Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has never faced a revolt like this before.
The broad left has never pulled its punches when it comes to the eight-term senator, suspicious of his Wall Street ties and unhappy with willingness to strike deals with Donald Trump. But it’s not the Left that Schumer has to worry about these days. Over the past week, Schumer has faced an unprecedented barrage of often public criticism and rebuke from within his own party, longtime Democratic loyalists, and party-aligned media outlets.
The point of controversy was Schumer’s decision to cave on the congressional standoff over an impending government shutdown. While many Democrats, even those in tough districts, favored using the risk of a chaotic shutdown as leverage to extract concessions from Trump and Republicans — reversing some of his most damaging cuts, for instance, or carving out protections for Medicaid and Social Security — Schumer argued a shutdown would be too disruptive and harmful, potentially giving Trump’s administration new opportunities to extract even more government cuts, and lent the crucial Democratic support needed to get the spending bill over the line.
This did not go down well. Anger at Schumer soon exploded from hardcore Democratic partisans, whether Center for American Progress head Neera Tanden, pundit Will Stancil, or Pod Save America co-host Dan Pfeiffer. Susan Rice, a former advisor to two Democratic presidents, admonished him to “please grow a spine,” while one state party chair simply said of Schumer: “He sucks.”
Members of Congress breached decorum to hit Schumer for folding, whether his former ally in Democratic leadership Nancy Pelosi, progressives like Ro Khanna and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, or centrist lawmakers like Sean Casten, Ted Lieu, or the ones who privately urged Ocasio-Cortez to challenge Schumer for his seat, even offering to bankroll her run.
A Change.org petition calling for Schumer’s resignation has…
Auteur: Branko Marcetic
