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Donald Trump has made politics into a dystopian reality show he loves to host, but Democratic leaders
Chuck Schumer and
Hakeem Jeffries are playing by the old rules — and the mismatch may cause Democrats to get blamed for a
government shutdown.
This is not because they’re dumb (they’re not) or incompetent (as the top Democrats of the Senate and House and as representatives of New York, both have risen to positions that require a
Lyndon Baines Johnson-esque dexterity most of us couldn’t sustain for a single PTA meeting).
You can see it playing out in the government shutdown. Schumer and Jeffries seem almost neurologically incapable of operating in the world Trump has created — one where politics is less about governing or even persuasion, and more about staying on offense and generating spectacle.
Schumer exudes old-fashioned backroom politics and insider deal-making, which is another way of saying that he’s scripted, sweaty and stilted. It’s not that he’s bad at speaking; it’s that the kind of speaking he has mastered — the methodical, over-enunciated style that once charmed donors and editorial boards — is the equivalent of trying to fax something in 2025.
Jeffries, by contrast, is calm and disciplined. He speaks slowly, often channeling a rhythmic pattern that is reminiscent of a preacher or litigator. In a different era — the kind of era when “normal politics” still existed — this trait might have worked brilliantly. Today, it just feels tired. He’s supposed to be the hip one, once marketed as a “bad, brilliant brother from Brooklyn.” But his recent attempts at communication feel more like a corporate onboarding seminar.
And it’s not like he’s compensating for this shortcoming by electrifying the progressive base. Jeffries’ recent praise for New York Mayor
Eric Adams (calling him a man who “served courageously and authentically for decades”) was a bit like praising
Nickelback for artistic innovation. It’s not just inaccurate; it’s weirdly tone deaf to the moment.
To be fair, competing with Trump’s megaphone requires a skill set that is closer to professional wrestling than to 20th century politics. Trump is chaotic and often incoherent to the point of parody. But, and this is key, he never sounds like a normal politician.
In a game where authenticity — however poorly defined and cynically constructed — is the only real currency, the Democrats’ undynamic duo come across as high-functioning androids.
Countering Trump’s superpower calls for Democrats who can compete in the attention economy: leaders who feel authentic, actually enjoy picking constant political fights and understand that “going viral” is the new “getting quoted in the New York Times.”
Schumer and Jeffries do not have these skills, despite having plenty of material to work with.
Case in point: Republicans are about to make healthcare more expensive for millions of Americans. In theory, that’s a devastating talking point. In practice, it’s difficult to imagine Schumer and Jeffries delivering it in a way that can compete with Trump’s bogus assertion that the Democrats are shutting down the government because they want free healthcare for illegal immigrants and “transgender for everybody,” whatever that means.
Faced with these mistruths and the anemic response we’re getting from Schumer and Jeffries, the best-case scenario may be that Republicans — by virtue of being the “anti-government” party — take some blame for a government shutdown. But that’s not a strategy. That’s hoping partisan inertia is still on your side.
Regardless, the shutdown is merely the latest example of Democrats struggling to compete with MAGA. The larger problem is that the Democratic Party doesn’t really have a communicator right now. It hasn’t had one since
Barack Obama left the stage.
It’s probably not fair to compare a congressional leader with a presidential candidate. But even by the standards of modern congressional leaders, Schumer and Jeffries are ill-equipped for the task at hand.
Democrats need someone with
Newt Gingrich’s manic energy, revolutionary zeal and theatrical flair, coupled with
Nancy Pelosi’s more pragmatic toughness and ruthless discipline. This is to say, someone who understands that politics is now a form of entertainment, but who still has the moral seriousness to prevent it from devolving totally into nihilism.
Instead, they’ve got two men who might as well be AM radio hosts trying to livestream on
Twitch.
Ultimately, the Democrats’ communications crisis won’t be solved until they have a presidential nominee who can actually speak the language of the moment. Until they can find one, Democrats are stuck with two guys who are no match against a man who has turned political chaos into performance art.
And if Democrats don’t find one — and soon! — they won’t just lose the narrative: They’ll lose the country that depends on it...
My colleague
Derik Schneider already made the policy, as well as political argument for why Chuck Schumer and his Senate Democrats, should've never even considered shutting down the government and giving Donald John Trump the unilateral power over the government and budget, that the shutdown now gives him. This should've been game, set, match, (as they say in tennis for why Leader Schumer should've never had gone through with this:
"So, under
The Anti-Deficiency Act, when the government shutdowns, the executive branch, under
The White House and Office of Management Budget, gets to decide who is essential and who is nonessential, when it comes to the federal workforce. Meaning, who gets to show up to work, who has to stay home, who has to show up and work for free, during the shutdown.
In case anyone who sees this, was born last night, (and if you are able to read before you even reach 1 day old, I'm fairly impressed) Donald John Trump is currently President of the United States and
Russell Vought is currently the Director of the Office of Management and Budget. Do you really want these two "gentlemen" in charge of what stays open and is closed, who gets to go to work, who stays home, who has to work for free, during a government shutdown?
Mr. Vought is 1 of the chief authors of
Project 2025, which is a document that lays out how a President Trump could claim and use more executive authority, then the Constitution currently gives the President of the United States. And how they could essentially get away with that. Is this who you want in charge of the government shutdown in Washington?
At least if Congress passed a government funding bill, (whatever you actually think of the actual bill) there are laws there that the courts can protect, requiring the executive branch to spend this amount of money, with this amount of workers in place enforcing those spending requirements. But put Trump and Vought in charge, thanks to your shutdown, there's no one left in place who could even try to hold the President and OMB accountable during a shutdown...
And Fred got into why Leader Schumer is actually doing this right now, on Wednesday:
"But I actually think there's something else going on here. I don't like questioning political motives of people, especially who are currently in government, even members of my own party where you would have more credibility in doing that. But as the Minority Leader said so himself for why he didn't go through with the shutdown back in March, when talking to
Sunny Hostin on
The View:
“First I’d say, Sunny, no one wants to fight more than me, and no one fights more than me. We got to fight smart. It is not true — that bill had far less — it was bad, I hated it,” Schumer said. “But it does far less damage to —
Social Security,
Medicare,
Medicaid are far more susceptible to being eliminated, which is what that horrible Musk — can you imagine this guy Musk, a billionaire, saying $1,100 for a senior citizen is not necessary? Or a Ponzi scheme...
Leader Schumer's official reasoning for not shutting down the government in March... he didn't want Donald Trump,
Elon Musk, and the Office of Management and Budget to get to decide who gets fired, laid off, has to work for free, who gets paid and who doesn't, who gets their public assistance checks, who doesn't, while the government is shut down. So what's changed?
What has changed in the last 6-7 months, is after the government funding debate in March, where Senate Democrats just let that bill go through with a majority vote and didn't block it... is Chuck Schumer took a lot of political heat from his left-wing of the party...
The Squad and their supporters. There was talk about U.S. Representative Alexandria O. Cortez challenging Schumer in the 2028 New York Democratic primary for U.S. Senate.
Chuck Schumer is 75 years old, he's been in Congress since 1981, he's been in the Democratic Leadership since 2005. He's the definition of a career politician. Take him out of public office, would be like forcing fish to swim without water. Being a politician and a political leader is the only thing he knows and wants to do.
And Leader Schumer apparently thinks the way for him to save his Senate seat, is too look cool and tough for "The Squad" and look like he's fighting for them, even if that means putting the future of the Democratic Party at risk and quite frankly the country, if voters think Democrats aren't ready to govern again next year...
And as Erik said yesterday:
"Because Leader Schumer made the right decision not to shut down the government in March, the so-called Squad (which most of the time looks no more professional and experienced than the Columbia chapter of Students For a Democratic Society) threatens his job and tells him he has to step down, or face a primary challenge... probably from U.S. Representative Alexandria O. Cortez in 2028. She's probably not just the most popular and powerful Socialist, inside of Congress right now (sorry, Senators Sanders and Warren) but probably the most powerful and popular Socialist outside of Congress as well.
So the reason why the government is shut down right now, even though it gives the power to the President to cut and layoff at will as many people as he wants, during the shutdown, because 75 year old Chuck Schumer (who has been in Congress since 1981, served 9 terms in the House, now in his 5th term in the Senate) is worried about losing his job 3 years from now. So this is just 1 reason why The New Democrat is calling this government shutdown, the Schumer shutdown. Because it's not based on what's good for the country, or even the Democratic Party next year, but what's good for Chuck Schumer's political future...
So now that's we're in day 3 of the 2005 government shutdown, this sort of takes me back 45-46 years ago during the Iran Hostage Crisis of 1979-80. It's 1 thing if this is over at some point next week, regardless of how it ends, but if we're still talking about the current shutdown 2-4 weeks from now, a lot of us are going to sound like CBS News anchor Walter Cronkite, or ABC News anchor Ted Koppel:
"It now day 30 of the 2025 government shutdown".
I don't mean to make light of the Iran Hostage Crisis. Only to make the point that 45 years, the Iran Hostage Crisis and the presidential election of 80, were like the only things that the media was interested in talking about, because that's really the only thing that people were interested in... as well as the economy. That's how much the IHC dominated American politics back then. That's how much the government shutdown will dominate American political news for however long it goes on.
I would like to talk about the jobs report today. But guess what: there is not jobs report to talk about because a lot of the people who work on it, have been laid off because there's no money coming in to pay them, or to pay for their work.
I would like to talk about the Epstein files and when Congress, or at least the House will vote to release them. But because of the shutdown, Speaker Johnson is in no hurry to swear in Representative elect Adelita Grijalva because she would vote to release the Epstein files. But because of the shutdown, he can now claim that he doesn't have time for that because he has to deal with the shutdown.
To sort of back up what Matt Lewis is saying here... since House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer have been so politically tone death on this and apparently are only worried about their own political futures, (or, that's what they care about the most) they've gone through this political Kamikaze mission and are hoping that the longer this last, the more blame Congressional Republicans and President Trump will get for this and they'll be forced to compromise with the Democrats. Apparently unaware or ignoring the fact that what the President wants to do right now as President, he doesn't need Congressional approval, or even a fully operating government, to carry out his partisan political agenda. As Derik mentioned last week:
"So, under The Anti-Deficiency Act, when the government shutdowns, the executive branch, under The White House and Office of Management Budget, gets to decide who is essential and who is nonessential, when it comes to the federal workforce. Meaning, who gets to show up to work, who has to stay home, who has to show up and work for free, during the shutdown...
The point is, under the ADA, the President gets to decide who gets to work and who stays home during the shutdown. So he could literally and legally right now, lay off as many government workers that live in states that are currently represented by Democratic senators. He could also literally and legally cut off Federal funding for blue cities like New York City, which he already announced he was going to do yesterday.
And just to close on this point. There's no way Congressional Democrats will win this shutdown. The longer it goes on, the longer Senate Democrats, especially in purple states have to hear about their government workers not being able to go to work, who don't have any money coming in because of the shutdown, the media will report on it and it will become known as the Schumer shutdown. (If it isn't already)
But the President, Speaker Johnson and
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, rather take huge losses in polling (which is sort of what they're already doing) then to compromise with Leader Schumer and give Senate Democrats the health benefits that they're looking for, especially since the President can almost enforce his own government funding bill through the ADA, during the shutdown.
But even though the Democrats can't win this battle of policy or political grounds, Republicans could still lose it politically and give Democrats a huge win on health care going into 2026. All Republicans have to do is say:
"The reason for the Schumer shutdown, is because Chuck Schumer is worried about losing a 2028 primary race to AOC. He's letting Socialist Democrats run the shutdown right now".
That's all Republicans have to do. They are at the 1 yard line and ready to score the game clinching TD. But instead of just calling a QB sneak, they go shotgun and kick the ball out of bounds for a touchback, from their opponents 5 yard line (to use American football jargon) giving the Democrats the ball at the 20 yard line, with a chance to win the game themselves.
And what I'm referring to here is what Vice President Vance, Speaker Johnson, Senator Barrasso, and today Senator Ernst, claiming that the reason for why the government is shut down today, is because Democrats want to give health care to illegal immigrants. Democrats will never win this battle, but Republicans could still lose it and set up a major political problem for them going into 26.
