(C) Daily Kos
This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered.
. . . . . . . . . .



Chuck Schumer's Leadership Is a Total Failure: He Must Step Down. Now. [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']

Date: 2025-03-21

There are lots of stories with Chuck Schumer's fans and staffers telling us how much of a genius he is for voting to enable Donald Trump to do things like eliminate the Department of Education by supporting a bill that was literally blank check for Elon Musk. Is it a coincidence that less than a week after Schumer decided to give Trump and Musk a complete and total victory, that Universities instituting draconian hiring freezes because Trump and Musk are dismantling the education Department despite Congress fully funding it. There's a reason for this: Congress normally passes a line item budget that funds every single program in the federal government; what Congress did this time is pass a top line budget that gave X amount to Departments as a cap; it has the effect of letting the executive impound Congressional appropriations, which is exactly what Trump did with the Education Department.

Teachers are amongst the most loyal supporters of the Democratic Party. They face longer hours, less pay and bigger class sizes if the Department of Education doesn't fund their school districts as they did in the past. I guess in the four demensional chess that Schumer is playing in his mind, teachers are mere pawns, and it's OK to have them sacrifice their livelihoods so he can continue to hang onto his political power and use it for, well we don't know what.

I watched the entirety of Senator Schumer's absolutely pathetic interview with Chris Hayes. You should watch the train wreck too. In between punching the air over and over and over again to show us how much he's "fighting," Schumer told us that if he had voted against the bill that gave Trump and Musk a blank check that they would've turned off the social security checks and Democrats would've been blamed. It seems that Senator Gillibrand yelling that this will not be a normal shut down changed Schumer's mind.

What neither Schumer or Gillibrand seem to grasp is that it's the job of the opposition party to make the party in power own their choices. If they had voted to shut down the government, and Trump had followed through and laid off federal workers, sold national parks and turned off Social Security and Medicare payments, it is the job of the Leader of the Party to effectively communicate that other Presidents who have overseen shutdowns, Democrats and Republicans alike--including Trump himself--have never taken such harmful actions and that Trump was actively harming Americans by making extreme choices.

What we have now thanks to the veneer of bipartisanship provided by Chuck Schumer, Brian Schatz, Catherine Cortez Masto, Kirsten Gillibrand, John Fetterman, Dick Durbin, Gary Peters, Maggie Hassan, Jeanne Shaheen and Angus King, is Trump taking the extreme actions that ruin the lives of our fellow Americans--teachers--anyway, but with a thin stamp of approval from the Democratic Party.

The result is endless process stories entitled things like Chuck Schumer's March Survival Plan or Sen. Bennett on Dem Leaders: It's Important to Know When It's Time to Go. Somehow, the story is not Trump gutting the Education Department, screwing teachers and ruining the educations of the future of America, but whether (and how long) Chuck Schumer will remain leader.

Chuck Schumer's interview with Chris Hayes, who was pitching softball question after softball question that Schumer couldn't effectively handle, was as bad or worse than anything Joe Biden said in that god forsaken debate in June. Trump said a lot of awful things in that debate too, and his performance wasn't much better. But it couldn't be focused on because Joe Biden and whether he'd stay or go became the story for weeks.

Senator Schumer set the precedent then that when you become a distraction and harm the party, that it's time to step down. Both he and Senator Gillibrand should step back from their leadership roles. Doing so would allow the party to actually focus on how people from cancer patients to teachers are being screwed and having their lives ruined every day by Elon Musk doing Donald Trump's bidding. Schumer did a lot of good over the years, but all of that will be erased and then some if the Democratic Party isn't led by someone who can craft an effective message that makes Trump own Musk's decisions. After watching Chuck Schumer on Chris Hayes, I've concluded that he's not capable of crafting or delivering that effective message. It's why I hope he will step back from leadership--for the good of the party and the good of the country.

[END]
---
[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/3/21/2311644/-Chuck-Schumer-s-Leadership-Is-a-Total-Failure-He-Must-Step-Down-Now?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=trending&pm_medium=web

Published and (C) by Daily Kos
Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified.

via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/

You are viewing proxied material from magical.fish. The copyright of proxied material belongs to its original authors. Any comments or complaints in relation to proxied material should be directed to the original authors of the content concerned. Please see the disclaimer for more details.