Throw a Fucking Punch, You Cowards

I don’t think anyone who reads me needs to be told that Chuck Schumer and Senate Democrats folded in a high-stakes government funding fight, writing a blank check for Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and DOGE to abrogate the Constitution and assume unchecked power. Schumer’s proffered justifications included a likely misunderstanding of regulations governing federal layoffs, the claimed support of his caucus, and the political cost of a shutdown, with the last one clearly being his real concern (and the motivator behind the support of his caucus.) Fretting about the political cost to Democrats of a shutdown which can and should be blamed on Republicans, nearly two years before the next election, is standard Democrat shit—they’re poll-tested worrywarts, this is nothing new. But said fretting serving as the justification for forfeiting congressional Democrats’ last real point of leverage over the Trump/Musk administration is something new, and it’s touched off a firestorm of rage across the Democratic Party. Never in my lifetime have Democrats backed down from a fight so high-stakes in return for so little, and backing down from fights is the Democratic mantra.

I use social media as something of a diary, and I wasn’t aiming for any sort of reaction or broader point when I vented my frustration as follows on Bluesky last night:

But that thought has been rattling around in my head anyway. I used to be very focused on the left-vs-center divide in the Democratic Party, which is the entire reason anyone gives a shit what I think in the first place; I still think that the left-right axis is an important one, but it pales in comparison to what I’ve seen called the fight-or-flight axis. As a Democratic Tea Party looks more likely by the hour, the centerpiece of such a movement seems certain to be not ideology but fight.

National Democrats think defensively. They don’t throw punches, as a rule, except in the few months before an election. It’s a way of thinking that might make sense in a different context, one where Democrats actually had concrete power or political capital they could be risking—but Democrats are almost entirely powerless at the moment, at least in Congress. They are a pure opposition party, with abuse of the Senate filibuster the literal only tool Democrats can wield in the face of a unified congressional GOP. The filibuster is an inelegant, undemocratic tool; it shouldn’t even exist, but while it does, Democrats would be fools not to use it to inflict damage on Republicans and the Trump administration, even in cases where Democrats’ demands (guardrails around DOGE) are exceedingly unlikely to ever be met. Republicans have no incentive to make any concessions to Democrats as it is; bloodying them up a bit by playing hardball with the filibuster and forcing a government shutdown might at least produce the kind of sagging poll numbers which force GOP leaders to reconsider their own hardball tactics. There’s no guarantee! But there was a chance of concessions in the shutdown scenario, because it was plausible that the shutdown might make Republicans nervous. Senate Democrats had only two options in front of them once the Republican CR passed the House: a risky and painful shutdown fight over DOGE’s authority, and six months of unconditional surrender.

Cowed by the mere presence of risk, they chose surrender.

It’s a maddening and manifestly clear strategic error to anyone who doesn’t have a terminal case of Senate Brain; this was Democrats’ only point of policy leverage, and the House clearly understood that on both sides of the aisle—the fractious House GOP united to ram a bill through, and House Democrats united to attempt to force a shutdown, with each party only losing one particularly idiosyncratic member on the vote (Thomas Massie of Kentucky for Republicans, Jared Golden of Maine for Democrats.) Electorally vulnerable conservative Democrats like Marie Gluesenkamp Perez and Henry Cuellar understood the stakes clearly and acted on it; electorally vulnerable moderate Republicans like Don Bacon and Brian Fitzpatrick likewise understood that this was a golden opportunity to completely cut Democrats out of all negotiations and acted accordingly. It’s not just a strategic failure on the part of Senate Democrats, though; it is a profound political failure. It is utterly incoherent to—as Democrats have now done—call Donald Trump an authoritarian and then fund his government; if you call someone a fascist and then proceed to work with them, the average voter paying attention will quite reasonably conclude you were fucking lying. The Democratic Party is ludicrously unpopular with the American public and its own voters, who think the party is weak and full of shit. Friday proved them right.

Democrats are right to call Trump a fascist and an authoritarian; the man is disappearing legal permanent residents, seriously talking about invading a longtime ally, and enacting bills of attainder as executive orders. The punches Democrats threw in the few months before the 2024 election were justified—and their unwillingness to back up those rhetorical punches with more fighting in the form of legislative hardball shows that they didn’t believe in the stuff they were saying about Republicans, even though that shit was all true. It’s a party-wide problem and why I fully believe Schumer is telling the truth when he claims to have the private support of his caucus, most of whom opposed cloture on the floor; Schumer’s yes votes just coincidentally happened to omit any senators who are expected to run again in 2026, unless you count 80-year-old Dick Durbin. You mean to tell me moderates like Mark Warner and John Hickenlooper (the latter of whom said Schumer’s decision “deserved my respect”), or trusted members of leadership like Cory Booker and Amy Klobuchar, weren’t in on this? Come on.

Schumer must go as Senate Democratic Leader, but so must his supporters in the caucus—and anyone who isn’t willing to discuss deposing Schumer as leader should be seen as suspect soon enough. So must every elected Democrat who thinks like them. As corny as the line was, we truly are, as Joe Biden said, in a battle for the soul of the nation. It’s time for the Democratic Party to take off its coat, throw on some brass knuckles, and square the fuck up. This, more than ideology, will be the litmus test of the waves of primaries against complacent and collaborationist Democrats that will hit in 2025, 2026, and beyond: are you willing to throw a punch?