Quick summary: Sen. Chuck Schumer is not popular with progressives, but his folding to a Republican stopgap bill has peeled back a layer showing his party’s ineffectiveness against the GOP agenda. Now the frustration is boiling over and calls for new leadership have risen.----------------By the way, heads up! URL Media is returning to The National Press Club for our Career Day, Friday March 28. Our all-star recruitment team and founders will be on site for a day of targeted sessions for both job seekers and hiring managers.Click here for more information and to register.
Why Schumer backlash is just the tip of the iceberg that the Democratic Titanic has hit
Hey, y’all,
It’s been quite a fortnight for Sen. Chuck Schumer. He was riding high as the leader of the Democratic opposition to the MAGA takeover of the U.S. government … until one choice led to him being reviled by colleagues and his party.On March 13, he announced he’d vote to advance the Republican funding bill just 24 hours after he said he wouldn’t. The bill, which kills $13 billion in non-defense spending while spiking defense spending by $6 billion, could have been a bargaining chip that would have allowed Democrats leverage despite being in the minority in both the Senate and House of Representatives. Schumer said Donald Trump and Elon Musk would have run amok if the government had shut down. Democrats, both elected and rank-and-file, were furious and thought he folded with an ace and a king before the Republicans even placed a bet.
Since then, Schumer has been facing calls to resign, while the Democrats are facing a come-to-Jesus moment over the direction they’ve gone since Kamala Harris lost the 2024 election. Through all this, Republicans take shots of Jagermeister in celebration.Schumer, to his credit, can read the room. He’s postponing his planned book tour, the Baltimore Beat says, amid the backlash against him. But the backlash represents a larger issue within the Democratic party: Where are the wins? Where’s the fighting spirit? And is the current leadership too weak for the Trump era?Author and journalist Ta-Nehesi Coates discussed this with former MSNBC host Joy-Ann Reid and at least expressed what people are most worried about: “You’ve lost affirmative action. You’ve lost a woman’s right to choose. Labor is under siege. Public schools are, you know, effectively taken as playgrounds for the private. You lost campaign finance reform. You lost the Supreme Court. You may lose Obamacare, which itself was a conservative compromise. What did this get? What did you win?” Coates asked.
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