Furious Liberals Call for Schumer to Step Aside, Senate Dems Mostly Quiet
After their shutdown surrender, liberal lawmakers are begging their base to unite behind them anyway – as Trumpland celebrates that their opposition is a bunch of 'p*ssies.'
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Senate Democrats were mostly quiet on Monday amid growing calls for Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to step aside, after eight of the caucus’s centrist senators voted to end the government shutdown without securing the party’s key demand.
Democrats had demanded for weeks that any shutdown deal with Republicans include an extension of subsidies that help 20 million people buy health insurance, before those people see their premiums spike. That posture was seemingly validated last week, as Democrats dominated in elections across the country and Donald Trump’s approval rating reached record lows.
But just days after their party’s sweeping victories, eight members of the Democratic Senate caucus voted to cave and throw Republicans a life preserver. The deal, which delighted Trumpland and the GOP elite, infuriated people across the Democratic Party apparatus, from elected officials down to voters and organizers.
Within 24 hours, several influential progressive activist groups were calling for Schumer to give up his role as the Democrats’ leader, and voters were flooding Senate offices’ phone lines to make the same demands. Two senior Democratic Senate aides say that members’ offices were “exploding,” in the words of one aide, on Monday with wrath-filled calls from constituents and voters.
While several House Democrats have called on Schumer to step aside, Senate Democrats have said little on the subject so far. Zeteo reached out to dozens of Democratic offices on Monday to gauge whether Democratic senators have confidence that Schumer is the right person to lead their caucus. None had anything to say.
Schumer’s office, similarly, did not immediately respond to questions from Zeteo.