After This Shutdown Surrender, Chuck Schumer Needs to Go

Last Tuesday, voters across the United States sent a resounding message: They were fed up with Donald Trump, the Republican Party’s attacks on what’s left of the American welfare state (most clearly visible in the current government shutdown as well as threats to gut Medicaid), and wanted their elected representatives to do something about the affordability crisis that’s making their lives more difficult. This anger underscored not only Democratic landslides in Virginia and New Jersey, but also democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani’s historic victory in New York’s mayoral election.

So now, less than a week after voters loudly rejected Trump, what is the reaction from Senate Democrats, including Minority Leader Chuck Schumer? By negotiating a shutdown deal with Republicans that will give Trump almost everything he wants, shore up the Republican Party’s austerity budget, and worsen the affordability crisis. Democrats might wonder how it was that they won the election but ended up giving up the store—or rather, they might wonder that if they weren’t so accustomed to snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

To be as fair as possible to Democratic leaders, they have always had a weak hand in shutting down. Republicans control the House of Representatives and need only eight Democrats in the Senate to bypass a filibuster and strike a deal. Moreover, Trump is particularly depraved in his willingness to inflict suffering on the poor (including cutting SNAP benefits, a policy that directly increases hunger) and throwing the nation’s infrastructure into chaos (air service beginning to be reduced as air traffic controllers have been laid off).

But even allowing for the fact that they were fighting an uphill battle, the extent to which Democrats capitulated is remarkable. On Sunday, ABC News’ Jonathan Karl reported that

there will be more than enough Democrats to vote to reopen the government tonight. They will be promised a vote on health care, but nothing more. Most Democratic leaders will likely vote against it.

The bill will extend funding through January 31 for most of the government and includes three-year appropriations bills: branch, military construction/veterans affairs, and agriculture (including SNAP).

So, to summarize, just as the elections left the Republicans on the ropes, the Democrats caved, in exchange for a few months of government funding and a vote on health care that they are doomed to lose, if the Republicans had one. It’s hard to see this as a deal. There is nothing in the deal that could not have been completed before the shutdown. By signing, a small cohort of Democratic senators validates the cynical view that the shutdown was just a stunt to hurt Republicans in off-cycle elections.

Many Democratic lawmakers acknowledged that the deal falls far short of the party’s promise to defend health care spending. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said, “I don’t think the House Democratic Caucus is prepared to support a promise, a wing and a prayer from people who have devastated health care for the American people for years. » Rep. Greg Casar, chairman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said the deal was “a betrayal of millions of Americans who count on Democrats to fight for them. Republicans want cuts to health care. Accepting nothing more than a small promise from Republicans is not a compromise, it’s a capitulation.” Sen. Elizabeth Warren called the deal a “mistake.”

In an interview with me on Sunday, Lindsay Owens, executive director of Groundwork Collaborative, a progressive strategy group, talked about how the deal is politically damaging to the Democratic Party’s image. She noted that exit polls show that “Democrats benefited greatly from continuing their historic health care advantage and fighting to lower health care costs. That really helped drive home the message that Democrats were running, but with consistent actions.” Owens added that affordability has been a dominant issue in recent election cycles, both helping Trump win in 2024 and costing Republicans this year after Trump’s failure to address the cost of living crisis. She says that if Democrats “capitulate now, I just don’t think they have credibility when it comes to the cost of living.”

Chuck Schumer was the central architect of this fiasco. Even though he negotiated the deal, he himself said Sunday that he would not vote for it. He clearly prefers to let other Democrats take over.

Aaron Astor, a historian at Maryville College, made the intriguing argument that the deal could harm both the Republican Party and Chuck Schumer:

Closures rarely win political concessions. But they can provide political fuel for primaries or the upcoming midterm general elections. For the Democrats, this one will destroy Schumer. But it will raise the importance of health care affordability for next November if no ACA subsidies are passed. After last Tuesday, Democrats know that affordability is THE big issue that will help them in 2026, just as it crushed the Democrats in 2024. The GOP has never offered a real alternative to the ACA, so without subsidies they will take on large premium increases whether they like it or not. But Schumer did a terrible job conveying all of this and is now absolutely hated by the Democratic base.

The progressive organization Indivisible suggested in a statement: “We hope to celebrate the Democratic Party for fighting back. But if they surrender, the next step will be primaries and new leadership. We will get the party we demand, and we intend to demand a party that fights.” And ambitious Democrats, like California’s Ro Khanna and Massachusetts’ Senate candidate Seth Moulton, began calling for Schumer’s head. This problem is clearly not going to go away.

The shutdown deal is a humiliating defeat for Democrats, but the party could still salvage this situation. Chuck Schumer must be removed as party leader and also defeated in his 2028 Senate primaries. The other Democrats who voted for the deal must also be elected in the primaries (even if, alas, at least two of those senators – Dick Durbin and Jeanne Shaheen – retire before they can be ousted). Only then can the party look voters in the eye and say it is willing to fight Republicans to save health care.