The death of Chuck Schumer's career — and the future of the Democratic Party

On March 14, 2025, New York Senator Chuck Schumer’s political career died a terrible and unnecessary death.

By refusing to stand up for Americans and against this country’s first wannabe king, the Democratic leader in the Senate did everything he could to ensure his party stays in the minority for the foreseeable future.

This is unacceptable.

It should have been a no-brainer for Senate Democrats to follow the lead of their brethren in the House by standing together against a reckless Republican bill to fund a government that Donald Trump and his grotesque henchman, Elon Musk, have done nothing but use as their personal feeding trough.

In supporting the continuing resolution (CR), Schumer was joined by nine other gutless Democrats who feigned terrible angst before doing the completely wrong thing.

Democratic Senators Dick Durbin (Ill.) (minority whip), Catherine Cortez Masto (Nev.), John Fetterman (D-Pa.), Kirsten Gillibrand (N.Y.), Maggie Hassan (N.H.), Gary Peters (Mich.), Jeanne Shaheen (N.H.) and Brian Schatz (Hawaii) (Nev.) all voted yes along with Schumer. Maine's Angus King, an Independent who caucuses with Democrats also was a ‘yes’.

To be clear: This dirty bill wipes away many funding directives, and will now give the fascist Trump the power to reallocate money as he sees fit without any fear of judicial or legislative pushback.

It is abhorrent. It is submissive. And it is disgusting.

Let me tell you something: I have grown sick and tired of Democrats like Schumer whining they have no power, when they actually had all the power in the world to reject this evil slop.

Polls have repeatedly showed that a majority of Americans do not like what they are seeing from the ghastly Musk/Trump/Putin trifecta which is currently murdering our veterans, planting our farmers, spitting on our seniors, torching the First Amendment, assaulting our public servants, and stepping on anybody with a beating heart.

Even the courts have effectively stood up to Putin’s puppet, and have been ordering among other things, that government employees be offered their jobs back.

In siding with federal employee unions, federal district judge, William Alsup, laid out this howitzer aimed right between the eyes of Trump Justice Department attorneys Thursday, who he believes have been “lying” to him. This was a quote from that hearing I found in Politico:

“You will not bring the people in here to be cross-examined. You’re afraid to do so because you know cross examination would reveal the truth. I tend to doubt that you’re telling me the truth. … I’m tired of seeing you stonewall on trying to get at the truth. ... It is sad, a sad day when our government would fire some good employee and say it was based on performance when they know good and well that’s a lie,” Alsup said.

But Schumer must have been napping and/or looking the other way. Rather than stand for something, he took the easy way out and rolled over, so that his party could be battered another day. Rather than drawing a line in the sand, and saying you will not continue to beat on Americans on my watch, he took an ugly swan dive off some short pier.

Truth is, I have been tired of Schumer for a long time now. He has always been a completely ineffective communicator at a time expert communication has never been more important. And if he really is as good at the behind-the-scenes wrangling as people say he is, then that is exactly where he belongs: behind the scenes.

When one of the first things Democrats did after November’s disastrous election was put Schumer and Durbin back in power, I knew we were in big trouble. In my piece NO, I typed this back in early-December:

“Consider what happened very, very quietly during a closed-door meeting Tuesday morning in some hallowed office buried deep inside our Capitol Building that was attacked only four years before.
That’s where the now minority Democrats in the United States Senate got together and basically let us know nothing had changed from November 4th to November 5th in their foggy view. Nope, it was going to be business as usual for us Democrats, and if you, dear reader, don’t like it, well, that’s just tough s---.
Just 28 days after the most consequential election in American history, the 47 members of the Democratic Senate voted to stay the course with the leadership team that will be representing us through some of the most terrifying times in our nation’s history.
At a time we’ve never needed inspirational leaders who can connect with the voters more, they read the board, and decided to stay with the same pieces in power.
Yep, good ol’ 74-year-old Chuck Schumer will be back leading the team, assisted by the 79-year-old Dick Durbin. It was a great day for the “get the hell off my lawn” gang, and a bad one for America.
Instead of at least taking the pulse of the electorate following our shocking loss a mere month ago, they went full speed ahead to assemble a leadership team they thought was best to serve us.”

Schumer’s surrender Friday was predictable to anybody paying attention, which sadly does not include enough Democratic senators. Apparently, they are of the mind that polite Democratic tactics will be enough to ward off this brutal, fascist tsunami.

Democrats look confused, listless, and divided at a time they’ve never needed to be bold, fearless and on their game more.

Billionaires have been the only winners in this Republican regime so far, which makes Schumer’s inability to read the room positively insane at best, and wildly incompetent at worst. If Schumer doesn't understand that this spoiled, yacht club bully, Trump, cannot handle being told no by now, he’d be wise to channel the strength of the leader he drafted off of in the first Trump regime.

In an unprecedented move Friday afternoon, former Speaker Nancy Pelosi loudly put her venerable voice in the room and issued the following statement urging Democrats in the Senate to stand up, while telling the fascist, America-attacking Trump to sit down.

Listen to women indeed. And right now, please.

And speaking of false choices … This idea that we have to go along or get along with Chuck Schumer would one of those.

He needs to step aside pronto. His tone-deaf vote should be the end of his role in any leadership capacity. He can no longer be trusted with the Democratic purse strings.

Schumer has had a mostly honorable run as leader of the Democrats in the Senate, and during his decades in public service, but he simply must set aside. He is wildly out of touch, and pathetically overmatched.

In the coming days some organized grassroots groups will be putting increasing pressure on the Democratic Party to show some damn spine, and for Schumer to go. One of these groups that officially launched this afternoon will have my backing.

The Reformers are a group of rank-and-file Democrats from across the country who are demanding change.

“The party needs to start listening to the people,” said California Democratic Strategist Christopher Webb. “We need a party that lifts up people and listens to us. The party is still in that endless cycle where they think hatred of Trump will carry the day. It won’t. Democrats simply aren’t giving us anything to vote for right now.”

Webb is partnering with Senior Democratic Strategist David Yankovich, who was key in getting Senator Doug Jones elected in Alabama in 2018, to head this effort. This effort will be rolling out in earnest over the next couple of weeks. Stay tuned.

I wish them Godspeed.

Finally …

If you STILL aren’t convinced Schumer needs to go, well have a look at what the devil himself said about his capitulation Friday:

When you are getting a pat on the back from an America-attacking felon, who is trying his damndest to push our country off a cliff, you have become nothing but a useful idiot, Chuck.

Resign.

D. Earl Stephens is the author of “Toxic Tales: A Caustic Collection of Donald J. Trump’s Very Important Letters” and finished up a 30-year career in journalism as the Managing Editor of Stars and Stripes. You can find all his work here, and follow him on Bluesky here.