I wanted to flag for you what I think is an important shift in the assumptions and behaviors of key institutionalist or middle-of-the-road Democrats. Here I don’t mean ideology so much as behavior, the critical spectrum between fight and norms.
Four days ago, Chuck Schumer or, most likely, someone on his social media team, posted a screen shot of an AP headline that read “Senate heads home with no deal to speed confirmations as irate Trump tells Schumer to ‘go to hell.'”
The headline was a pretty accurate description of what happened. This was a fight over deals to speed judicial nominations, whether Republicans would give way to Trump’s demands to end “blue slips,” which allows Democratic senators to reject judicial nominations in their states. This tweet on Bluesky was followed by a number of others of similar import, along with a few quick snippet videos of Schumer talking to the camera, the upshot of which was essentially: We won, Trump caved, Trump sad, Thank you for your attention to this matter. I’m highlighting it here not simply or primarily because Democrats stiffed Trump on his demands, though that is a plus and something new. Instead, it’s that Schumer/Schumer’s team is pushing out this concentrated message that they not only didn’t cave but that Trump got mad — that Trump was pissed that he’d been handed a defeat. Democrats want to see Democratic elected officials fighting with Donald Trump and winning at least some of the time. And since it’s often hard to know in the midst of various policy and procedural details what constitutes “winning,” the best sign is Trump getting mad. That is the world we are in.
As TPM’s Emine Yücel explained for us yesterday, Democrats are at least signaling they’re going to go to war with Trump in the coming big budgetary showdown that will arrive next month. Now to be clear, put me down as a decided skeptic on whether Chuck Schumer is the person who can lead Senate Democrats as they need to be led in the Trump era. But coming off the March budget showdown debacle, at a minimum, Schumer and his media advisors are now clear on the kind of legislative leader Democrats are demanding and are very focused on portraying him as that guy. Are they ready for what’s coming in September? I’m not really sure. But I think they have a pretty clear sense of what’s being demanded of them.
Then we have what now seems like a brewing nationwide battle over mid-decade gerrymandering and whether blue states will match Texas’s attempt to squeeze a few more seats out of a hyper-aggressive gerrymandering of the state. I’ve seen responses from three governors of big blue states: California, New York and Illinois. These three are an apt mix of Democrats on that spectrum of fight to norms. JB Pritzker has always been pretty hard on the fight front. Gavin Newsom is kind of in the middle. And Kathy Hochul is … well, as a New York state resident I’ve found her to be an accidental governor (she inherited the job when Andrew Cuomo resigned) and generally ineffectual and embarrassing. But when asked at a press conference whether New York Democrats would gerrymander in kind, Hochul said, “This is a war. We are at war. And that’s why the gloves are off and I say, bring it on.” In another comment she even claimed she wanted to get rid of New York’s independent redistricting commission, saying, “I’m tired of fighting this fight with my hand tied behind my back” and insisted on “fighting fire with fire.” She expanded on the point, “We’re sick and tired of being pushed around when other states don’t have the same aspirations that we always have,” Hochul said. “And I hold those dear. But I cannot ignore that the playing field has changed dramatically, and shame on us if we ignore that fact and cling tight to the vestiges of the past. That era is over — Donald Trump eliminated it forever.”
This is, to put it mildly, not the Kathy Hochul we’re used to at all.
Now, sometimes politicians surprise you and they’re made of different stuff then you thought. But I don’t get the sense I really misjudged Kathy Hochul. Whether or not Hochul has had the kind of gut realization many of us have had about the political moment we’re in, I’m pretty certain that she sees clearly what Democratic voters are demanding. Like any politician, she doesn’t want to be caught serving up yesterday’s product to today’s voters. It’s basic self-preservation.
Pritzker and Newsom appear to be in a similar place on trying to match Texas Republicans. But that surprises me less. And that’s the general point I’m making here. It’s not that I’m suddenly a huge fan of Hochul or Schumer. It’s that their shifts are the most telling. When Kathy Hochul is talking about going to “war” in a nationwide, brass-knuckle political fight and Chuck Schumer is going quasi-edge-lord on social media taunting Donald Trump, you know it’s a sea change moment. It’s not because even now you expect the most from these two. It’s because even these two — the most conventional and old school of politicians — clearly see what’s being demanded of them and are trying to get ahead of that wave that is transforming the assumptions about power and political action within the Democratic Party.