I haven’t really figured out if I like Senator Chuck Schumer as the Democratic Party’s Senate Minority Leader. At the end of the day, I really appreciated Harry Reid and how he wasn’t afraid of being unpopular, and he wasn’t afraid of laying down some facts. Chuck Schumer is smooth and organized, for sure, but there’s something rather… I don’t know, oily? I haven’t really made up my mind. But I really, really dislike what he said to the Washington Post this weekend. Here are his comments in context of discussing the Dems’ minority agenda and policy proposals:
The rollout comes as Democrats continue to struggle to sell a coherent message to voters. In a recent Washington Post-ABC News poll, 37 percent of Americans said that the party “currently stands for something,” while 52 percent said it “just stands against Trump.” The same poll found that Trump’s overall approval rating has deteriorated to 36 percent — making him the most unpopular president of the modern era at this point in his presidency.
Those findings resonate with party leaders who are still stunned by Trump’s come-from-behind victory last year.
“When you lose to somebody who has 40 percent popularity, you don’t blame other things — Comey, Russia — you blame yourself,” Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said in an interview previewing the new plan. “So what did we do wrong? People didn’t know what we stood for, just that we were against Trump. And still believe that.”
Many have read this as a flat-out slam of Hillary Clinton. But is it? While he’s definitely including Hillary in the “you,” I think he means “you,” as in the Democratic party. As for that cold assessment… I want Democrats to hold the line on Comey and Russia and a lot more. Just because they don’t have the majority, doesn’t mean they can’t disrupt, and the Russian issue is one of the most important issues facing America today. If this is just about Hillary… well, I’ve never said Hillary is blameless, of course, and yes, she made mistakes. Are you going to sit there and say that Donald Trump didn’t make mistakes too? Basically, while I agree with parts of Schumer’s sentiment, I also think he should stop and think about how this is going to play. Because this is how Emperor Bigly reacted this morning:
After 1 year of investigation with Zero evidence being found, Chuck Schumer just stated that "Democrats should blame ourselves,not Russia."
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 24, 2017
So why aren't the Committees and investigators, and of course our beleaguered A.G., looking into Crooked Hillarys crimes & Russia relations?
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 24, 2017
Sleazy Adam Schiff, the totally biased Congressman looking into "Russia," spends all of his time on television pushing the Dem loss excuse!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 24, 2017
The tweets of a madman. Chuck Schumer should be giving interviews about how Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by 2.9 million. Or that Dems are always going to hold the line on Russia, no matter what. Instead, Schumer gave Bigly the Unhinged an opening.
Photos courtesy of Getty.
Baby fists is obsessed with Hilary Clinton. Bizarre.
It’s almost like he knows she won.
Yes
It drives him nuts that she won the popular vote.
It’s classic deflection.
There are no words, except lock him up. Lock them all up. The worse president in my lifetime, and I have been living a long, long time. This is just 😜.
The poop is getting closer and closer to the fan blades….
I SO miss “my” America. Come back soon reliable, admirable, adorable USA. Best from Hamburg, Germany.
I miss it too. Most of us do. We appreciate anyone who cares
in a Batman’s voice “BUT HILLARY IS NOT PRESIDENT!”
I’m glad Schumer finally came out and admitted the truth about the losing strategy that the Democrats have stubbornly been clinging to since before the election. The first step in solving a problem is admitting that you have one.
If they want to turn that into something that sways voters, they’re going to have to do more than sit back and assume people are going to vote for them because “why would you vote republican?”. That’s not a strategy, that’s laziness and it just confirms people’s worst theories about the party – that we’re entitled jerks who behave as if we are owed votes instead of earning them.
I agree but now is not the time to give the idiot ammo. Perhaps he should’ve worked harder on that stupid slogan the DNC just rolled out. I agree its not enough to say GOP is worse. That’s not a base building strategy and it make POCs stay home in enough margins to make a difference. Obviously they haven’t learned so I have zero hope they will inspire people to vote next year Which is sad because there is more engagement now than ever before.
Indeed. The Democrats have to find their way back to their working class/lower middle class base. Trump won those people because he talked about job security and low cost medical insurance, and rebuilding our infrastructure–these are traditional Democratic Party issues. Trump talked about them, but the greater Republican Party has no intention of delivering anything but Billionaire tax relief. The Republicans are really struggling with the fact that the ACA moved the goalposts–most Americans believe that health insurance is a right-that’s a mammoth sea change! The Democrats should be owning these issues–for instance: incentives for retaining manufacturing jobs in the US, real proposals for fixing the ACA, real proposals for infrastructure redevelopment–where are the policies that speak to those concerns that they can sell to the American people.
And Hillary was great a policy, but also foolishly secretive, standoffish with the press, a poor manager, and generally terrible at interacting with basic human beings. She wasn’t a good candidate; lots of people really dislike her and she didn’t help herself at all.
The Russian Connection must be investigated, but average people care about their own economic concerns, not the machinations of a foreign power that they don’t really understand.
except the dems DON’T have to court the working middle class. The only middle class base trump won was white. Those people will never overwhelmingly swing to the left so they are courting a base that will never go their way. That’s the same dumb strategy Bernie tried and still believes in but it won’t work.
Cause guess who you alienate courting the white working class…the rest of the DNC base. Made up of minorities and women…who carry the DNC to wins constantly. However, their don’t vote because trump is bad strategy led to their key base staying home more than 2012. If the DNC can work in an economic policy that also includes the POC working class (people that are always forgotten in this equation) it will be a different story. So far I have not seen this in action.
People who have actually worked with Hillary over the years disagree. She has a reputation for actually listening to people of diverse views. People with various political labels end up liking her and appreciating the way she works hard and prepares thoroughly and actually listens.
And she did talk about policy in detail. That was just drowned out by the Trump circus. I wonder what would have happened if the Fairness doctrine requiring equal time on media were still in effect.
The incredibly active disinformation campaigns also had a serious impact, and not just from Fox News. She was the subject of outright lies, and people tend to assume lies are truth if repeated often enough. If she really were a crook, then the Republicans would have been able to come up with something more than being married to an unfaithful husband. They certainly tried hard enough for decades, but there just wasn’t anything there. At some point, you have to realize the smoke doesn’t mean fire, it just means people with profits to lose are throwing a lot of smoke bombs. This all started with attempts at health insurance reform in the 1990s. It’s ridiculous to think that the Clintons were so powerful that they could cover up crimes in the face of endless investigations by people who hated them.
And getting at least three million votes more than Trump is hardly running a losing campaign. 80,000 votes different in a handful of states would have given her the Presidency. That’s within machine error limits. Lack of paper backup and blockage of hand recounts means we will never know the true final vote totals. The fact that Trump immediately moved to block recounts tells me that something was being covered up.
Hillary did well with lower income people.
The average dedicated Trump voter was quite comfortably and solidly middle class/upper middle class. Their average income was more than anybody in my family (including me) ever made. Most of them actually were not financially hurting.
Trump appealed to their fears and prejudices, and it worked. Because he had been on tv, people had the illusion that they knew him well – just name recognition alone counts a lot for American voters. Plus many people voted Republican out of long established habit, especially since they believed the barrage of lies told about Hillary. Plus I would not discount the clearly expressed belief by many that a woman should not be President. We are way behind the rest of the world in such matters.
We have a long history of various prejudices here in the US and Trump tapped into all of them. He brought out the worst in us. He was an effective demagogue. It worked because too many American voters are susceptible to con men like Trump (helpful hint: if a guy refuses to give details and says “just trust me” — don’t), can’t apply simple logic, don’t check out claims by politicians, and are ignorant themselves of how our government actually operates. An amazing number of people are still making up their minds when they walk into the voting booth, even in an election like 2016. Just look at how many Trump voters are still confused about the fact that Obamacare and the ACA are the same thing. They are not thinking about details, just responding to emotional images evoked by a guy they already knew from tv.
I doubt that any eligible Democrat would have had a chance in 2016. Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden would have been eaten alive, the smear campaigns would have been enormous if either of them were nominated. The disinformation campaigns from various sources were different from anything I’ve ever seen before in both intensity and sheer volume.
Agreed with a lot of the comments here. I voted for Hillary and was totally shocked and gutted that she lost. And yes, I think a lot of that had to due with sexism and misinformation, etc. But that’s the battle that we have to fight now. We can’t just yell about racism, sexism or bigotry because the republican base has already shown that they don’t care about that. We have to take a hard, honest look at all the factors that played into 2016 and we have to make sure that we have a message that people can actually understand and get excited about. I’m not sure this “new” platform will do that – and if it leaves POC out, then that’s another mistake. But we absolutely cannot bury our heads in the sand and refuse to take a hard look at everything we did to get here. By saying “it’s not democrats – it’s republicans” we’re basically just legitimizing their electoral-college-win.
Harry Reid was the best. When he got on the senate floor and insinuated that Mitt Romney had not paid taxes in over 15 years, i almost fainted. He then went and did interviews saying that, someone told someone, who told him about the taxes. As much as I love Barack Obama, Harry Reid gave his campaign the winning stratergy in 2012.
This man belongs in a mental hospital not the White House.
He needs to go there bigly and he can afford to pay the hospital bills himself.
I think we need to revisit the original diagnosis of Donald Trump, that he is a malignant narcissist. To the narcissist, threats like these to his self-image are existential. He sees Russia, Hillary, the Democrsts, news media, even some Republicans first & foremost as threat to his narrative of winning, of being the top playground bully. He doesn’t see Russia interference a threat to Democracy, but a threat to him.From the first day, it has all been about his ego and winning.
The hideous spirit of Roy Cohn is alive and well.
Why does trump hate Hillary Clinton so much? Weren’t they friends at one time and I think the Clintons attended his wedding to Melania. His hatred for Barack Obama comes down to racism in my view and how he wants to erase his legacy. But Hillary I don’t get the obsession, it is scary how he refuses to let it go. Everyday he mentions her name with such hatred. It is almost like she refused his advances and he wants her to pay.
He is misogynistic and she is a clever woman .
We have video of Trump not so long ago praising Hillary, saying how smart and competent she is. He and his kids and son-in-law were registered Democrats until he started seriously running for President. I suspect Trump wasn’t really into voting (in a documentary following him around on Election Day before he was running, he acted like he had never done it before….) and I wonder what will happen if his voting history is publicized as his pet commission wants to do for all of us. But if he did vote when Hillary was running for Senator, I’m sure he voted for her.
Trump really doesn’t have a history with the Republicans, making it even more baffling that they are accepting him as the “head of the Republican Party”. He obviously has no strong connection with them, they were just the source of some campaign funding. He feels no loyalty to the Republicans and will happily throw any of them under the bus when it suits his purposes. He doesn’t care what happens to the Party – once he’s done, it can collapse and he won’t shed a tear. They’ve made quite the deal with the devil.
Trump also has no history of being a real political or social conservative. Quite the contrary, actually, if you look at his statements from a few years ago.
Trump just says whatever he thinks people want to hear. That’s why he so easily contradicts himself all the time.
He can’t get over losing the popular vote . A woman winning it makes it worse in his mind. Now that it being shown that the Russians meddling is why he was elected as the president, it’s embarrassing him that we know he wouldn’t have won without their help
What a sad, small man. Time to move on and maybe do one of those things he allegedly would do, just to save face. But it’s not like it matters, his voters would follow him regardless, because that’s their way of sticking it to those who elected a man of color, how dare they let that happen.