Stop Pleading, Start Threatening

Schumer and Jeffries need to stop playing dead

Earlier this week at Public Notice I wrote a piece about James Comey complying in advance and how that led to Trump’s victory in 2016. As I explain in the piece, Comey feared Republican criticism and pushback if he didn’t make treat the nothingburger Clinton email “scandal” as a somethingburger. He rushed to smear Clinton, and suggest an indictment might be forthcoming, eleven days before the election in hopes of fending off right-wing partisan attacks and Congressional hearings.

Let me say that again. Comey politicized his office, violated norms, and threw the election to Trump, because he feared potential future Congressional hearings.

You might be forgiven for being a little confused here. After all, in our current moment, we’ve all been conditioned to believe that Congress has no power to do anything except rubber stamp presidential edicts and cringe in terror before the One True Legislature known as the Supreme Court. It’s hard to believe that ten years ago, an FBI director fell on his sword, hit himself in the head with an ax, and then lit himself on fire to avoid having to deal with Congress.

But so it was. And so it could be again—if Congressional Democrats could convince themselves to stop sniveling and cringeing long enough to remind political actors that it is a coequal branch of government.

It’s true that Democrats are in the minority and have limited power right now. But (as Comey demonstrates), Congressional influence is not limited to what Congress can do right this second. It extends to what Congress can do in the future. And the intimation of that future can affect executive and judicial decisions now—if, again, Congress is willing to make some fucking threats.

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Stop pleading

Part of the reason Congressional Democrats seem so weak right now is that their entire opposition to Trump has been based on pleading and begging with Congressional Republicans, and with Trump himself, to do the right thing. Occasionally they take a break and instead plead and beg with voters to blame the GOP when they inevitably continue to embrace fascist assholery.

Dems pleading and begging is virtually the entirety of the current shutdown negotiation. In a typical statement, Senate Minority leader Chuck Schumer this week said that Congress could prevent a shutdown, but only if Republicans engage in “serious negotiations.” He added that the deal “depends on Republicans.” Then he boasted that Trump had “first said no” to negotiations, but now had greenlit a meeting, showing that Republicans “feel the heat.”

House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries followed the same script to its ludicrous extreme in a social media post where he chastised Trump for threatening to use federal troops to invade Portland. “The Trump administration’s threat to deploy troops in Portland is unlawful,” Jeffries declared. “Here’s a thought. Focus on protecting the healthcare of the American people.”

The reason that Jeffries and Schumer sound so weak and ridiculous is that they are ceding all agency, all action, all initiative, to Republicans. Schumer tries to claim that Democrats pushed Trump to the negotiating table, but he ends up sounding like he’s desperate for crumbs. Jeffries comes across as even more superfluous as he denounces martial law…and then, rather than offering some sort of resistance to martial law, just whines that Trump should focus on healthcare instead. It’s opposition through hapless wheedling.

Schumer and Jeffries and their defenders would no doubt point out that (as I mentiond above) Congressional Democrats are a minority in both chambers. They don’t have a ton of direct leverage to force Trump to the negotiating table, or to block federal troops from blue cities. To pass anything they need at least some Republican buy in, which is why Schumer occasionally boasts about being friendly with GOP colleagues at the gym. The only way he can even pretend that he has influence is by telling you he sweats along with stronger, more influential people. And if that doesn’t seem inspiring—well, there’s a reason Schumer’s approval is somewhere south of cockroaches and plague.

Start threatening

The thing is, though, that Schumer and Jeffries could wield some influence if they were willing to do so. Trump, his appointees, and even, I’d argue, the Supreme Court are engaged in a sweeping, reckless attack on the Constitution, violating due process, flouting Congressional authority, impounding funds, and generally behaving like they have no accountability to Congress or the American people.

The GOP is getting away with (some of) this because they control all three branches of government. But they will not necessarily control all three branches of government forever. And when Democrats hold the House, or the House and the Senate, or the House and the Senate and the presidency, there may well be a reckoning.

Just for starters, if Trump sends troops into Portland in an unconstitutional declaration of martial law, Democrats could vow to hold hearings, and refer judicial complaints, against everyone involved, from the President, to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, to military leaders who comply, and on to soldiers on the ground who violate the rights of citizens and noncitizens alike.

If you listened to Schumer and Jeffries you would barely know that it’s possible to wield a future majority, or a future return to power as a deterrent. But other Democrats do occasionally acknowledge the possibility. Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker told Trump when the president was thinking about sending National Guard troops to Chicago that, “if you hurt my people, nothing will stop me—not time or political circumstance—from making sure that you face justice under our constitutional rule of law.” California Representative Eric Swalwell warned FCC Commissioner Brandan Carr after Carr’s (failed) efforts to censor Jimmy Kimmel that he’d better “get a lawyer”, because he would face hearings when Democrats controlled the chamber.

You probably noticed that “get a lawyer” sounds a lot more powerful than “negotiate with us?” Similarly, “I will make sure you face justice” is a much more inspiring rallying cry than, “I will ask my gym buddies to be nicer.”

Not only is it more galvanizing to promise to use power instead of begging for the other side to be less mean, it’s also at least potentially more effective. Trump did not send National Guard troops to Chicago, in part because of state and city resistance (though ICE has still been terrorizing the city.) And, again, Comey took extraordinary, foolish, and unethical measures when he worried that Republicans in Congress might investigate his handling of the Clinton emails.

Democrats have decided to be weak as (bad) strategy

Of course, these kinds of promises of future investigations would be more convincing, and more effective, if they were sustained and consistent, and if they were coming from national party leadership. Pritzker and Swalwell are significant figures, but neither of them would be the ones in charge of a potential House majority.

Schumer and Jeffries have not made these kinds of promises of future investigations. That’s a deliberate choice. Democratic congressional leadership doesn’t want to take controversial stands, or promise divisive and controversial hearings. They don’t want to promise anything, because (the reasoning goes) if you promise to take actions against fascist, you may alienate some of those fascists, who might otherwise vote for you because (for example) they are angry at Trump over high prices.

Which is to say, Schumer and Jeffries don’t sound weak by accident. They sound weak on purpose. Their strategy is to perform ineffectuality and wait for Republicans to fuck up. Then people will blame the GOP and vote for Democrats as the only other available option.

The thing is, as an electoral strategy, this isn’t a terrible idea and has in fact worked fairly well. Democrats are overperforming in special election in 2025 by an average of 18 points—more than the 8 point overperformance in 2017, and even more than the 16 point overperformance in 2018. They are also up by about 4.5 points in the current House generic ballot, a strong position for the midterms.

The problem is that electoral wins alone can’t resolve the current fascist assault on the Constitution—not least because the assault is in part on elections themselves. Trump is attempting to gerrymander his way to a House victory. He has in the past attempted a violent coup.

Just as dangerous, Trump and his hackish minions in the executive and on the Supreme Court have launched an escalating assault on democracy; Trump’s trying to seize control of media, use the Justice Department to prosecute political foes, set up a national gestapo to attack those deemed his enemies, levy taxes without Congressional approval, and on and on and on. If Democrats twiddle their thumbs waiting for the next election cycle, they may end up with their thumbs, and their democracy, hacked off before that next election cycle roll around.

Democrats need to start talking like they expect to have power, and more, they need to start talking like they want to have power. They need to promise hearings into Musk and Doge, into ICE, into the FCC, into Trump’s personal finances. They need to start right now declaring the Supreme Court illegitimate and corrupt; they need to say that they will subpoena the justices and hold them in contempt if they do not appear. They need to promise to expand the court. They need to promise to abolish ICE. They need to talk about prosecuting ICE agents and putting them in jail. They need to talk about investigating media figures who bribed Trump and putting them in jail They need to talk about breaking up media oligopolies. They need to put the fear of God into Trump and his minions and allies, and make them wonder, every time they shred the Constitution, whether the Constitution might, at some point, shred them back.

If they don’t promise to hold fascists accountable, they are essentially promising not to hold anyone accountable. By avoiding the question of how they will wield power, by refusing to draw a line, Democrats are saying they do not want to wield power, and that they have no lines. Trump and MAGA continuing in power is terrifying. But it’s also terrifying to contemplate Democrats getting into power and following the Biden/Garland path of running from fascist accountability in the name of a misguided electoral pragmatism—a strategy that leads, inevitably, to more, and worse, fascist victories.

If we want a democracy, we have to fight for it. And fighting for it now means in part promising to use power when we get it. It’s past time for Schumer and Jeffries to start saying, explicitly, what they’re going to do with their majorities, and who they’re going to hold accountable. It’s time to stop playing dead before the fascists ensure that you’re no longer playing.