Schumer’s leadership is on a doomed trajectory, and it’s not clear how he intends to pull out of it.
Consider the implications in Senator Chuck Schumer’s claim that he has been forced to postpone a promotional tour around his new book due to “security concerns.” Who is it that poses such a threat to the senator’s well-being when he takes his message to what Politico notes are “heavily Democratic cities, including Baltimore and Washington?” If Schumer’s claim wasn’t merely a smokescreen that allows him to evade the wrath of the enraged progressive activist class, the Senate minority leader’s indictment of his co-partisans would be seismic.
But of course, what Schumer is looking to avoid isn’t a menacing left-wing mob but the embarrassing spectacle of being shouted down by his ostensible allies. Also per Politico, the New York Democrat is doing his best to repair his reputation with the party’s activist network, and “it isn’t going great.” He’s reached out to groups that called for his resignation from leadership, only to be rebuffed. Centrist Democratic groups and the far-left fringe alike appear united in their contempt for his failure to deliver a victory for his party in last week’s fight over a continuing resolution to fund the government. “Some House Democrats, even in battleground districts, are floating supporting a primary challenge to Schumer,” the dispatch read.
Despite the aborted book tour, Schumer is not in hiding. “We have a lot of good people,” he told the hosts of CBS Mornings on Tuesday. But, he added, “I’m the best leader for the Senate.” Why? Because “I am the best at winning Senate seats.”
Schumer cited as evidence for this proposition how he’d “done it in 2005,” by which he must mean his tenure as Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee chair from 2005 to 2009. Democrats gained 14 Senate seats in that period, although it would have been hard for his party to blow the opportunity provided by favorable political environments in 2006 and 2008. “Just in 2020, no one thought we’d take back the Senate,” Schumer added. “Under my leadership, we took it.” The fact that Democrats presently occupy Georgia’s two senate seats is more likely due to Donald Trump’s electoral agitation ahead of Georgia’s early 2021 runoff elections than Schumer’s tactical acumen.
The senator’s proposition is a debatable one, but it’s also beside the point his critics are making. They’re not arguing that Democrats are bad at winning elections (not in this case, at least). They’re arguing that Democrats cannot effectively wield power when they do. Schumer cannot address the substance of their concerns because to do so would compel them to abandon the delusion that drives small-dollar donations, generates enthusiasm in the streets, and yields hours of camera time to him and his party. That is, the notion that the only thing standing between Democrats and political victory isn’t the GOP’s total control over the levers of government but the opposition party’s willingness to “fight.”
Schumer has lent plenty of fuel to that delusion. It has done him and his party as much good as that same fallacy did the GOP. And now the irrationality he helped cultivate is turning on him.
Like Joe Biden, The Nation’s Jeet Heer pronounced, Schumer is another of the Democratic Party’s “true believers in the cult of bipartisan cooperation.” He added that “the usual bonhomie of old colleagues” no longer reflects “the political realities of modern America.” What is needed is for Schumer to “resign right now.” In his place, Democrats who are committed to “following a path blazed by Bernie Sanders” would be preferable.
It’s not hard to find activist organizations and far-left commentators echoing Heer’s grim verdict on Schumer’s tenure in leadership. What might prove more unnerving is the extent to which moderate Democratic organizers and even some members of the senator’s own caucus share their assessment. Without question, Schumer’s political position has deteriorated to its weakest point since he took the helm of the Senate Democratic Caucus in January 2021.
He can surely see the likes of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other hungry young Democrats eyeing the seat he’s occupied in the upper chamber of Congress since 1998. If he cannot secure for his party an unambiguous win — and it’s been a long time since Democrats enjoyed an unambiguous win — Schumer may find himself a lame duck well before his term concludes in 2028. But it’s hard to imagine what that would look like.
The 47-seat Democratic minority is not well positioned to block Republican legislation or jam the GOP conference up in a political bind before 2026. And because the midterm Senate landscape looks good for Republicans despite the Democratic Party’s viable prospects in the House, Schumer will probably be deprived of an opportunity to cast himself as the Democrats’ most capable recruiter and electoral tactician.
By then, it will be too late. The figure or figures within his caucus who will challenge Schumer will already have lined up allies and donors in advance of their attempted putsch, which would present the minority leader with a conundrum: Should he risk a humiliating primary loss or cut bait on his political career on his own terms?
Nothing is written in stone. There will be dozens of unforeseen events and reversals of political fortune between today and that fateful day. But Schumer’s leadership is on a doomed trajectory, and it’s not clear how he intends to pull out of it. It’s possible that he just can’t.