If you read my articles in the last issue of The Hoot (here and here), you’ll know that I’m not a particularly big fan of Chuck Schumer. Schumer has been the leader of the Senate Democrats since Harry Reid’s retirement in 2017, serving either as majority or minority leader depending upon which party controlled the Senate. Unfortunately, he hasn’t been very good at his job.
During the Biden years, Democrats had a trifecta over the House, Senate and presidency for two full years. During that time, they were only able to pass two meaningful pieces of legislation: the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and the Inflation Reduction Act (which, ironically, increased inflation). Although these acts were both landmark pieces of legislation with significant economic impact, they represent only a small part of the Biden agenda. Passing major legislation requires the approval of both chambers of Congress and the president. Only one of those proved incapable of doing so (at least early in the Biden years; after the midterms, Republicans retook the House and couldn’t even pick their own speaker, and Biden didn’t know the difference between Egypt and Mexico, so all three branches were completely dysfunctional). Despite having just a four-seat margin, Nancy Pelosi was able to maintain a united front in the House, with a coalition containing everyone from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to Henry Cuellar. Chuck Schumer found himself unable to control his own caucus, with Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema repeatedly blocking important legislation on voting rights and climate change, including Biden’s Build Back Better agenda.
Unfortunately for both Schumer and anyone who supports the Democratic Party, Chuck Schumer has proven to be even less effective as a minority leader than he was as a majority leader. After Donald Trump illegally froze federal funding to Harvard, Schumer sent the administration a “strongly worded letter.” As expected, this did exactly nothing to stop Donald Trump’s lawlessness. Instead, Schumer was widely mocked, including by late-night TV hosts Jon Stewart and Seth Meyers. A New Yorker cartoon showed Godzilla destroying a city with someone saying, “Quick! Somebody get Chuck Schumer to write a strongly worded letter.” Even CNN anchor Dana Bash mockingly told Schumer, “well, you let us know if you get a response,” when he mentioned his letter during an interview.
Somehow, it gets worse for Schumer. Around the same time as his letter-writing fiasco, Democrats had an actual opportunity to extract concessions from Republicans. The government was heading towards a shutdown, and Republicans needed Democratic votes to pass a continuing resolution (C.R.) to keep the government open. House Democrats believed that they could use this opportunity to place limits on the power held by Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency, which had been gutting federal agencies and firing employees with no oversight and no limits. House Democrats, even those in swing districts where a shutdown would risk their reelection chances, all voted against the Republican C.R. Because Republicans have the majority, it passed anyway, sending it to the Senate, where the filibuster gave Democrats a real chance to stop it. However, a group of 11 Democrats, including Schumer, voted for the Republican bill after extracting exactly zero concessions, infuriating their House colleagues and the party base. In the days following Schumer’s first shutdown surrender, AOC claimed that even centrist Democrats were encouraging her to run for Senate against him.
With the government only funded through Sept. 30, Schumer had a chance to reflect on his shortcomings and show that he was still capable of leading the party through a difficult fight. I wrote an article explaining why Democrats shouldn’t be afraid of a shutdown fight, arguing that they would win because voters would blame Republicans. Democrats initially held their ground, allowing the government to shut down and refusing to reopen unless Republicans agreed to extend the healthcare subsidies in the Affordable Care Act. After historic wins for Democrats in the 2025 off-year elections brought new energy into the party and while Donald Trump attempted to cut off food aid that 12% of Americans rely on, with polls showing more voters blaming Republicans than Democrats for the shutdown, it really looked like my usually-too-optimistic outlook on politics would be proven right and that Democrats would actually win the fight. Unfortunately, I made the mistake of overestimating Chuck Schumer’s ability to keep the party in line. Democrats managed to once again snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, with eight Democratic senators voting for the Republican bill to reopen the government. Instead of getting an extension of the healthcare subsidies, all that it took for Democrats to cave was a promise that Republicans would hold a vote on the subsidies at some point in the future. With the subsidies expiring in just three weeks and Congress scheduled to leave for the holiday break before then, it appears as though Republicans are going to break that promise, something that anybody who has any knowledge of the political environment in this century should have seen coming. Schumer himself did not vote for the “deal” that reopened the government. This leaves two possibilities:
The first possibility is that Schumer did secretly support this deal, but refuses to admit it as part of some pathetic last-ditch effort to maintain his support among the voter base. Supporting this deal could be as little as knowing about it and not attempting to stop it, or as much as helping craft it and lobby for it among members of his caucus. If this is the case, he is too naive and cowardly to continue leading the party. By supporting the bill without admitting it, Schumer is attempting to deceive voters because he knows that the public doesn’t support this deal. The way that the deal was structured meant that in exchange for their complete surrender to Republican demands, Democrats were relying on nothing but a promise from Republicans that they would get anything at all. Anyone who was familiar with the politics of this century would know that the party led by a man with four different Wikipedia pages dedicated to lies that he’s told should not be trusted. It is impossible to make deals with a party that negotiates in bad faith. What the Democrats need right now, and what the party base so desperately wants, are fighters; people who will oppose Donald Trump and his lawlessness even when it gets difficult. The eight senators who supported Republicans on this bill are not what the party needs right now. If Chuck Schumer supported this bill and won’t admit it, neither is he.
The second possibility is even worse for Chuck Schumer. If he truly opposed the bill that eight members of his caucus voted for, he is essentially a leader in name only. It is entirely possible that members of the Senate have reached the same conclusion as countless outside observers: Chuck Schumer is an ineffective leader. Part of the job of the Senate majority or minority leader is to keep their party in line. When the party decides that protecting healthcare for millions of Americans is a priority, the party leader pressures members of their party to ensure that they have the votes or that the other party doesn’t. With a few notable exceptions throughout history, it is relatively rare for such a large group of senators to make a deal with opposition from their own party’s leader on an issue in the public eye to the same level as the shutdown. The party leader has a lot of power over their members, including control of committee assignments and floor time. Schumer has been too scared to exercise these powers to keep his members in line, and the result is that some of them are willing to pass a bill that he publicly opposes, receiving no real concessions in the process. The result is that millions of Americans will be unable to afford health insurance, while it’s business as usual for the senators that took away their best chance to get it. Perhaps it shouldn’t be a surprise that the man who thinks sending Trump a “strongly worded letter” is an effective way to deal with Republican abuses of power is just as incapable of dealing with the members of his own party.
Under Schumer’s leadership, the Democratic Party has found itself with the lowest approval ratings since polls started tracking party approvals. Across the country, progressive and moderate Senate candidates alike have promised that if they’re elected, they will vote for someone else to be the party leader. Polls show Schumer getting trounced in a primary race against AOC, losing by more than 20 percentage points. To put it simply, Chuck Schumer is a lame duck, and everybody knows it except for Chuck Schumer. The Democratic Party has plenty of qualified candidates to replace Schumer, including Senators Chris Murphy, Cory Booker and Brian Schatz (or, if the party wants to really piss off Donald Trump, they could make Bernie Sanders their leader). With so much talent ready to assume leadership roles, there is no reason for the party to continue to stick with Chuck Schumer and his strongly worded letters. Doing so only hurts the party and the country.
