Three famous quotes explain the inevitability of the “Schumer Shutdown” — why it always had to happen, what the Democrats really want, and why it’ll all be over within 10 days.
But first, an observation that illustrates a larger point: The greatest PR mistake Israel made in Gaza was giving a damn about civilian casualties.
By historic standards, an enemy death toll of roughly 65,000 after 720+ days of intense urban warfare is preposterously low. (That statistic, by the way, is self-reported from Hamas, which has every incentive to inflate its numbers, and makes no distinction between civilian and military casualties.)
It’s especially low for warfare in a high-density region like Gaza, where the population is about 2.1 million.
The siege of Leningrad in World War II had over a million civilian casualties. The month-long battle for Manila between America and Japan killed over 100,000 Filipino civilians. The Allied bombing of Germany killed between 350,000 and 500,000 civilians. And the March 1945 firebombing of Tokyo killed 100,000 civilians… in a single night!
No matter: Israel is guilty of “genocide” for fighting back.
Meanwhile, at any given time in Gaza, there are about 60,000 pregnant women. United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) spokeswoman Tess Ingram claimed that 20,000 Palestinian babies were born over the first 105 days, with a Gazan baby born every 10 minutes. After 720+ days, that’s approximately 140,000 new Gazans.
This is the only “genocide” in world history where the birthrate is DOUBLE the deathrate!
Which is why, from a purely Machiavellian perspective, Israel's best move would have been to unleash the full fury of its military might on Gaza from the get-go, decimating Hamas — and all the women and children it hides behind — in order to end the war ASAP.
Even if it directly led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians!
Hey, if you’re going to be accused of “genocide” either way, a shorter war is the smarter PR tactic.
But Israel didn’t do that because it’s a virtuous, ethical country. It absorbed the (enormous) public relations hit, because the moral edict of preserving life — including the enemy’s life — outweighed the PR benefit. Such is the burden of a Judeo-Christian nation.
Some things matter more than PR.
And this brings us to Sen. Chuck Schumer and the government shutdown. He, too, values something more than PR.
Money and power!
The Hill gave its perspective on the Schumer Shutdown this morning:
The current shutdown fight can’t be understood without reference to what happened during a funding standoff in March.
Back then, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) decided to accommodate Republicans in keeping the government open, fearful that a shutdown would give Trump pretext to cut government even more than he was already doing.
[…]
But the Schumer decision to go along with the GOP was massively unpopular with a liberal base that, then and now, sees Trump as a danger to democracy itself. It also caused significant angst between Senate Democrats and their counterparts in the House, who generally wanted a harder line.
This time around, Schumer — who is himself looking over his shoulder at the possibility of a primary challenge from progressive standard-bearer Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) — is under pressure to put up far more of a fight.
Exactly correct: The party’s progressive base — and more importantly, its progressive donors — have lost faith in the Democratic Party. Its reputation is in the toilet.
After his party deceived supporters about Joe Biden’s senility (and blew billions on Kamala Harris), Schumer needed to reestablish his political bona fides because right now, ultra-wealthy liberal donors view cutting checks to the DNC similarly to setting money on fire.
And they won’t reopen their wallets until they see some kind of fighting spirit.
The Democratic National Committee has fallen far behind in the cash race.
After a brutal 2024 election and several months into rebuilding efforts under new party leadership, the DNC wildly trails the Republican National Committee by nearly every fundraising metric. By the end of June, the RNC had $80 million on hand, compared to $15 million for the DNC.
[…]
And the gap — nearly twice as large as it was at this stage in Donald Trump’s first presidency — has only grown in recent months, a POLITICO analysis of campaign finance data found, fueled by several distinct factors.
Major Democratic donors have withheld money this year amid skepticism about the party’s direction, while the small-dollar donors who have long been a source of strength are not growing nearly enough to make up the gap. And the party has quickly churned through what money it has raised in the first half of the year, including spending more than $15 million this year to pay off lingering expenses from Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign.
The DNC has less cash this summer than it did at any point in the last five years. [emphasis added]
As the Dems’ leader in the Senate, Chuck Schumer is responsible for greasing palms, padding coffers, and raising money. Something’s gotta give.
Prediction: Within 72 hours, the DNC will launch a fundraising campaign based on the government shutdown. (If I’m wrong, I’ll eat a monkey on national TV.)
Recommended: The Hamas-ification of the Democratic Party
Schumer’s other dilemma is even bigger than money: The #1 goal of EVERY career politician is to be reelected, and he’s in clear and present danger of getting primaried by AOC. He can’t stave off her challenge without changing the status quo.
Even if it means fighting a war that’s a PR loser.
Which is why Senate Democrats led a filibuster that shut down the government, despite an overwhelming majority of Americans objecting to it. The New York Times released a poll that asked voters if they agreed or disagreed with the following statement: “The Democrats should shut down the government if their demands are not met.”
Only 27% of registered voters agreed!
The New York Times’ follow-up question asked if Americans agreed or disagreed with the inverse: “The Democrats should not shut down the government, even if their demands are not met.”
A lopsided 65% of registered voters agreed!
(It’s also worth noting the New York Times’ poll overcounted Democrats: Despite President Trump winning a majority of votes in 2024, the Times polled an even number of Trump and Harris voters.)
Just do the math: Out of the 45 Democrats in the Senate, 43 voted to shut down the government. That’s 96%. Meanwhile, out of the 53 Republicans in the Senate, 52 voted to keep the government open. That’s 98%.
This is a PR war that the Dems can’t win.
I promised you three quotes. The first two reveal Schumer’s true motivation: Clarence Darrow’s “Lost causes are the only ones worth fighting for” and Don Ohlmeyer’s “The answer to all your questions is money.”
It’s not about winning. It’s all about money.
The third quote is from doctor and author Atul Gawande, who served on President Biden’s COVID-19 advisory board:
And in a war that you cannot win, you don’t want a general who fights to the point of total annihilation. You don’t want Custer. You want Robert E. Lee, someone who knows how to fight for territory that can be won and how to surrender it when it can’t, someone who understands that the damage is greatest if all you do is battle to the bitter end.
—Atul Gawande, Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End
And this is why the Democrats will quickly cave: Schumer isn’t trying to win; he’s proving a point to his donors and his base.
He’s not a field general like Alexander the Great at the Battle of Gaugamela — or Napoleon at the Battle of Austerlitz.
Chuck Schumer is Robert E. Lee at the Appomattox Court House.
He’s less like a field general and more like the Washington Generals.
Prediction: The Republicans will make a minor concession and Schumer will surrender within 10 days — bragging to his base and donors, of course.
And life will continue.
That’s all this was about anyway.
The Schumer Shutdown is here. Rather than put the American people first, Chuck Schumer and the radical Democrats forced a government shutdown to demand healthcare for illegals. They own this.
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