Schumer, who has steered Senate Democrats since 2017, became liberals’ favorite punching bag this cycle, an avatar of everything wrong with a listless Democratic Party. The ubiquitous New Yorker was, detractors said, too prone to seek compromise, too wary of committing to fights with President Donald Trump and his administration, too likely to cram so many messages onto an agenda that none of them landed. For a party that still remains unlikely to truly find its footing until it has a presidential nominee, Schumer was a convenient scapegoat for a coalition party in the minority.
“No one loves Chuck Schumer,” one victorious campaign consultant said this week. “But he’s the only guy who wants the job. At least right now.”
In the run up to the election, a handful of Senators—Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, Brian Schaatz of Hawaii, Cory Booker of New Jersey—were seen as potential contenders to replace Schumer as majority leader. But in the days that followed, none raised their hand.
The math is just on Schumer’s side. While Sens.-elect Adam Hamilton of Kansas, Troy Jackson of Maine, and Abdul El-Sayed of Michigan all said on the campaign trail that they would not back Schumer, that’s not a sizable enough bloc to end his continued leadership. Other incoming Senators like Juliana Stratton of Illinois, Peggy Flanagan of Minnesota, Chris Pappas of New Hampshire, and James Talarico of Texas have sidestepped the Schumer question for months.
Schumer only needs a bare majority of his caucus to move from minority leader to majority leader—not a majority of the voting chamber as is needed to become House Speaker. And other members of the caucus are longtime Schumer allies. Many owe him favors related to his running Senate Democrats’ campaign arm with a vise-like grip for the last two decades. Raising billions for party candidates—either directly or indirectly through campaign committees and an aligned super PAC—gives him plenty of chits to call in.
God, not Schumer. That’s like replacing the Coke Cola of Republicans with the Diet Coke that is Schumer.
The move off MSM is happening. I think AIPAC screwed up by targeting Hasan Piker. Most people had no idea who he is and it was puzzling seeing him being attacked by the GOP, the Democrats and the MSM. I think this caused a lot of people to look him up to see what the hubub was about. And then when they find a guy who is reasonable, articulate, handsome and funny they started to understand how they’re being manipulated.
Then when you have people like Neera Tanden, a long time Democrat operative, and Sarah Longwell, a never Trumper Republican operative spending a lot of time gratuitously attacking the left flank and Hasan in particular it becomes more obvious that big money is actively manipulating the electorate.
I’ve been a politics junkie for at least 3 decades and I never took much stock in the idea that Israel was manipulating us from multiple fronts in order to take more land in the Middle East and destroy the Palestinians, etc… But after this year, I feel like I’ve been duped for most of my adult life. I don’t think I’m the only one, either. The Zionists have almost gone full mask off at this point and now they are desperately trying to control the narrative and it seems the more they try to control it, the more attention they draw to themselves and their heinous actions.
I should also point out that the political consultant class, which Tanden and Longwell are part of, see populist movements of any type as a threat to their business model. They cannot allow the people to think they can select their own candidates and use their own labor to get them elected. Because doing that means fewer consulting gigs and less money from ad buys for the consultant class.
Right now people are able to communicate with each other and organize more effectively than ever before because of the internet and already we are seeing the Epstein class attempt to manipulate the conversation. They’ve been pretty effective on centralized platforms like Twitter, Facebook and Reddit. I suspect Youtube will be next by shutting down independent media.
But the good news is that this election has demonstrated clearly that the people can pull together and overcome the resources of the Epstein class, for now.
Even discussion of the upper classes was considered “class warfare” not long ago, but here we are and everyone talks about the “Epstein class” and knows exactly what we mean and nobody thinks its radical in any way.
I have picked up my world model in bits and pieces, so it’s hard to pinpoint all my sources, but probably a significant one was What’s the Matter with Kansas, which came out around the time of Bush, fil, first ter. But the other thing that was patently obvious at the time was Democratic subservience to the neocon agenda, and before that Bill Clinton’s capitulation to neoliberalism which is all “third way politics” ever was.
What was your media diet that you missed AIPAC for all this time? Even though I was already on his side of the fence, I only started listening to Piker after he was Public Enemy One this cycle. And I also started listening to the I Had It podcast after they were dragged for laughing at Charlie Kirk jokes. Offending the civility police of the MSM is really the best advertising.
My media diet was mainly MSNBC, Sunday talk shows, the times and the post and magazines like the Atlantic and Harper’s. I’d also read Jacobin on occasion and watch Amy Goodman. When we dropped cable (because of Fox News) we started watching youtube and went through a bunch of different channels before settling on Majority Report, Hasan, Breaking Points, Secular Talk, TYT, and a bunch of others.
My SO really liked Secular Talk and I found Kyle Kulinski to be crass and obnoxious but when I fact checked him, I found that he was never wrong. And then he made me laugh really hard one day and I think that broke my Kyle dislike.
A few years ago a family member recommended the IHIP podcast and we immediately loved it. They weren’t too into politics yet but once they did, they really caught fire.
Not a fan of TYT anymore because of Cenk and what’s her name selling out. We’ve recently started to realize that the people we enjoy and trust the most are the ones who take no corporate money. Imagine that.
As far as missing AIPAC is concerned, I was aware of them, but I bought into the propaganda. I would probably still be buying it if Israel hadn’t lost their minds and gone full mask off.