Is Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer the most disliked man in America right now? The Schumer Shutdown, the longest government shutdown in history, is just about to end over his vehement objections, and he’s rightly taking fire for it from both sides.
It’s as if John Belushi’s “Bluto” from 1978’s “Animal House” stood on the Senate floor and said, “I think this situation absolutely requires a really futile and stupid gesture be done on somebody’s part.”
Democrats said, Hey, that’s a great idea.
Republicans are fuming that Schumer kept the government shut down for 42 days as of today, and for … nothing. Senate Democrats who voted in lockstep with Schumer 14 times to keep the government closed got little in the way of concessions from Republicans. When eight of them finally changed course, agreeing to a continuing resolution to fund the government through January (and SNAP through next September), they got nothing more than a promise to hold a December vote on the “temporary” and “emergency” ObamaCare subsidies Democrats now want to make permanent. More on that in a minute.
Eight was precisely the number of Democrats needed for the CR to pass, indicating Schumer’s tacit or private approval. Naturally, the rest of the Democrats are furious that Schumer led them into a box canyon and lost.
So, let’s put to rest once and for all the utter lie that this was the GOP’s shutdown.
Pennsylvania Democrat Senator John Fetterman has been a consistent voice of sanity, crying out in the left-wing wilderness. “After 40 days as a consistent voice against shutting our government down, I voted YES for the 15th time to REOPEN,” he wrote on X. “I’m sorry to our military, SNAP recipients, gov workers, and Capitol Police who haven’t been paid in weeks. It should’ve never come to this. This was a failure.”
On the other side, Vermont “Independent” Senator Bernie Sanders led the complaints department. “To my mind,” he groused, “this was a very, very bad vote. What it does, first of all, is it raises health care premiums for over 20 million Americans by doubling and, in some cases, tripling or quadrupling — people can’t afford that, we’re already paying the highest prices in the world for healthcare.” The vote does nothing of the sort. Again, more on that in a minute.
Our Revolution, the left-wing group Sanders created during his 2016 presidential campaign, called Schumer either “a liar” or “inept,” saying “he’s proven incapable of leading the fight” and demanding he step aside.
Graham Platner, the Democrat candidate for Senate in Maine, who’s most famous for the Nazi tattoo he sported for 20 years before covering it up after an outcry, said, “Chuck Schumer is not built for this moment.”
California Governor and likely 2028 presidential candidate Gavin Newsom posted a single word on X: “Pathetic.” He later called it “capitulation and a betrayal.”
Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the left-wing base’s favorite to challenge Schumer at some point, obliquely criticized him, saying, “Working people want leaders whose word means something.”
“Senator Schumer is no longer effective and should be replaced,” added California Congressman Ro Khanna. “If you can’t lead the fight to stop health care premiums from skyrocketing for Americans, what will you fight for?”
The Jacobins on Bluesky are either in total emotional meltdown or posting memes of guillotines.
As the legislation goes to the House, Republicans can probably count on zero Democrat votes. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries warned, “We will not support spending legislation advanced by Senate Republicans that fails to extend the Affordable Care Act tax credits.”
Why did Democrats shut down the government? From start to finish, they’ve made it about ObamaCare subsidies, as I explained a month ago. They’re going to keep beating that drum.
“America is in the midst of a Republican-made healthcare crisis,” Schumer said this week. He called it “a crisis so severe, so urgent, and so devastating for American families that I cannot support a continuing resolution that fails to address it.” He also warned, “Americans will remember Republican intransigence every time they make a sky-high payment on health insurance.”
With the help of the Democrats’ Leftmedia megaphone, he may have a point that many Americans — especially the ones who rely on the government’s health insurance marketplace — will blame Republicans when they have to pay a higher portion of skyrocketing premiums. But blaming the GOP is a huge lie, of course. Democrats passed ObamaCare with zero Republican votes. Democrats passed “temporary” enhanced “emergency” subsidies for ObamaCare with zero Republican votes, and they extended those subsidies with zero Republican votes the following year.
The “Affordable” Care Act has, more than anything else, contributed to the immensely frustrating fact that healthcare and health insurance are increasingly unaffordable. The only fault Republicans bear is not repealing the unconstitutional monstrosity of a law when they had the chance. Now, their opportunity is to make the case for real reforms.
Democrats don’t care so much about healthcare as they do about shielding themselves from blame for making it unaffordable. Spending taxpayer dollars to subsidize higher prices doesn’t do anything to make healthcare cheaper. Just the opposite.
Whether Schumer is the guy to lead Democrats forward after this colossal failure is still unknown, but there are an awful lot of Democrats who are mad at the hamburger grill master right now.
