Summary
Democratic divisions intensified as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Nancy Pelosi sharply criticized Chuck Schumer for supporting a Republican-led funding bill to avoid a government shutdown.
AOC called Schumer’s decision a “betrayal,” urging Senate Democrats to reject the legislation backed by Trump and Elon Musk. Pelosi called the bill a “devastating assault” on working families.
Schumer defended his stance, arguing a shutdown would empower Trump and Musk further.
The controversy sparked suggestions among Democrats that AOC might challenge Schumer in a primary.
Cloture is by no means a certainty yet: If your senator hasn’t stated their position yet, there’s still time to call them. With any luck, this will be the beginning of the end for Cowardly Chuck’s leadership.
Edit: specifically saying “Vote no on cloture” tells them you’re highly engaged and highly likely to vote.
I finally got someone on the phone at Hickenlooper’s office this morning. They’re saying he’s now committing to voting no on cloture, which he wouldn’t confirm at his town hall a couple days ago, so this is absolutely accurate. Getting engaged works people. You just gotta make sure they’re more afraid of us than they are of the Oligarchs, and our advantage is numbers. Overwhelm them.
The only silver lining here is the remote possibility of progressive Democrats breaking out to form their own party. At least then the US will have a legitimate opposition party.
You realize this was your last election right? It’s not going back to normal.
Yeah they had their last election, ever, back in November. If they ever hope to get election back, they’ll need to actually fight for it instead of sitting on their butts.
I guess we will see won’t we. I’m still voting in 2026 and 2028. I’m not going to be discouraged by all the nihilists on the internet that are trying to convince me I’m powerless. Maybe I’ll find that process is finished but I’m not rolling over or giving up. Hell you could be a Russian bot trying to make us feel apathetic about voting by just vaguely going … “ you guys realize it’s all over right ? Yea keep on sucking on that copium pal! 😈”
Jefferies and Schumer need to step down. This is pathetic.
Schumer’s argument is shit. They’re going to go after government agencies with or without the funding bill. With the finding bill they get to choose. Without it they have to shut down everything. Passing that bill means they get more maneuvering room, not less.
And with a shutdown the Dems would get to shout about ‘the GOP shutdown’ for however long it lasts which would also help to galvanize the public against MAGA.
sharply criticized Chuck Schumer called Schumer’s decision a “betrayal”
That’ll show him.
Challenge him. He’s has no business being a party leader if he’s as spineless as the Republicans who pushed this bill.
Spinelessness is the chief defining quality of the entire Democratic Party. There are very few individual exceptions and those people need to start a new party. The US needs a real progressive party. The establishment Dems have made it very clear they won’t support a true progressive candidate, so what’s the point of bending the knee to these fuckers any longer?
Its hard to decide if they are spineless or complicit. Not that it amounts to much of a difference in the end.
Sufficiently advanced cowardice is indistinguishable from complicity.
And honestly now is the time to do it. I have absolutely zero faith we will have honest elections in the next couple decades so splitting the funding between neo lib corpocrats and an actual progressive party for the people will not affect the crooked elections under trump since they won’t win anyway. The time for progress is NOW
She would have to be in the senate to take over senate leadership in the short term. For his seat itself, there’s been house members - including moderates - starting to support the idea her primarying him when his term is up in 2028
Several members — including moderates — have begun voicing support for a primary challenge to Schumer, floating Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) as possible candidates, three House Democrats said.
https://www.axios.com/2025/03/14/house-democrats-angry-chuck-schumer-shutdown
The fact that people don’t even know she can’t be a senate leader because she’s in the house speaks volumes about the quality of solutions we see on lemmy. It’s ridiculous.
I think they’re implying “Run for Senate, if she wins, replace the seat of power with her.”
I don’t want him out in 2028, I want him out now.
He can realistically be stripped of senate leadership in the short term. Call your senators and tell them to support removing him from leadership
🫡
I hope she primaries him. Vote all those decrepit elders out of office.
Unfortunately, he’s not up for reelection until 2028, at which time he’d be 78 years old, so probably wouldn’t be running anyway.
The same New York Democrat machine behind all the establishment Democrats put AOC there too. Meet the new boss same as the old boss.
Cuck Schumer
Apparently it’s only “compromise” when it aligns with corporate interests. When it’s about the benefit of the people, it somehow becomes “extremism”.
We will NEVER make progress by compromising with those who will not compromise with us in return.
About half the seated Democrats right now need to be primaried hard. How did we have a more coordinated opposition party during Trump’s first term? It’s worse this time around and they are showing absolutely no will to fight.
what are you supposed to do? The congress controls the budget, literally as defined by the constitution, the executive is currently trying to pretend that isn’t the law. And the supreme court doesn’t exactly seem content about doing anything over it, so it’s not like you can do much as the congress. You literally can’t win here, we have to wait for all the lawsuits to hit for anything to begin happening.
what are you supposed to do?
Schumer went from “we have to be a united front” to “I’m gonna vote for what republicans want!” He pretended to hold the former position for less than a day.
So uh, not that.
Hmm, yes, it’s almost as if we have a government that isn’t functioning and there seem to be no options that are legal under the current government…
Leave the Democratic party AOC, and enough people will follow that we can maybe actually make a difference.
What a colossally terrible idea that is completely detached from where the average American is politically these days.
It’s actually an incredibly based idea, but the public is too stupid to recognize it.
The only way this is true is if losing is more based than winning.
I mean yes I would love to see it but what I’m also saying is that yes, the public is not going to support it
As someone that never trusted either party, this is the one way to get my vote.
The Dems are 80% dusty skeletons desperate to simply stay in office. They don’t do a single thing in the interest of the people, otherwise this whole thing wouldn’t be an issue. F them and F the GOP twice as hard. They are very much also a part of how we all ended up here.
Most Americans are so deeply fed up with both parties, that they just tune the fuck out. Republicans are evil and Democrats are feckless. Americans have been starved for any kind of meaningful change since the year 2000. The whiplash politics we currently all are living through is a direct consequence of that.
Americans wanted significant change from the status quo, so they went away from Clintonism to Bush. Then they wanted significant change (hope and change, remember that?) so they went Obama. Then they wanted significant change so they went Trump. Then again, wanted significant change, and they went Biden. And yet again, whiplash, and we get Trump.
Americans are desperate for change and have no way to express that through the currently available options.
You’re asking to turn apathetic voters into 3rd party voters. I don’t think you realize what that means.
This is TDD we’re talking about. One of the louder more prominent blue maga screechers. Who still hasn’t realized or just doesn’t care that they were made a fool of and used. That has massive dreams and whose failures are even larger than those dreams. Blasting themselves in the foot all the way down.
TDD is third party ride or die. They know that that is where it’s at. They’re only 7% away from breaking 10% in national elections that’s so close! Only another 40 to 50% for them to win an election. That’s practically nothing! Why would anyone want to reclaim the Democratic party. Use it’s brand recognition and reputation with the average person build strength and coalition. It’s got cooties! /S
That’s the level of logic you’ll get in any responses from them.
I mostly make my point to the benefit of onlookers (hopefully benefit lol) so I appreciate the context! Didn’t realize this dude had a reputation .
LOL yes the same here. And I see they did exactly as I predicted further down
What a colossally terrible idea that is completely detached from where the average American is politically these days.
Or… hear me out… It was a colossally terrible idea to not do this after the ratfucking of 2016. Or the ratfucking 0f 2020. Or the ratfucking of 2024. It was a colossally terrible idea to leave the clearly incapable managers of the Democratic party in place, and in lieu of replacing them, which doesn’t appear possible, to identify and adopt strategies that go around them.
We’ve done orders of magnitude more damage to ourselves by continuing to support Democrats when Democrats do not support us, in anything other than meaningless performative bullshit.
Getting off heroine is hard. Alcoholism detox can kill you. But not dealing with either of those things isn’t a solution to the problem.
The Democrats are not your freinds. They aren’t even your allies. They are a tool preventing you from having access to power and to prevent us collectively from making the kinds of changes that can kill fascist movements in the crib by not allowing the legitimate conditions that permit grievance politics to persist.
By occupying the space where real change, where an authentic attempt to better the lives of people would be, Democrats are a tool to prevent the addressing of the fundamental problems we have in society. Leaving these issues unaddressed give fascists legitimate grievances to co-opt into these kinds of racist and fascist movements.
You’re not arguing against Democrats, you are arguing against basic math. Here is a primer for why going third party is a complete non-starter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo
The way forward is to transform the Democratic party from the inside out. It’s not impossible, Trump did it to the entire Republican party in the span of less than a decade. Vote in PRIMARY elections.
Good video on the problem with system we’re stuck with (the only ones who can change it are the ones who benefit from it). Another interesting related video is this one about the history of parties and once again you see that while sometimes extra party movements pop up, they always get absorbed into one of the two big ones.
It’s math. Until we change how we elect, it will always be this way. And just like you mention changing the Democratic party from within, so do we have to change how we vote from the lower to the higher. Some states have started better systems, and the more than do, the more likely it can be worked into the federal level.
Until we change how we elect
I mean, you don’t legitimately think that we can do that in the current system do you?
Like, try and see the contradiction in your thinking.
It’s not contradiction, you’re talking about something different. I’m talking about First Past The Post elections vs. other systems that allow more than two parties to be competitive.
Yes, I agree, any kind of ranked choice voting system would help to end the two-party duopoly. If you are lucky enough to have your state consider a ballot measure to introduce such a system, do everything in your power to help it pass.
Unfortunately, it will not be easy; for obvious reasons, there are many powerful political forces opposing such reform. Here is a page showing how well such measures have done in recent elections: https://ballotpedia.org/History_of_ranked-choice_voting_(RCV)_ballot_measures
By the way, if you liked the CGP Grey Animal Kingdom video, it continues as a short series: https://www.cgpgrey.com/politics-in-the-animal-kingdom/
To be clear, you are repeating the same argument that has been being repeated, for effectively 25 years. This is exactly the same argument being made in the year 2000 when the Democrats rolled over on Bush V Gore.
If you want any one to take this argument seriously at this point, you need to tell me how the last 25 years of evidence showing that this approach to politics doesn’t work, will work this time. Because to be clear, your exact strategy is the theory of change thats been in application. And the result was the rise of fascism globally.
Give me a reason to take this argument, thats been repeated and repeated, again and again, seriously, when the data we have shows that pushing for change from within the DNC isn’t working.
Your strategy is quite literally the only strategy thats been attempted, and what we got for it was the rise of fascism. So whats different this time? Why should we take you seriously?
Trump would’ve won 2020. You do realize that right?
Vote in primaries. Kick out the pelosis and schumers. Give the reins to the AOC’s. If that’s not possible it only proves there is no political appetite among Americans for progressive politics, which is our loss.
Okay so just keep doing the things that haven’t worked in the past?
I just want to be clear what your argument is. You want the strategy to be the same thing that people have been trying to do for 25 years?
Oh so we voted them out?
Republicans voted out their corporate overlords for fascists and racists.
Democrats failed to do so. Now the Democrats can’t win an election to save their life.
🤔
can’t win an election to save their life
3 of the last 5 presidential terms had a Democrat in office. 3 of the last 5 presidents were democrats period. They just barely lost their first popular vote since 2004. They won the 3 before that as well.
Democrats have taken control of either or both chambers on a consistent basis. They have not had some notable run of losses. In fact it’s the GOP that is struggling to keep its majorities even in favorable electoral conditions.
The majority of the country is represented or otherwise governed by democrats and have been for…20 years now I believe?
So what exactly are you talking about?
Yeah that’s what I thought 🤷♂️
This idea had some merit two years ago but it’s too late. And trump proved that you can take over a party if your tribe is popular enough.
The claim has been that this idea is always 2 years too late since Jesse Jackson.
AOC needs to form a new party or at least go independent with Bernie. I’d really like an alternative to the Democrats because I’ll never be voting for them again.
His vile cowardice is something I’m seeing people talk about, but the sheer stupidity of it isn’t touched on.
CHUCK. HE IS GOING TO FUCKING KILL YOU! THE D NEXT TO YOUR NAME MAY AS WELL BE THE STAR OF DAVID ON YOUR CHEST YOU DUMB FUCK! DICTATORS DO NOT LET “OPPOSITION” PARTY MEMBERS LIVE. NO MATTER HOW HELPFUL THEY WERE IN GIVING THEM POWER!
Like are you fucking stupid?
