Schumer Must Go. ASAP

It's time for Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to take him on

In April 1985, I was in Poland with a group of journalists interviewing a Communist hack who was in charge of the phony labor unions the party had set up to allegedly represent the interests of the workers. Solidarity, the free labor union, had been suppressed; a sympathetic and popular priest had been brutally murdered, and it was a tense time.

The party hack told us that in fact the Communist labor unions really were militant, that he was “covered with bites” from fighting with them, and there was no need for Lech Walesa and his troublemakers. We all knew he was lying; he knew we knew he was lying, and probably didn’t care. I don’t remember his name, and he’s probably been dead for decades, but I thought of him Sunday night, because someone else suddenly reminded me very much of him: Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.

Chuck Schumer, establishment hack

Unless you’ve spent the last week in a barium mine, you probably know that Schumer’s Democrats caved in just as they were winning, and capitulated to Donald Trump’s demands so the government could be funded again.

Polls and the election results last week showed the American people blamed the Republicans in general and the president in particular for the shutdown, but it was Schumer who threw in the towel. Seven Democrats and one independent who caucuses with the Democrats voted to support a Republican bill to reopen the government. That gave Republicans exactly enough votes to break the filibuster and move full speed ahead to have things their way.

Democrats, at least those without any shame, were calling this a “deal.” So what did they get in the deal? A promise by the Senate Republicans to hold a vote on extending the Affordable Care Act subsidies to help poor people buy health insurance.

Which means nothing, since Republicans control the Senate and will gleefully vote them down. By the way, if you look carefully at the vote on reopening the government, you may be confused. Schumer himself looked like he was holding firm and actually voted against reopening the government.

Don’t be fooled. This was all cleverly orchestrated, Of the seven Democrats who broke ranks, two are retiring at the end of their terms and don’t need to fear the voters. Pennsylvania’s John Fetterman, who has had a stroke and has suffered from crippling depression, is notably and increasingly erratic. The others, including independent U.S. Sen. Angus King of Maine, don’t have to run again until 2028 or 2030, by which time they figure the voters will have forgotten all about this.

Sadly, they are probably right.

But here’s something that they don’t get. America desperately needs a concerned and vigorous opposition party, especially with the Republicans becoming fully fascist or at the very least, craven courtiers of a nasty and mentally troubled autocrat.

Plus, as a symbol, the nearly 75-year-old Schumer needs to go, and it is time for one of the smartest and brightest new faces in Washington to take him on in next year’s Democratic primary. I mean, of course, Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, who has shown intelligence, wit, strength and tremendous capacity for growth since she arrived in Congress in 2019. She would, indeed, kick ass.

And no, while she has certainly been critical of that baby Trump, Benjamin Netanyahu, she wouldn’t sell out Israel.

That’s not the main thing we should be worrying about anyway. The present Democratic leader has been only too eager to sell out America.

I suggest he has to go.