Chuck Schumer Keeps Leading Senate Democrats to the Slaughter

I n the sort of direct and unblenching language that is usually reserved for descriptions of Republican losses, NBC News reports that the Democratic Party is planning to beclown itself again in the Senate. “Democrats,” the report explains, “are headed for a show vote on abortion that risks dividing their party, depressing their base, and looks all but certain to be defeated.”

But other than that, how was the play, Mr. Schumer?

As historians have long wondered at the remarkable cosmic chance that led to John Lennon and Paul McCartney existing at the same time and in the same place, so political spectators might someday come to marvel at the rank misfortune that has led the Democratic Party to be saddled simultaneously with Joe Biden as president and Chuck Schumer as Senate majority leader. Week in and week out, Schumer steps on rakes, and when there are no rakes left to step on, he has them flown in en masse. Effective caucus managers understand that there are only two good reasons to bring up a bill: to pass it, or to have it fail in a way that unites their side, divides their opponents, and advances their agenda in the court of public opinion. Almost without exception, Chuck Schumer doesn’t bring up bills for either of those reasons. He is, in his own way, a marvel.

This week’s show vote is destined to be a disaster for the Democrats. Not only will the bill fail, infuriating the party’s base; it will fail while putting the party’s vulnerable senators on the record in defense of a remarkably extreme position that, were it to be advanced, would also require the abolition of the filibuster. At present, there is a great deal of confusion among voters as to what overturning Roe v. Wade would actually do. Given the right set of circumstances, that confusion could plausibly redound to the Democrats’ benefit. Holding a televised vote to legalize abortions in all circumstances during all nine months of a pregnancy, while destroying the Senate in the bargain, is unlikely to yield such a result.

And then there’s the tactical problem. As it happens, the Democrats have the votes neither to pass their abortion bill itself (Senator Joe Manchin opposes it on the merits, as do Senators Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski) nor to kill the filibuster as a prerequisite for passing it. But suppose that they did. What would the endgame be, exactly? With the filibuster gone — or bypassed solely for bills pertaining to abortion — whatever law the Democrats passed this year would be wiped away the moment the Republicans next took control of Washington, D.C. It is possible that, if it came to it, the GOP would be unable to garner enough legislative support for a full national ban on abortion. (For the record, I think that such a ban, like the Democrats’ dreams of a federal law that did the opposite, would be flatly unconstitutional.) But it is not possible that, if it came to it, the GOP would be unable to garner enough legislative support to repeal the Democrats’ bill and return the issue to the states. Does Chuck Schumer really want to kill a key check on the Senate majority’s power to put an unconstitutional bill on the books for a handful of years at most?

Much as it might hate to admit it, the Democratic Party is in desperate need of a Mitch McConnell — a leader who mixes genuine institutionalism with a well-timed killer instinct, understands what motivates all parts of his broad and rambunctious caucus, assiduously avoids fighting battles that yield nothing but catharsis, and is not constantly looking over his shoulder in fear of a challenge from his younger members.

Every now and again, McConnell finds his Agincourt, and musters the rhetoric and resolve to match it, but he grasps almost instinctively that if he does so every week, his audience will soon stop listening. Chuck Schumer does not understand this. Indeed, as majority leader, Schumer has now been bullied into leading two quixotic fights in the space of just four months. In January, Schumer brought up a bill that he described as “vital,” “sacrosanct,” and even “as old as the Republic itself.” “We must do everything,” Schumer said when introducing it. We must “put everyone — everyone — on the record.” He did, the bill failed, the filibuster survived, those who had been put “on the record” suffered for it, and the issue that was supposedly worth this political cost has barely been thought about since.

There’s a lesson there — but Schumer clearly hasn’t learned it.