Why Chuck Schumer Should Step Down

It's pretty simple.

(image credit: Anna Moneymaker // Getty Images)

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Four days ago, after Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer announced his shocking support for Trump’s continuing resolution, I asked all of you to join me in calling for Senate Democrats to replace Mr. Schumer as their leader and pledging to boycott donations to them until they do so.

While many of you readily signed the petition (more than 26,000 as of this writing), some of you felt hesitant, and I get that. I really do.

I don’t want to be in this position. I am not the person who calls for changes in party leadership.

I’m a proud Democrat. I believe in strong institutions and pragmatic politics. I proudly supported Sec. Clinton in 2016 and Pres. Biden in 2020 and 2024. I have raised money and campaigned and otherwise supported so-called “Establishment Dems” throughout my career. And I am very much at peace with that.

I am not a leftist, and I am absolutely certain most actual leftists would find it hilarious to see me described as one.

I have no desire to start a Tea Party of the left. I quite like being a Democrat. There is so much brilliance and talent and empathy in our party.

The problem isn’t the party; the problem is the leadership.

I am historically not one to rock the boat with Democratic leadership because I know their responsibilities are quite difficult. But this is not just about a vote on one bill; this is a pattern of being willfully rudderless for the past three months (and I’m being quite generous with that timeframe).

I don’t think any of us were surprised yesterday when NBC News published a poll showing that a mere 27 percent of Americans they surveyed have a positive view of the Democratic Party and just seven percent had a highly favorable view. It’s the lowest favorability for Democrats in that poll dating back to 1990.

I didn’t need a poll to know that, and let’s be honest: neither did y’all.

We can all feel the disenchantment with the Democratic Party. It’s palpable. It doesn’t make it right or fair, but we can’t deny what we’re all feeling and seeing.

But why? That’s the burning question. Why in the hell would Americans look at Trump and the Republican Party and then look at us and essentially say: “I think that guy is awful, but I’m not vibing with Democrats, either.”

Why?

I know some Democratic lawmakers are on this whole “reject identity politics” schtick because they think accepting the GOP’s framing will somehow make them more appealing to middle-of-the-road voters.

But aside from the curious strategy of hoping voters will be attracted to a carbon copy when the real thing is right there—the GOP is fervently and authentically against diversity—this mindset reflects a much deeper problem in the Democratic Party.

You ready? It’s tantalizingly simple: the American people want fighters.

Voters want elected officials who embody strength, confidence, and courage. They want elected officials who will say what they mean and do what they mean, and there is no bigger turn-off for them than a politician who needlessly equivocates and backs down at the slightest bit of resistance

That was all-too-true in normal times, and so, just for a second, reflect on what voters must feel as they watch Trump and Elon Musk decimate the federal government, engage in rampant corruption, blatantly fire highly-qualified individuals from senior positions in our military because they’re not white men — and all the while, Democratic leadership is just standing there and weakly saying:

“Please like me. Please, oh please, like me.”

If our current Democratic leadership were half as committed to proactive and compelling and confident and unified messaging as they are to sending all of us fundraising texts every day, we wouldn’t be in this situation.

That same NBC News poll showed that 65 percent (!!!) of those surveyed “want Democrats to stick to their positions even if this means not getting things done in Washington.”

Just 32 percent want Democrats to compromise with Trump on legislation.

Mind you, it’s not that Democrats—and the American people generally—don’t want to see rational compromise. The problem is that they see our country on fire and gleeful arsonists pouring on the lighter fluid and they’re thinking to themselves:

Why are Democrats just going along with this? Why aren’t they fighting back?

I’m a proud Democrat because we are the party that advocates for working class families and small businesses and LGBTQ rights and abortion access and common sense gun reform and health care expansion.

We are the party that believes unaccountable billionaires are the actual threat to our economic prosperity, not undocumented migrants who sweat and toil and DO pay taxes while working jobs many Americans believe are beneath them.

We are the party that actually believes in religious freedom, that actually believes no veterans should be left behind, that actually believes in a free press, and that actually knows real strength is found in productive and informed disagreement.

That’s what Democratic voters believe, but you wouldn’t really know it looking at the scattered and anemic messaging of our leadership over the past three months (again: being generous here).

I live in Washington, D.C.—the most news-savvy and politically informed metropolis in the country—and I guarantee y’all that if I walked downtown right now and asked ten random people to tell me what the message of the Democratic Party has been over the past three months, the responses would be bleak.

There is a vast disconnect between what current Democratic leadership believe in theory and what they actually practice, between the obvious importance of a unified message and whatever the hell the past three months have been, and these are glaring chasms that are impossible for voters to ignore.

We have lost our way not because of what we believe in but because of our party leadership’s reluctance to fight for what we believe in.

I’m gonna say something here that no shortage of lawmakers don’t wanna hear but they need to hear it.

When middle-of-the-road voters look at Democratic electeds shying away from fights on immigration, on LGBTQ rights, on abortion, on the rule of law, on our institutions, on blatant corporate corruption, and so much else, they think:

Well, hell, if Democrats aren’t gonna fight for what they say is most important to them, why would they fight for me?

Voters want strength, they want confidence, they want swagger, they want authenticity, they want genuine fighters on their behalf; they do not want a half-hearted, semi-apologetic imitation of someone else.

I know what Mr. Schumer thinks will happen: the economy will take a nosedive, foreign policy will take a nosedive, the inevitable collapse brought up on by Trump will swing that pendulum hard the other way, and voters will rush back into the open arms of Democrats.

The first three things are true, but it’s that last part that I find entirely unconvincing. I don’t think voters are going to flock back to the Democratic Party without enough of a standalone lure: a grand vision and the competence to carry it out.

What is the grand vision of the Democratic Party these days? What is our longterm plan for the country? What is our superior alternative?

I guarantee you however our leadership are answering these questions and in whatever format they’re answering, it ain’t reaching voters.

Yeah, mainstream political media are generally and substantially complicit for holding Democrats and the GOP to two different standards. No doubt. I hear y’all on that and completely agree.

But where was the planning by Democratic leadership in the eleven weeks between Election Day and Inauguration Day in preparing for what everyone and their mother and their cousin knew was coming?

Project 2025 (the “2025 Presidential Transition Project”) was published by The Heritage Foundation more than 18 months before Election Day. Even aside from the denials and sly winks and coy comments, Trump’s GOP was pretty damn clear on what they wanted to do, and they’re now doing it.

But for some damn reason, Democratic leadership didn’t get together the week after the Election and create a competent and aggressive infrastructure to fight back.

As the country moved past Inauguration Day, we had to basically beg for Democratic leadership—everything short of pulling teeth—for them just to get in front of the cameras in targeted agencies with counter-messaging.

Being in the minority party doesn’t prohibit the use of microphones and media strategy and offering an alternative plan for the American people. It doesn’t obligate compliance or obeisance or the painful performance of awkwardly seeking common ground with fascists.

If the roles were reversed, with the same numbers switched, we all understand Trump and the GOP would never be anything other than strident and furious opposition willing to do whatever it takes to undermine the Democratic Party.

Some folks think this is just about Mr. Schumer caving on the continuing resolution with arguments that are already falling apart — just yesterday, Trump defied two separate court orders in illegally deporting U.S. residents without due process.

I say again: this is not just about a vote on one bill; this is a pattern of being basically rudderless for the past three months.

This is about the widespread exasperation with our entire “strategy” being a cold and anxious wait for Trump to “screw up” as Mr. Schumer put it.

This is about the inexplicable gamble of waiting for September to roll around and pushing in all our chips on a stack of assumptions that have little-to-no historical grounding with the GOP and its base — not to mention, again, the lack of unified and coherent messaging among Democratic leadership.

Nor is it about age or “generational transition” — at least from my perspective. I see many older Democrats fighting the good fight and refusing to obey in advance.

It’s about heart. It’s about energy. It’s about vision. Democratic leadership are currently in short supply of all three.

I would love to wake up tomorrow morning and see Mr. Schumer with fire in his belly and an axe to grind against the most existential threat to our democracy in modern history.

But I don’t think I will. I’d welcome it, but I don’t see that happening.

All I see are him cancelling his book tour for fear of being confronted by angry Democratic voters and insisting, rather bizarrely, in an interview with the brilliant Lulu Garcia-Navarro that working out in the gym alongside Republican colleagues will somehow save democracy, a strategy which, curiously, has not seen much success in this era.

There has to be an aggressive disincentive for Senate Democrats—many of whom I deeply respect and even adore—to understand that this is a much bigger problem than a continuing resolution. Simply calling for them to replace Mr. Schumer, without consequence, will not work.

Only by making it clear that we aren’t giving a dime until they right the ship will our frustration and anxiety and growing desperation finally land home.

That’s why I want folks to join this petition. Until Senate Democrats see the growing discontent fleshed out in actual numbers—and the intent behind them—the needle will not move.

Please do sign. Then call your favorite Democratic Senator and let them know why you signed. Then call your friends and family and tell them why they should sign.

This path is not working, and we all know it. Time to try something different.

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