The Schumer problem

For those of you that have checked out of current events (like my veterinarian, whom I saw the other day with Zephyr and who told me she just can't handle awareness of the news since January), let me bring you up to speed on the latest round of Democrats Fighting Themselves When They Need to Have a United Front. Last Friday there was a key vote in the Senate, whether or not to invoke cloture—that is, end debate and proceed to a vote—on what has somewhat euphemistically been termed a Continuing Resolution to fund the government in lieu of an actual budget bill. Without approval of this resolution, the government would run out of money and go in to shutdown at midnight of that day.

Cloture is not a commonly used word outside of the DC beltway, but you might be familiar with a correlating term, "filibuster." The modern use of a filibuster in the Senate is not the Jimmy Stewart version, or even the Howard Stackhouse version from The West Wing, which requires a Senator to hold the floor indefinitely to prevent a vote from taking place. Nowadays it's much simpler and all that needs to happen is to oppose cloture—if fewer than 60 Senators vote for cloture, either debate continues or the bill is shelved or abandoned and thus "filibustered."

This bill is not really a Continuing Resolution—a real CR simply continues the existing budgetary framework for a predetermined time (six months in this case) as a stopgap. This bill has radical changes to the budget and is only "continuing" for some things—it cuts funding to myriad programs already approved by Congress; gives Elon Musk clear avenues for corruption with more government contracts; devastates DC's municipal budget; and, not to be overlooked, slashes funding for election security measures. And that's just for starters. It's really bad.

So, Senate Democrats were faced with a Hobson's Choice of allowing this so-called CR to go to a vote and thus pass, because Republicans had 52 declared votes in favor already, or filibustering it and thus creating a government shutdown, which is bad under normal circumstances and could be devastatingly chaotic under this current regime. Either option is unacceptable yet one will happen; so the real choice boiled down to accepting horribleness that is spelled out and predictably nasty, or not accepting it and venturing into unknown territory that may or may not be worse.

Chuck Schumer, the Democratic leader in the Senate, decided the known horrors would be better than the chaos of the unknown and got nine other Democrats to agree with him and cloture passed with 62 votes. Other Dems, both in the Senate and out—including very vocal members of the House—are understandably outraged at what is seen as capitulation to the regime at a time when no quarter should be given and are calling for Schumer to either step down as minority leader or resign from the Senate altogether.

I tend to side with the outraged Dems, because we are in the second American Civil War—it's a cold war for the moment, thankfully, but make no mistake, the insurrectionists are in the White House and the administration is staffed with traitors to the Constitution—and putting up a fight is thus required.

That said, I don't entirely fault Schumer's logic on this particular decision. There are legitimate concerns about what the regime would do under a shutdown, real dangers that can't be ignored. But I do fault his leadership and am among those calling for him to step aside. He was adamant about opposing this CR at all costs, then completely switched gears once it passed the House; there was clearly no forethought to what to do if the bill failed even though that was the stated goal earlier on, and his behavior throughout this sequence of events suggests he does not understand the gravity of the moment. There has always been a milquetoast quality to Schumer's speeches, he seems to think that if we just wait things out that Republicans will come back to respecting their oaths of office all by themselves somehow, and he appears to be operating as if this is still normal U.S. politics.

We can't have weak leadership right now. The caucus cannot be led by Neville Chamberlain. I don't know if we have someone in the Senate who could fill a Churchill or FDR role instead, but we damn well gotta try.

Amy Klobuchar, Chris Murphy, Sheldon Whitehouse, or Tammy Duckworth would each bring fight to the leadership position in their own ways and would be leaps and bounds better than Schumer. I don't like it when we're battling amongst ourselves, especially now, but we need a change and it better be soon so we can get to that united front and so we can have a leader that leads rather than one who waits for public opinion to catch up to reality.

For the moment, anyway, this is still a representative democracy, which means we vote for officials to be our agents in DC. They are there to do the work that we don't necessarily have the time or inclination to do ourselves, they need to be more informed and more discerning about governing than the public at large, and thus should be leading and shaping public opinion as much as they can rather than following it. Republicans figured that out a long time ago, but Democrats by and large have been squeamish about it. It's why the election wasn't a blowout in favor of Kamala Harris—old-school consultants preached playing things safe, toning down attacks, and courting Republicans instead of getting in people's faces about what the stakes were.

Chuck Schumer went with the path of least resistance this time and while I can't say for certain he was wrong in this specific instance, he cannot even appear to be capitulating to the regime and claim to be a leader. In the absence of a few Republicans growing a spine and supporting impeachment, the job of Democratic leaders, particularly in Congress, is to get us to next year's midterms in a way that we can actually hold those midterm elections fairly. That's going to require fights, it will require support for the courts, it will require pushback on many, many things that have not been adequately pushed back on thus far.

Get out of the way, Chuck.