Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer is used to having the progressive wing of the Democratic Party fuming at him—hardly a surprise given he’s an avatar for pro–Wall Street centrism. But in the wake of his disastrous handling of the budget crisis, which ended with Senate Democrats throwing away the little leverage they have in order to agree to a budget whose terms were negotiated only among Republicans, Schumer is finding that even his allies in the party are turning on him. The growing calls for Schumer to step down as Senate minority leader, combined with a whispering campaign among congressional Democrats to encourage Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to primary him when he comes up for reelection in 2028, have both an immediate and long-term cause.

The immediate cause is the budget fiasco, which ended with Republicans openly gloating that they got everything they wanted. NBC Reporter Sahil Kapur captured the triumphant GOP mood:

Two Republican senators told me tonight this vote shows they can execute the same strategy again—cut Democrats out of the negotiations on a gov’t funding bill, pass it thru the House, and expect Senate Dems to back down and not filibuster it.

“We liked it over here,” one said.

The deeper problem with Schumer, which explains why many in his party are turning on him, is that he doesn’t understand the budget fight as a win not just for Trump but also for congressional Republicans. Schumer, who is 74 years old, has a mindset similar to former president Joe Biden’s. Both are true believers in the cult of bipartisan cooperation—the delusion that Donald Trump is a passing aberration whose extremist politics will fade away and allow Republicans and Democrats to work together once again. In 2019, Biden predicted that once Trump was defeated congressional Republicans would have an “epiphany” and return to political moderation. In truth, the GOP only continued to radicalize after Trump’s election loss, with Trump winning the party’s nomination again in 2024 and enjoying complete dominance over congressional Republicans.

Chuck Schumer is still waiting for Biden’s promised epiphany. In an interview with The New York Times on Sunday, Schumer explained that his strategy was to wait until Trump’s approval rating goes under 40 percent, which will create a new political environment where Senate Republicans will turn on Trump:

We’re gonna keep at it until he goes below 40. Look, I talk to a lot of these Republican legislators. I’ve worked with them. Some of them are Trump devotees. But many of them don’t like him, don’t respect him and worry about what he’s doing to our country. Right now he’s so popular they can’t resist him. I mean, so many of them came to me and said: “I don’t think Hegseth should be defense secretary or R.F.K. should be H.H.S. But Trump wants him. He won.” The Republicans would like to have some freedom from Trump, but they won’t until we bring him down in popularity. That happened with Bush in 2005. It happened with Trump in 2017. When it happens, I am hopeful that our Republican colleagues will resume working with us. And I talk to them. One of the places is in the gym. When you’re on that bike in your shorts, panting away next to a Republican, a lot of the inhibitions come off.

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What Schumer doesn’t realize is that the sweaty gym conversations he has with Republican Senators only reflect the usual bonhomie of old colleagues, not the political realities of modern America. In a polarized society where Trump’s right-wing allies—ranging from Rupert Murdoch to Elon Musk to Jeff Bezos—have the ability to shape media narratives, the locker-room promises of GOP senators are worthless. Even if those senators are sincere about wanting to buck Trump, they live in mortal fear that Musk or some other reactionary billionaire will fund a primary challenge. It’s worth noting that after Donald Trump incited the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, only seven Republican senators were willing to find him guilty in his impeachment trial. 43 GOP Senators found Trump not guilty, which led to his acquittal. If the vast majority of GOP Senators didn’t break with Trump after January 6, why would we expect an epiphany now?

Schumer’s delusions don’t stop at fantasies about a miraculous change of heart among Republican senators. Schumer is equally hallucinatory about the electorate. Representing a safe Democratic state and protected by a deep moat of Wall Street donor money, Schumer doesn’t have to interact with actual voters. Instead, he has invented a fictional couple who serve as his guide to politics. He used to call his imaginary friends “the O’Reillys” but decided that moniker was too ethnic (apparently, Schumer has the 19th-century belief that the Irish are not white). Now, he calls them “the Baileys.”

A 2007 New Yorker profile of Schumer describes his rich imaginative interactions with his made-up pals:

Schumer says that he is accompanied everywhere he goes by two imaginary middle-class friends, who advise him on all manner of middle-class concerns. Their names, until recently, were Joe and Eileen O’Reilly. “For the book’s sake, we wanted them to be more national,” Schumer said, “so they became the Baileys.” The Baileys live in Massapequa, in Nassau County, a town that is invariably known on Long Island as “Matzoh-Pizza.” The Baileys are both forty-five years old: Joe works for an insurance company, Eileen is a part-time employee at a doctor’s office.

In the 17 years since this profile was published Schumer continues to talk to the Baileys. He mentioned them in his New York Times interview, discussing how they were worried about crime.

The current anger at Schumer runs across ideological lines within the Democratic Party. Mainstream leaders such as Hakeem Jeffries, Nancy Pelosi, and James Clyburn have all indicated disapproval at the way Schumer handled the budget negotiations.

The situation is now so dire that the move to push Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to primary him has both centrist and progressive support. As CNN reports:

Privately, House Democrats are so infuriated with Schumer’s decision that some have begun encouraging her to run against Schumer in a primary, according to a Democratic member who directly spoke with Ocasio-Cortez about running at the caucus’ policy retreat. Multiple Democrats in the Congressional Progressive Caucus and others directly encouraged Ocasio-Cortez to run on Thursday night after Schumer’s announcement, this member said.

The member said that Democrats in Leesburg were “so mad” that even centrist Democrats were “ready to write checks for AOC for Senate,” adding that they have “never seen people so mad.”

The bad news is that Schumer is not up for reelection until 2028. The good news is that he can resign right now—in fact, he should do that twice. He can resign as Senate minority leader. Among possible replacements, Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy has many points in his favor. He’s a longtime centrist who, unlike Schumer, has adapted to the new reality and realizes that Trumpism requires a much fiercer opposition. This ideological evolution would earn him friends among different factions of the party. Many of Murphy’s colleagues are undergoing the same rethinking about politics, following a path blazed by Bernie Sanders—who would certainly be an improvement on Schumer but shows little interest in wanting the position (and might not be welcome over the small matter of his not actually being a Democrat).

Schumer’s colleagues should also encourage him to resign from the Senate itself. One argument they can make is that in retirement Schumer will have much more time to carry on his chats with the Baileys.