Madison from 2003 to 2011. You can read more of his work at Yellow Stripes & Dead Armadillos.