Everyone is wrong about Chuck Schumer. The left is wrong, the right is wrong, and you, reader, are especially wrong, because you think a 75-year-old man saying "the issue is not me" is about humility. It's about math.
Here's what happened. The morning after Democrats took the Senate, reporters asked Schumer whether he'd lead the new majority. He dodged. They asked again. He folded like a lawn chair at a Fourth of July picnic.
"OK, again, to repeat the answer, the issue is not me. I'll be re-elected as majority leader. But the issue is focusing on the American people and what they want."
Notice the sentence structure. "The issue is not me." Followed immediately by a sentence entirely about him. That's not a dodge. That's a man reading his own name off the menu and ordering it twice.
Now, the pundits will tell you there's a rebellion. Five newly elected Democrats said during their campaigns they won't back him: Adam Hamilton of Kansas, Juliana Stratton of Illinois, Troy Jackson of Maine, Peggy Flanagan of Minnesota and Abdul El-Sayed of Michigan. Flanagan said it again Wednesday: "I think it's time for new leadership."
Adorable. They won on Tuesday and staged a coup on Wednesday, which is faster than most of them will get a parking spot.
The rebels are wrong, too. Schumer needs a simple majority of a caucus that will have somewhere between 54 and 56 senators. Five votes against him is not a revolt. It's a book club. Nobody has stepped up to run against him. The "new generation" is fully prepared to take power from Chuck Schumer as soon as Chuck Schumer finishes using it.
And the vote is a secret ballot in early December. Secret. So five freshmen can vote "new leadership" with their whole chest, nobody will ever know who flinched, and Chuck will be standing at the podium in January thanking the new class of senators, and the five rebels will clap politely, because nobody can prove they didn't.
Republicans, meanwhile, will tell you this proves Democrats are a gerontocracy. Also wrong. A gerontocracy implies a plan. Schumer has been leader since 2017, when Harry Reid retired. The plan is that nobody else retires.
Then there's the victory lap. Schumer said Tuesday's results were "a generational remake of the Senate map that is going to change America not only now, but on into the future." The generational remake will be led by the same generation. That's not a remake. That's a director's cut with the same actor.
He also told voters, "These voters did not give us the majority so we can do whatever we want." Correct, and very generous of him to announce the rule right before announcing he'd decided who leads without asking the five people who just asked him not to.
My favorite part was when he said Democrats had "five words for the American people": "Relief is on the way." I counted. It's five. So the man can count to five. He just can't count five votes as a problem.
So yes, the issue is not Chuck Schumer. The issue is that Chuck Schumer has decided what the issue is. And the issue, once again, is not him.
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The Demorat is a satire publication. This article is parody and commentary based on real news reports; jokes, exaggerations and fictional elements are not factual claims. Quotes attributed to real people are drawn from published reporting.
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