#chuck schumer

[unitedfrontvarietyhour]

"Democracy for an insignificant minority, democracy for the rich — that is the democracy of capitalist society." - V.I. Lenin

(Pt.1)

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Jonathan V. Last at The Bulwark:

We now see that most institutions are weak in the face of authoritarianism. JVL’s Law is: Any institution not explicitly anti-Trump will eventually become useful to Trump. I originally thought this would apply only to media orgs. Turns out that it applies to everyone and everything. From Ross Douthat to John Fetterman, from Paul Weiss to Facebook. All of our institutions are the Republican party now.

This is an extraordinary moment and it requires extraordinary vision and actions. We must stop viewing political life through the lens of American politics as we have known it, and adopt the viewpoint of dissident movements in autocratic states. The Democratic party has more to learn from Alexei Navalny or the protesters in Serbia than it does from Chuck Schumer or strategists obsessing over message-testing crosstabs. This battle is half mass mobilization and half asymmetric warfare. Over the next year those tactics will matter more than traditional political messaging as it has been practiced here in living memory. Once you accept that reality, our next steps become clear.

The rough roadmap for how to proceed goes like this:

Demonstrate popular power in the provinces through large-scale rallies.

Use these events to organize the resistance into a mass movement that can be called into action.

Direct the mass movement into targeted political strikes: Getting blowout wins in special elections; boycotts of Tesla; etc.

Politicize everything: Attack the authoritarians for every bad thing that happens, anywhere in the world. Flood the zone.

Elevate the corruption/graft in a way that pits the billionaire insiders against the “forgotten man.”

When the moment is right, bring this movement to the Capital for a show of strength.

Use this demonstration as a slingshot to take back legislative power in the 2026 elections.

More importantly, use it to send a message to the institutional actors that people will have their back if they show courage.1

2. The Near Term

Winning in 2026 will not be sufficient to stop the authoritarian push; but it is necessary. And the only way to win is people power. That’s it. No institutions are going to save us. The courts won’t stop the authoritarians. Corporate interests won’t stop them. The Democratic party won’t stop them, either. If the authoritarians can be stopped then the Democratic party will be the vehicle through which people wield power. But the Democratic party, as an institution, is too weak and desiccated to stage a real fight against Trumpism. It will have to be pushed into fighting by a mass popular movement. AOC’s public events over the last week have been exactly what the opposition needs.

She is making herself a rally point and telling everyone who wants to resist that they have a place to go. She should do these rallies, over and over, across the country. But not in Washington or New York. Not yet. When you look at the history of dissident movements, they almost always begin in the outer provinces. The autocrats’ power is greatest near the literal center of the government they control. The further you get from their power center, the weaker their hold and the more risks they have to take if they want to put down demonstrations. AOC went to Denver and Phoenix last week. She needs to go to Nashua and Nashville. Houston and Chicago. Oakland and Oklahoma City. The bigger these rallies get, the better. Make them ongoing events. She will need an infrastructure. It’s not enough to get 30,000 people in the streets. You need to get them organized. People in the pro-democracy space will need to help figure out how to do that—how to turn live attendance into lists that can be activated.

3. Solidarity

The last piece of the puzzle is leadership and solidarity. The dissident movement needs a leader. AOC has been the primary person to step up, though Chris Murphy and a few others have been banging the drum. Maybe in time someone else will emerge as a more potent leader for the movement they are incubating. But either way: Without a leader, this movement will not materialize. People need a rally point. History makes that clear. Whoever this leader is, she will be imperfect. In addition to being imperfect, she will not be everyone’s first choice. If you are a Paul Ryan-style conservative, you will have many disagreements with, say, AOC. If you are a progressive and Mark Cuban becomes the leader of the opposition, you will have many disagreements with him. Hear me when I say this: There can be no purity tests in the pro-democracy opposition.4 You are either against Trump, or not. If you are against Trump then the anti-Trump movement must operate in solidarity. We do not have the luxury of saying, “Well yes, I dislike Trump. But Leader X wants higher marginal tax rates, so I can’t sign on with that.” This doesn’t mean you have to agree with everyone in the opposition. Just for the sake of argument, let’s pretend it’s October 2026 and AOC is the face of the opposition. You don’t have to suddenly love the Green New Deal and single-payer healthcare. You can disagree with those policies. But you cannot use those disagreements as pretext to distance yourself from the opposition movement. Remember: Any person or institution not explicitly anti-Trump becomes useful to him. You are either on the bus or you are off. And the point of solidarity is that everyone in the anti-Trump opposition needs to support one another. Again: History is clear on this. So that’s the plan. Find a leader. Bring people together in person, far away from the capital’s control. Build momentum. Organize your supporters. Harness the power of their mass. Build toward an explicit show of strength. Take back control of Congress. And then, if we’re lucky, we can start thinking about an endgame.

Jonathan V. Last wrote a solid piece in The Bulwark on how anti-Trump forces should think and act like a dissident movement: unite on opposing Trump and Trumpist Tyranny.

[nudeartpluspoetry]

We need smart fighters and people who can hold coalitions together.

Schumer needs to get out of Democratic leadership. It is actually wild to watch him do public interviews - like on purpose - and defend caving to Trump as if this is 2007 politics and not the year American democracy dies. He really thinks he can sit down with these people. He really thinks he’s “fighting” for Americans by writing a statement or arguing against executive orders that he can’t stop. They’re Nazis, Chuck. If you want to pretend they’re something else, have at it - but get out of the way for people who will actually do something to stop them!!!!

[fuckyeahmarxismleninism]

Hundreds of Jewish anti-war demonstrators have been arrested during a Passover seder that doubled as a protest in New York, as they shut down a major thoroughfare to pray for a ceasefire and urge the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, to end US military aid to Israel.

The 300 or so arrests took place on Tuesday night at Grand Army Plaza, on the doorstep of Schumer’s Brooklyn residence, where thousands of mostly Jewish New Yorkers gathered for the seder, a ritual that marked the second night of the holiday celebrated as a festival of freedom by Jews worldwide.

The seder came just before the US Senate resoundingly passed a military package that includes $26bn for Israel.

[political-us]

[wilwheaton]

“The Democratic Party brand is at its lowest in two generations. Do you recover from that by voting for a very destructive budget that does violence to all the values and people you claim to protect?” said Raj Goyle, a former Kansas lawmaker and Democratic strategist. “It makes no sense.”

Angry Donors and Protests: Democrats Think Chuck Schumer Has Set Them Up to ‘Lose Fast’

To be clear: I am not advocating for some third party bullshit. I’m advocating to elect and empower more AOC Democrats than Fetterman and Schumer “Democrats”.

[thedaddycomplex]

Remember that time Schumer and Pelosi met with Trump during his first administration and while Pelosi stood up to Trump, Schumer just shrank into the couch? He was always a coward.

[quovadisamerica]

[unitedfrontvarietyhour]

"Democracy for an insignificant minority, democracy for the rich — that is the democracy of capitalist society." - V.I. Lenin

(Pt.1)

[relaxedstyles]

[gwydionmisha]

This May Look Small, But Trump is seizing control of the judiciary, persecuting political opposition, and removing checks that prevent Autocracy.

He is calling openly for political prosecutions.

Donald Trump demands 'accountability' for his pursuers in Justice Department speech

They are criminalizing non-violent political speech.

Luckily, push back is having an effect.

Because what Ed Martin's doing is illegal and unethical.

They need to do this because Ed Martin is in danger of being disbarred for all the illegal and unethical things he is doing to persecute people Trump doesn't like.

[culturevulturette]

The fact that he mentioned the IRS just shows how absolutely clueless he is about the mood in the room.

[political-us]

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Jess Piper at The View From Rural Missouri:

I’m a rural Democrat. I work with rural Democrats. I hang out with rural Democrats. We have to work double-time in our communities — we don’t have the advantage of being in the majority. We risk our livelihoods and our relationships by way of our voting habits. You have to be made of tough stuff to live where we live. One thing you need to understand — rural Democrats have no use for weak-kneed folks. No use for someone in power who won’t use their power to stand up and speak up. No use for entitled lawmakers bowing to the wealthy instead of fighting for everyone. No use for flip-flopping or business as usual during a damn coup. And, that’s exactly what Chuck Schumer and nine other Senate Democrats did last Friday when they rolled over and shamefully showed their underbellies to the world — when they gave in without a fight. When they agreed to a budget that will add billions to defense and allow Musk to keep using his chainsaw to the government. When they agreed to step aside while the Trump administration continues its attack on the Constitution and the people. It went over exactly as you’d expect in rural spaces. We are pissed.

[...] I was introduced and then I laid into the meat of the problem. The GOP. Supermajorities that have stripped rural spaces and red states for parts. The uncaring and cruel Republicans who have ravaged our areas and are now aiming that same destruction at the entire country. The party that attacks the very existence of our trans friends and the marriages of our gay friends and the lives of our pregnant friends. The Republicans are to blame, but by-god we’ve got a few elected Democrats who are side-stepping their duty to protect Americans during a coup — during the dismantling of our country in an effort to give it over to the oligarchs. And I called these Democrats out by name. The boos and hisses started. Folks shook their heads in agreement. They clapped in outrage. These rural Democrats want someone to fight back against the Republicans. These people have no time to sit back and watch as even more power is ceded to authoritarians. And here is something I want you to understand: there is a misconception that rural Democrats are more conservative than Democrats from other areas of the country and that’s just not true. The biggest round of applause and a standing ovation came after I talked about trans rights. Yes, the very folks some establishment Dems are throwing under the bus…looking at you, Gavin Newsome. [...] How could national Democrats do this to us? How could they play dead as Trump is tearing up our Constitution? How could they stop fighting when it’s all we do in our own little part of the world? And there it is. The anger is swelling and the DNC risks losing rural Democrats because of inaction and to cowardice. I knew I was mad and I have been able to take the pulse of those in other rural spaces and they are as angry. I heard several people say they stopped their monthly ActBlue donations to the DNC and redirected them to state-wide candidates and those who will challenge the Republican Congresspeople who are too scared to hold town halls. [...] We can do better and must actively fight Trump and Musk and the oligarchs. We lose our party and our country by rolling over. I expect elected Democrats to work at least as hard as we do in rural spaces. We need them to stand up. Do the work. Fight back.

Jess Piper is 100% correct as usual with this take: “We can do better and must actively fight Trump and Musk and the oligarchs. We lose our party and our country by rolling over.”

[odinsblog]

When Trump, Elon Musk, DOGE, and Republicans start gutting Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, please remember that instead of fighting with everything he had, Chuck Schumer appeased them and voted with them to help make it as easy as possible for them.

[onlytiktoks]