The Democratic leader’s cave-in makes it all too clear: It’s time to clean house in the Senate.

Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer leaves a Senate Democratic caucus meeting at the US Capitol on November 9, 2025.

Last Tuesday, voters all over the United States sent a resounding message: They were sick of Donald Trump, sick of the Republican Party’s attacks on what remains of the American welfare state (seen most clearly in the ongoing government shutdown as well as threats to gut Medicaid), and wanted their elected representatives to do something about the affordability crisis making their lives harder. This anger underscored not only the Democratic landslides in Virginia and New Jersey but also democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani’s historic victory in New York City’s mayoral election.

So now, less than a week after voters loudly repudiated Trump, how are Senate Democrats—including minority leader Chuck Schumer—responding? By negotiating a shutdown deal with Republicans that will give Trump almost everything he wants, entrench the GOP’s austerity budget, and deepen the affordability crisis. Democrats might ask themselves how it is that they won the election but ended up giving away the store—or, rather, they might ask themselves that if they were not so practiced at snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

To be as fair as possible to Democratic leaders, they always had a weak hand on the shutdown. Republicans control the House of Representatives and need only eight Democrats in the Senate to override a filibuster and clinch a deal. Further, Trump is almost uniquely depraved in his willingness to inflict pain on poor people (including by cutting SNAP benefits, a policy that directly increases hunger) and throwing the country’s infrastructure into chaos (with airline services starting to be curtailed as air traffic controllers were laid off).

But even allowing for the fact that they were fighting an uphill battle, the extent to which the Democrats have capitulated is remarkable. On Sunday, Jonathan Karl of ABC News reported that

there will be more than enough Democrats to vote in favor of re-opening the government tonight. They’ll get a promise of a vote on health care—but nothing more. Most of the Democratic leadership will likely vote against it.

The bill will extend funding until Jan 31 for most of the government and include three year-long appropriations bills—leg branch, military construction/Veterans affairs and Agriculture (including SNAP).

So, to summarize, at a moment when the elections had left Republicans on the ropes, Democrats caved, in exchange for a couple of months of government funding and a vote on healthcare that they are bound to lose, if Republicans even hold one. It’s hard to see that as much of a deal at all. There’s nothing in the deal that couldn’t have been secured before the shutdown. By signing on, a small cohort of Democratic senators are validating the cynical view that the shutdown was simply a stunt to hurt Republicans in the off-cycle elections.

Many Democratic lawmakers acknowledged that the deal does not come close to fulfilling the party’s promise to defend healthcare spending. House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries said, “I don’t think that the House Democratic Caucus is prepared to support a promise, a wing and a prayer, from folks who have been devastating the health care of the American people for years.” Representative Greg Casar, chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said the deal was a “betrayal of millions of Americans counting on Democrats to fight for them. Republicans want health care cuts. Accepting nothing but a pinky promise from Republicans isn’t a compromise—it’s capitulation.” Senator Elizabeth Warren described the deal as “a mistake.”