Cowardice, Complicity, or Collaboration: Democrats’ Dance With The Devil Reaching Predictable End
Democrat Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (NY)
What can we learn from the actions of Democratic Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (NY) in protecting Republicans from themselves? How can we justify this when he fails so spectacularly to do so?
For too long the US progressive/social-liberal has believed that institutions and norms will protect them from the worst inclinations of capital accumulation and tech-feudalist oligarchs, have slept in a bubble of assured safety based on a premise which exists on paper alone. Today, some of those same people are watching as the embers of make-believe settle around them.
For me the primary lesson to take is that Democratic leadership is far more feckless and out-of-touch than most in the US are willing (initially at least) to face in this moment. Across social media, in discussions with family and friends, it is clear that many see the party as a sort of lost entity – a chicken who lost its head somewhere around the Democratic National Convention and has been kept alive on the false hope of their constituencies, the begging of hundreds of millions hand-droppered as sustenance into what should have long ago been left as a corpse.
Indeed, the puppeteering of the party which gladly took credit for Civil Rights reform for decades has come to a place where it is difficult to see the actions of Democratic leadership as something so simple as cowardice. No, there is more here, a pattern of behavior which reeks of intentionality.. of complicity.
It is no secret that many among the Left have long described the Democratic Party (and other similarly Liberal organizations) as “controlled opposition;” a bought-out group who gains immensely by simply stepping aside as necessary and thrives when put in a position where they can claim powerlessness in the face of unstoppable Conservative policies. Looking to Schumer’s spinelessness, his blatant overriding of the voices shouting from far below and demanding he bring the fight to the GOP, this begins to piece together a little more smoothly.
Who, afterall, benefits from the Democrats backing down at the final hurdle? Not the voters who elected them. Not the Americans he claims to know best for. No, it is the Republican Party alone who benefits as they are spared the ire of responsibility for shutting the government down; Trump and Musk who can continue as planned without fear of having to meaningfully engage with the issues crushing the average US resident.
Just like New Mexico, New York, and California, your state has a political machine which has been empowered for far too long and which only heeds the wishes of their constituents whenever they align with the profit-seeking of those in power. In your state, you have Democrats who are actively undermining the voter simply because they know they are not beholden to you – they profit just as much as the opposition in maintaining the status quo.
And we shouldn’t be surprised by this. Not really. If you have participated in the nitty-gritty of your local Democratic Party, I am confident you can remember a time when you and your peers organized to make change within your own organization only to be completely ignored by those in positions of power. For me, the most prescient example came following the pre-Primary vote by New Mexico constituents to adopt demands for an immediate ceasefire in Palestine and the full stoppage of all arms sales and military aid to Israel as the official stance of New Mexico Democratic Party. During this convention, 74% of state delegates voted for this policy. Following it, not a single New Mexico Democrat enacted or honored these demands at the state- or federal-level.
Minority Leader Schumer desires nothing more than to avoid responsibility for his own intransigence, to relieve himself of ownership for the faux paralysis which has afflicted those beneath him. As the country cries louder and louder for relief, he and his enablers seek to maintain their position of influence and security by claiming to be working in the best interest of Americans in avoiding a shutdown.
Anyone paying attention knows this to be a lie. The government has been effectively defunded and shutdown since the first stroke of the pen on Inauguration Day.
President Donald Trump congratulates Chuck Schumer for his adherence to right-wing policies and his continued steersmanship of the Democratic Party.
They have played their part to the point of ruination, have sacrificed the very institutions which they guaranteed in furtherance of their own goals and at the expense of every American. While Democrats bemoan their minority position, their complete and resounding loss of legitimacy – their consistent right-ward movements – over the last years could have led nowhere else than our current predicament.
Do what you know to be right: condemn your lying representatives, begin to recall them, mobilize to primary every single one. If they won’t represent us, we will find who will.
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