Schumer defies a Democratic Party still determined to fail

Democrats’ disarray is extreme following their election smash-up. The usual pain and confusion of a political party after defeat is amplified because Democrats never hated or contemned anyone as much as they do President Donald Trump.

Two questions torture them: How could we lose to that guy and his party, and what does it say about us? 

But being racked by such searching questions does not imply a readiness to answer them honestly. Many Democrats can’t face it because it would mean acknowledging that they were wrong in believing theirs was the party of the people, that voters see them as shambolic and damaging to the republic, and that their deepest certainties are regarded by the public as odious, arrogant, and downright loopy.

Thus, many Democrats are in denial and take the easy way out of their dilemma rather than accepting their need for thorough introspective reassessment. This means they argue that success eluded them because they didn’t go far enough, not because they went too far, and that what they need is to amp up their fight and improve their messaging, not change their policies. 

In this deluded camp are such egregiously grating pols as Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), who scorn the idea of doing what most people see as normal and insist that their flailing party charge, like the Light Brigade, into the jaws of death.

There are some Democrats who want to drag their party back to sanity. One is veteran strategist James Carville, the guy who long ago reminded Bill Clinton’s election campaign that it was “the economy, stupid” — that voters cared about the basics, not about wacky gender politics. 

After the 2024 defeat, Carville chastised Democrats, including himself, for making the election about Trump rather than voters. He continues to tell his party to get real and realize that “dancing videos, auction paddles, and cane-banging” do not “meet the moment.”

The highest profile Democrat, perhaps the only real leader among them, is Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY). He is trying to get his party to come back to earth and do at least a bit of what voters want. With that goal in mind, he led nine other Democrats in voting not to block the Republicans’ recent temporary funding bill.

He thus prevented a government shutdown and displayed a degree of bipartisanship. Voters approve of this. They want this, as they repeatedly tell pollsters. They prefer Republicans and Democrats to step on to common ground when it is available and govern reasonably rather than pretending the nation benefits when they are at each other’s throats.

For this, Schumer is under assault, and the party’s left flank wants him ousted. Even House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) refused to support Schumer when asked about it, and the two were not on speaking terms for days after the Senate vote.

Schumer is in damage-control mode, trying to rescue his political career from looming oblivion. He has canceled a planned book tour, which was under threat of disruption from leftist “activists,” by which is meant hooligans who won’t tolerate opinions different from their own. 

The minority leader also felt it necessary to appear on CBS morning TV on Tuesday to defend himself, saying of his vote, “I felt I had to do it for the future, not only of the Democratic Party but of the country.”

What is most amazing about all this is that Schumer has spent his entire political life working in the interests of the Democratic Party. He has proved himself decade after decade to prize party victory above all else. He has even, and not infrequently, stooped to do what is dishonorable, such as threatening Supreme Court justices, to push the Democrats’ interest and agenda. No one could be more obviously working for the partisan cause. But he only had to step out of line once before the mob came after him. Suddenly, as is the way with cancel culture, a champion is instantly persona non grata. 

The Democratic civil war over a vote to keep the government open by spending at almost exactly the same levels agreed upon when President Joe Biden was in the White House reveals the blue party’s unerring determination always to choose the unpopular stance on issues on which the country disagrees with the party 80-20 or even 90-10.

THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY’S CHRIS MURPHY PROBLEM

It does this on allowing men to compete in women’s sports, on encouraging mass immigration and paying lavishly to look after illegal immigrants once they’ve arrived, on letting violent criminals walk the streets to prey on the innocent, and on a host of other policies that put them out of step with the public, and out of power in Washington.

The public wants sensible bipartisan government and knows Democrats excoriated Republicans for federal shutdowns. Now, Democrats are hypocritically doing the opposite and punishing their own for not enthusiastically jumping off the cliff with them. Schumer tried to do what voters want, and for that, his party wants to toss him aside.