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Schumer's handling of the CR vote was not courageous. It was spineless and incompetent. [1]

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Date: 2025-03-18

I've seen pieces in the mainstream media, and here, lauding Schumer's eleventh hour decision to support the CR as somehow principled and heroic. He knew it would be unpopular, the reasoning goes, so it took courage to do it.

It was neither courageous nor principled. It was incompetent born of spinelessness.

The gutsy stand for him would have been to admit he was not going to block it or to keep his mouth shut from the get go, the latter being what a competent leader would have done. Set aside aside the unpopularity of the CR, which was not clean by the way, may have been due to the fact that its provisions were arguably as damaging to the government as a shutdown making his decision, well, stupid. After all, it's not like he's the only one with a brain as Rep. Crockett pointed out. Waiting until the eleventh hour to change his mind was breathtaking incompence resulting from his abject lack of courage which in turn resulted in devastating damage to the Democratic Party, as well as Minority Leader Jeffries' credibility with the House caucus. It was a gift to the GOP.

The die was cast straight out the gate with Schumer's failure to be forthright with House Minority Leader Jeffries. At a minimum, he should have told Leader Jeffries in private that he could not commit to blocking cloture, so Jeffries could be equally upfront with the House Caucus as he rallied them to oppose the CR. He would have to tell the caucus not to count on the Senate blocking cloture in their political calculus on how to vote. He could still make the case that the right decision for House Democrats was to vote as a block against it not just on the merits, but politically as well to send a message to Schumer and the Senate.

Why didn't Schumer tell Jeffries he couldn't commit? You can bet your bottom dollar the internal pressure on Schumer would have been immediate and immense. Pelosi would have been on the phone giving him a raft of crap. There would have been public pressure for him to address rumors he planned on supporting the CR. Simply put, he was too chicken to face the music for saying publicly he was non-committal at that point. Sure, that stance may have been unpopular, but it was politically defensible. He was keeping his powder dry until he saw whether the CR was clean, and what bells and whistles the GOP attached If not.

That's what courage looks like. A leader takes a stand, calls for his head on a pike be damned. Instead, Schumer took the easy road.

Once the CR passed, he faced another test of courage and political skill. He had three days to decide what to do and explain why. What did he do? He waffled, misdirected and misled. Publicly, he said he would oppose cloture. Behind closed doors he was working on a figleaf so he could do the opposite, i.e., an agreement with the GOP to allow votes on Amendments in exchange for cloture.

At that point, he should have shifted his stance to non-committal publicly while he worked on a way to strip the bells and whistles from the CR. By declaring he would block cloture upfront while that process went forward, he committed breathtaking political malfeasance. He told the GOP what the public did not know. Either he was not serious about blocking cloture for the reasons he gave for his eleventh hour reversal, or he just did not have the votes. He basically handed the GOP an opportunity to humiliate him and inflict a devastating blow to public support for the Democratic Party by simply doing what they wanted to do in the first place. He just sweetened the pot for them completely undercutting his bargaining position.

Why didn't he shift to non-committal and start making the case for cloture for the reasons he gave for his eleventh hour reversal? The internal pressure on Schumer would have been epic this time around. Pelosi would have been on the horn giving him a super tanker of crap, and the public pressure would not longer be about the CR but for him to step down. On top of disagreement over passing the CR, there would have been fury at his public betrayal, and outrage over how he shivved Jeffries and House Democrats. It would have been very, very ugly.

Schumer had skillfully painted himself into a corner, and he didn't have the spine to face the backlash from shifting to a non-committal stance. Setting aside the flip flop fallout, it still would have been colorably politically defensible on the merits. He could have begun making the case he ultimately gave for his eleventh hour flip flop even if the real reason was a lack votes to block cloture, and explain he was working to strip the Bill back down to a clean CR. In all fairness, blocking cloture was going to be a heavy lift. Sens King (I-Me) and Fetterman (D-Pa) had announced they would not block cloture pretty much straight out the gate so Republicans only needed to pick off five more.

Faced with that reality, Schumer should have bitten the bullet and shifted his public stance immediately. But again, that's what courage and competence looks like. A leader takes a stand, or takes the hit to give cover for caucus members in difficult spots. Of course Schumer once again did what comes naturally to him. He took the easy road which in and of itself was bad enough enough, but it also amounted to criminal malfeasance politically.

Schumer is neither courageous, nor principled. He's proven spineless and incompetent. The Democratic party will not survive Schumer's spineless and incompent leadership in our current predicament. More importantly, the country will not survive its current predicament with an opposition party so led.

Schumer's got to go.

And the musical coda…

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/3/18/2310996/-Schumer-s-handling-of-the-CR-vote-was-not-courageous-It-was-spineless-and-incompetent?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=more_community&pm_medium=web

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