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Have we reached our Jar-Jar Moment? [1]
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Date: 2025-03-23
I have been watching the saga of Senator Schumer’s failure over the past week since he single-handedly surrendered to Trump on behalf of the Democratic Party (w/o consent, consultation or concessions) and the fallout has been worse than I previously feared it would be. Losing opposition momentum and the moral high ground on the CR fight by unilaterally caving was bad enough, but he has now decided to take the Democratic party (and the entire effective Opposition and thus the Republic) down with him. He is pulling a Biden… (e.g. a stubborn old man fails miserably at the one thing he’s supposed to get right and then lashes out against his own party and supporters instead of Trump — sounds familiar)
I fear that we may have reached our own Jar-Jar moment … With a capitulation to the forces of empire that seems self-sustaining and continuous — Schumer has now mired the Democratic party with confusion and inaction as the Sith Lord plows ahead undeterred and unopposed. Of course, our real-life Jar-Jar moment is worse given the fact that at least in Star Wars, The Phantom Menace , Jar-Jar didn’t know that Senator Palpatine was in fact a Sith Lord (an excuse that Senator Schumer cannot claim).
Why is Schumer’s failure growing in magnitude rather than fading? Let’s look:
The most important reason is that all of his rationalizations for failure ensure future failure . In other words, he’s doubled down on his false equivalence between a Gov’t Shutdown and Trump’s actions. This in turn means that he if he actually believes his own BS excuse, he will never use the one lever of power that we have remaining under any circumstance.
In other words, he’s doubled down on his false equivalence between a Gov’t Shutdown and Trump’s actions. He’s now claiming that somehow a Shutdown would have been 10 to 15x worse (before they were merely about the same, but of course in hindsight, with the constant retelling of the tale, he slew an ever-growing, yet mysterious menace with his “brave” decision) without of course explaining how or why the shutdown would be worse other by than vague claims that Trump’s actions would have then been more extreme — yet...
Trump’s actions continue to be that extreme anyway. On the same day of the CR vote, Trump shut down 7 agencies all at once (with no authority). Later in the week the SSA threatened to shutdown due to a judgement limiting DOGE access to the agency — and came close to doing so. But the pressure that stopped them from shutting down Social Security is exactly the type of political pressure Schumer does not want to engage in — e.g. a full-on Opposition or political hardball.
Any actions taken by Trump during a Shutdown would / should face the same pushback that they would if we weren’t in shutdown. Any powr grabs made by Trump need to be owned by him and all thus the President will have to deal with all of that unpopularity himself. The Democratic Party must never partner with Trump in making those things happen (yet that’s what happened when Schumer allowed the CR, which wasn’t really a CR, pass Cloture). All of the momentum here had been on our side — dozens of town halls and growing protests — pressure and court decisions that have caused reversals. Power grabs made during a shutdown would not in fact be any different than what is happening anyway — the real difference is in the perception as to whether anyone is effectively trying to oppose those actions and ensuring that the public knows exactly what each side’s position is.
All the while, Schumer insists he’s best qualified to stay in his leadership role and that the Democratic Party is in a good place (without being able to describe how or why that’s the case), even as the party has gotten its worst polling numbers — ever. Perhaps what he doesn’t understand is that polls are going down — not because of what the Party is doing, but because of what it (and what he in particular) isn’t doing: fighting back .
Was Schumer ready on that Friday with a plan to fight back? Obviously not — but instead of coming up with one now, his choice is to fight other Democrats instead of opposing Trump. Worse still, through his repeated excuses, he is now trying his best to permanently close the door on any future opposition to the administration’s power grabs by taking away the Party’s one remaining Legislative lever. And his capitulation — just one man’s refusal to fight — checkmates the entire opposition and the Republic.
On the day before the Cloture vote, two GOP Senators had expressed their potential opposition to the CR (which isn’t a CR) — this thing could have come to a tie vote, but Schumer cut them off just as he cut all of us off — without politicking, without thinking and without fighting.
It’s time to remove Jar-Jar Chux from any leadership role— he has chosen a side and it’s not ours.
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