Has Trump finally shut down Schumer?

The end of the Democrats’ government shutdown is at last in sight, and so too is the final act of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY).

On Sunday night, eight Senate Democrats finally broke with Schumer and voted in favor of a procedural step necessary to eventually pass a continuing resolution to end the more than monthlong standoff.

“Democrats have been fighting for months to address America’s healthcare crisis,” tweeted Schumer, who vowed that they would “keep fighting.” It was the kind of weak, empty gesture that has come to define Schumer’s tenure at the helm of his conference.

Because regardless of what spin Schumer might like to put on this turn of events, the truth is that it represents yet another unambiguous failure on his part. The deal that his colleagues went around him to negotiate failed to extract the key concession that Democrats had professed to be holding out for: an extension of what were originally meant to be short-term Obamacare subsidies. Instead, their defectors settled for an agreement to force the Trump administration to rehire the federal workers it let go during the shutdown, as well as a promise that Republicans will hold a vote on the subsidies after the government is reopened.

That’s the bad news for Schumer. The worse news is that much of his party is blaming him for his failure to hold the Democrats together.

“Senator Schumer is no longer effective and should be replaced. If you can’t lead the fight to stop healthcare premiums from skyrocketing for Americans, what will you fight for?” asked Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA).

“Chuck Schumer has not met this moment and Senate Democrats would be wise to move on from his leadership,” asserted Rep. Mike Levin (D-CA).

Rep. Seth Moulton (D-MA), who is challenging Senator Ed Markey (D-MA) for his seat in Congress’s upper chamber, declared that “Tonight is another example of why we need new leadership.”

“If @ChuckSchumer were an effective leader,” he argued, “he would have united his caucus to vote ‘No’ tonight and hold the line on healthcare.”

California Governor Gavin Newsom (D), quite possibly the next Democratic standard bearer, didn’t mention Schumer, but called the deal “pathetic” and characterized it as “surrender.”

This result should hardly be surprising, though. Even if the shutdown helped Democrats expand their margin of victory in last week’s off year election in November, Republicans were always going to hold the cards in this fight picked by Schumer. With control of Congress and the White House in hand, the GOP was never going to allow the Democrats to win by taking hostages.

Schumer picked it anyway, though, not only because his party demanded it, but because his party demanded it or else. The loss the septuagenarian suffered in this particular fight was not the first crack in his armor, but it could be among the final ones.

As a leader, Schumer leaves much to be desired. He’s among the worst orators in the Senate, and he’s compounded his grating voice and uneven delivery with shouting habit. As a pro-Israel senior, he is out of touch with the energetic, activist base of his party, which demands not only allegiance to the Palestinian cause, but is openly, if not self-awarely, antisemitic. And as a tactician, he was routinely routed by Mitch McConnell, and shows no signs of being able to best his successor, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD), despite the fact that his caucus is far less ideologically diverse – and difficult –– than theirs.

For those reasons, polls indicate that Schumer finds himself in troubled waters not just nationally, but with the constituents he’s spent his entire career representing. Should Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) decide to run for the Senate instead of the White House come 2028, she would be the favorite in a race against Schumer. A Data for Progress survey conducted in March showed her with a 19-point lead over the incumbent. Another poll conducted in May found that she had a 21-point advantage.

Of course, Schumer’s predicament is one not just of his own making, but his party’s. Democrats have been on a sprint leftward in the years since Donald Trump first won the presidency, leaving the Schumers of the world with no choice but to exhaust themselves trying to keep up. The demands – for both ideological conformity and no-holds-barred tactics – are either ill-advised, unrealistic, or both, yet men like Schumer who have made a career of their lack of principle are happy to comply if it means a few more years in the spotlight. Consider, as another example of his flexibility, his ill-fated call for the toppling of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last year.

And so when Schumer gives up or is forcibly removed from his post – an eventuality that is surely in motion even if it’s not imminent – his downfall will be attributable not only to his shortcomings as a political talent, but his habitual appeasement of the progressives who revile him.