Last night as Sen. Chuck Schumer announced that he had decided to cave and pass the Republican-backed House bill that will fund the government for another six months, there was plenty of outrage. Progressives on Bluesky and X were calling for him to resign or be primaried and AOC went on CNN to denounce the move. She also suggested that it wasn’t too late for him to change his mind…again. More on that in a moment.
As Ed described this morning, elected Democrats have only gotten angrier overnight. Axios reported that House Democrats were seeing a “complete and utter meltdown on all text chains” relating to Schumers decision. Other outlets were reporting similar outrage. They NY Times just published a story calling it a generational divide within the Democratic Party.
The eruption of anger about Mr. Schumer’s seeming surrender thrust into public view a generational divide that has emerged as one of the Democratic Party’s deepest and most consequential rifts.
Younger Democrats are chafing at and increasingly complaining about what they see as the feebleness of the old guard’s efforts to push back against President Trump. They are second-guessing how the party’s leaders — like Mr. Schumer, who brandishes his flip phone as a point of pride — are communicating their message in the TikTok era, as Republicans dominate the digital town square…
“Our party needs more of a fighting spirit,” said Representative Chris Deluzio, a 40-year-old from outside Pittsburgh. “This is not a normal administration, and they’re willing to do dangerous things.”…
“The generation that got us to this point does not have the skills or stomach to get us to the next point,” said Amanda Litman, who leads Run for Something, a progressive group that recruits younger and more diverse Democrats to seek local office.
But beyond the generational divide there’s also just a lot of very specific anger at Chuck Schumer. Nancy Pelosi, who is no spring chicken, called on Senate Dems to defy his plan to pass the CR. Here’s her tweet on X:
Donald Trump and Elon Musk have offered the Congress a false choice between a government shutdown or a blank check that makes a devastating assault on the well-being of working families across America.
Let’s be clear: neither is a good option for the American people. But this…
— Nancy Pelosi (@SpeakerPelosi) March 14, 2025
It reads in part:
I salute Leader Hakeem Jeffries for his courageous rejection of this false choice, and I am proud of my colleagues in the House Democratic Caucus for their overwhelming vote against this bill.
Democratic senators should listen to the women. Appropriations leaders Rosa DeLauro and Patty Murray have eloquently presented the case that we must have a better choice: a four-week funding extension to keep government open and negotiate a bipartisan agreement.
America has experienced a Trump shutdown before – but this damaging legislation only makes matters worse. Democrats must not buy into this false choice. We must fight back for a better way. Listen to the women, For The People.
Pelosi is campaigning for a shutdown and she isn’t alone. House Democrats have sent Schumer two different letters demanding that he go down fighting rather than surrender.
A group of influential House Democrats, led by their caucus’ spending leader Rep. Rosa DeLauro, plan to urge Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer on Friday to not “acquiesce to Republicans’ lawless destruction of our government.”
“We cannot acquiesce to Republicans’ lawless destruction of our government, and we cannot forfeit Congress’s Constitutional authority to dictate federal spending,” DeLauro and other House Democratic appropriators wrote Friday in a draft letter to Schumer obtained by CNN.
Meanwhile, another group of 60 House Dems sent a separate letter expressing their opposition to Schumer’s plan. Here’s the full text of that one with a few lines highlighted by me:
As members of the House Democratic Caucus, we write to express our strong opposition to the passage of a partisan continuing resolution that potentially legitimizes President Trump and the Republican party’s dismantling of government. The Republican leadership has deliberately cut Democrats out of the process, and we must not give in to Republican hostage-taking of our vulnerable seniors, veterans, and working-class families to advance their destructive funding bill. If Republicans in Congress want to pass this bill, they should do so with their own votes. However, since they cannot, Republicans must work with Democrats to pass a clean 30-day continuing resolution and continue negotiating full FY25 appropriations.
Republicans have made clear that their primary objective is to continue illegally shuttering critical government functions while weaponizing the appropriations process to advance extreme, partisan policies and completely disregarding the needs of the American people. Republicans have continually refused to negotiate in good faith and reject bipartisan compromise while catering to President Trump and Elon Musk’s extreme agenda to dismantle the federal government from within.
The American people sent Democrats to Congress to fight against Republican dysfunction and chaos. Instead of capitulating to their obstruction, we must fight for a regular FY25 appropriations measure that reflects our nation’s values to provide uninterrupted access to lifesaving government services. We urge you to reject the partisan continuing resolution coming before the Senate and stand with the American people in opposing these draconian Republican cuts. All parties must come back to the negotiating table and work across party lines to keep the government open in a responsible way.
Ah, the return of Republican hostage taking. It feels like it has been a while since Democrats trotted this out.
It’s not clear that Democrats have any real plan to make this course of action work for them. Remember, Schumer’s decision last night was that the GOP-passed House CR was bad, but a government shutdown would be even worse. The pushback today suggests House Dems thing a shutdown is better for them.
How exactly?
I don’t see how anyone can realistically blame the GOP for the shutdown after so many Democrats have come out literally demanding it. They will own this more clearly than ever. And ultimately who is going to crack first, Democrats who shut it down or Trump who can plausibly claim this wasn’t his doing? The left has nowhere to go here but the base is still screaming for blood (literally in some cases).
“When Donald Trump wakes up in the morning and says, ‘You’re doing the right things, Senate Democrats’ — we don’t feel that is the right place to be,” said Rep. Pete Aguilar, D-Calif., the No. 3 House Democrat.
“I think the blowback from the base will be severe,” added one Democratic congressional aide, who was granted anonymity to speak candidly.
I think the House Dems are so afraid of the base that they would rather march into a shutdown with no plan than face the voters back home who will say they didn’t fight hard enough. Honestly, I wonder if some of them aren’t hoping Schumer will hold out, be the adult in the room and save them from an even worse outcome. They can’t admit that of course, but some of these people must know this is a dead end.
Stay tuned. There’s still time for Schumer to cave again, this time to the same noisy progressives who helped lead the Democratic party to a resounding defeat in the last election.
