I posted this on Facebook last week after the midterms, and a gay Facebook friend replied. I've never met him in person, and hadn't known his politics before; our connection is that we're both gay literati. He commented:
If he [Jeffries, that is] doesn't look for common ground, he gets nothing accomplished. That's what happens when you don't have at least 60 votes in the Senate and/or the presidency. I think a lot of fellow liberals don't actually know how government works.
I restrained myself, not wanting to go overboard, not wanting to alienate him needlessly, and didn't reply to his comment until this morning. We'd already clashed mildly under a post of his, in which he cautioned against premature excitement after the undeniably exciting midterm outcome. I commented that I agreed with him, but another reason for caution is that Congressional Democrats aren't monolithic, and a significant number of them will vote with Republicans on many issues, such as Israel. Even if the Democrats had won a technically veto-proof majority last week, in practice it would depend on non-existent Democratic unanimity. To my surprise, he replied sharply, in the same terms he lectured me under my post, even though I thought I was agreeing with him. Liberal Democrats, go figger.
This morning I replied:
Well. I'm not a Democrat or a liberal. I don't herd well, and of course I don't speak for anyone but myself. The point here was that Jeffries was a bit premature, and that he doesn't speak for a sizable chunk of incoming Democratic representatives. He's not Speaker yet, and in order to achieve that he's going to have look for common ground with them. A lot of liberal Democrats don't actually know how government works. We'll see how it plays out.
From what I see, it's likely that Jeffries will become Speaker. He claims he already has the votes he needs, and maybe that's true, though I wouldn't assume it's true just because he says so. He and my liberal Democratic friend seem to be forgetting that the Democratic successes were the result of voting against Trump, not for Democrats. The party remains unpopular among voters, and Jeffries himself is approved by 26 percent, disapproved by 47 percent. He's less popular than Mike Johnson, the present Speaker. Chuck Schumer is in the same basement, 24 percent approval versus 54 percent approval.
Their advocates have been pointing out that they presided over last week's Blue Tsunami. They also presided over the disastrous 2024 rout of Democrats. It might just be that they weren't the deciding factor this time. The candidates Schumer endorsed lost their primaries, and one of them famously defected to the Republicans just before the general. (Schumer was furious that she broke party discipline, not that she embraced bigotrty.) Schumer's fans are saying things like this:
This isn't far from Donald Trump's avidity for shiny fake-gold-plated trophies. (More than half-seriously I've suggested that Congressional Democrats could work with Trump by presenting him with a fake gold trophy every time they send him a bill to sign. It might just tip the scale, he can't resist those baubles.) But what it definitely isn't, is an argument for making Schumer the Majority Leader unless you think, as Carlson clearly does, that the position is a participation trophy. Is this a historic tipping point, a struggle for democracy against MAGA authoritarianism as I've been hearing, or are we stroking the egos of elderly gerontocrats?
Notice that this isn't a matter of ideological purity (an accusation my friend made in another comment under his cautionary post), it's about practical politics. Can Schumer and Jeffries do the job? "It's their turn" isn't an answer to that question. But it's what their advocates have to offer. The question is whether they are interested in finding common ground with other Democrats. I'm used to liberal Democrats throwing tantrums when they don't get their way. They'll happily sabotage progress rather than give up their prerogatives. As I told my friend, we'll see how it plays out.
P.S. The other day NPR played a brief clip of the newly-elected Democratic Senator from Kansas, United Methodist pastor Adam Hamilton, saying he wouldn't support Chuck Schumer for Majority Leader because his voters see Schumer as "divisive" and "farther to the left." This doesn't fit my friend's conception of resistance to Schumer coming from wild-eyed liberals, but then Bernie Sanders also opposes Schumer, and while my friend might want to claim that Sanders doesn't understand how government works, that won't fly. The situation is a lot more complex than my friend's worldview can grasp.
