Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer is a conventional politician. I’m not sure even he would dispute that. So typically, he does what all politicians do — whatever’s needed to get reelected.
But in March, Schumer deviated, leading a group of 10 Democratic senators to vote with the GOP to avert a government shutdown. Schumer’s reasoning was clear and logical: a shutdown is inherently bad. It hurts people who rely on government services, ranging from food stamps to air traffic control to Social Security. There’s no version of a shutdown where real people aren’t collateral damage.
Schumer also argued that a shutdown would have allowed President Trump to even further expand his authority and advance his policies without congressional approval. You can debate Schumer’s take on this, but he’s been around for a very long time and is extremely intelligent, so I’d take his view seriously. Either way, Schumer clearly did what he thought was right.
He never recovered from it. The left howled that Schumer squandered his leverage and capitulated to Trump. Democratic House members and progressive groups called on him to step down as minority leader. Members of his own caucus from Bernie Sanders to Michael Bennet joined the chorus of critics. So did Nancy Pelosi.
Data for Progress, a progressive polling firm, went into the field and found that Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez would beat Schumer by 19 points (55-36) in a head to head matchup in the next primary. Some have questioned Data for Progress’ credibility, but even if you cut AOC’s lead in half, it’s still a lot.
Schumer answers to a relatively narrow constituency: the other Democratic senators, the (not all that many) people likely to vote in his next primary, and to MSNBC hosts, leading pundits on Bluesky and a dozen or so highly vocal progressive activist groups who mean absolutely everything to congressional staffers and D.C. insiders but absolutely nothing to the vast, vast majority of Americans. As a result, he and everyone else in that ecosystem — electeds, staffers, reporters, pundits, think tankers, lobbyists — frequently can’t see the forest for the trees (Trump sometimes can, which is why he beat them twice).
That’s also true of the relatively small number of people who actually vote in Democratic primaries. If Schumer and AOC competed in a primary where most registered New York Democrats participated, Schumer would probably still win. But turnout in Schumer’s last primary was just 13.3%. Even doubling that is still just a quarter of registered Democrats — and these are typically the most progressive voters who are most likely to support the ideologue in the race.
In fact, in the latest Siena poll, Schumer’s favorability among liberals fell from 68% to 47%. CNN has Schumer’s favorability at just 17% nationally. He’s being asked openly by reporters whether he is a liability to the Democratic Party.
And yet, the problem isn’t necessarily Chuck Schumer. It’s the Alice in Wonderland-like world of the Beltway. It’s the “I don’t want my friends to criticize me on Twitter” mentality that drove Joe Biden’s irrational immigration policies. And it’s the same mentality leading Democrats to focus on issues that matter mainly to the people who already support them rather than just making absolutely every single conversation about tariffs and the economy.
The same is true on the other side too. Primary turnout in most GOP Senate races is typically 10-20% (although higher in years with presidential elections). GOP Senators are patently terrified of Trump so they do whatever he asks, no matter how irrational. That’s how people like Pete Hegseth and Bobby Kennedy Jr. become cabinet secretaries. It’s why our military plans get leaked on Signal or our food and drug inspections come to a halt.
This all only leads to more cynicism by the public. People become even more disgusted with their leaders. We just fall further and further into the morass of dysfunction and polarization. None of it produces compromise or consensus or results. None of it is what we actually need.
Schumer tried to do the right thing. He stuck his neck out. And then his own party chopped it off. If that happened to someone as powerful as Schumer, how could anyone else possibly feel comfortable stepping up to do the right thing against the interests of the party extremes? They’re all stuck in a failed paradigm.
We just keep committing the same self sabotage, over and over again. No good deed goes unpunished. And the country suffers.
Tusk is a venture capitalist, political strategist and philanthropist.
