Dems' bitter debate: Fight vs. fold
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Sen. Schumer and Rep. Ocasio-Cortez in 2021. Photo: Jeenah Moon/Bloomberg via Getty Images
The most urgent divide within the Democratic Party is less ideological than tactical: if the Dems stand and fight on every front or pick their battles.
Why it matters: The split is epitomized by the feud over whether Democrats should have let the government shut down on Friday, but it's bigger than that. The base is bracing for a four-year political war against a power-hungry president, but their representatives aren't all in battle formation.
- As Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker's chief of staff Anne Caprara put it, it's "team fight" vs. team "cave," and "team fight stretches across the ideological spectrum."
- The other side of the debate argues that fighting for the sake of fighting — including by triggering a shutdown that empowers President Trump to wreak further havoc across the federal government — is a fool's errand.
Driving the news: The most glaring example of that split is between two prominent New York Democrats.
- Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and nine members of his caucus voted to advance the GOP-led funding bill on Friday despite intense pressure to oppose it.
- Schumer torched both Trump and the continuing resolution (CR) in an NYT op-ed explaining his decision but argued that Trump would only seize more power in a shutdown and distract attention from the policy failures that are hurting his popularity.
Friction point: Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez argued Schumer's "almost unthinkable" move caused a "deep sense of outrage and betrayal" across the Dems' ideological spectrum — and pointedly didn't rule out a primary challenge against him.
- "The strength we have is in this moment," Ocasio-Cortez argued, stressing that this was a rare case where Republicans needed Democratic votes and that providing them for this bill would only "empower" Trump and Elon Musk.
Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) also called on Democrats to buck Schumer and "listen to the women" in the party pushing a different approach.
- Every House Democrat but one voted against the CR, and younger members have been particularly outraged by Schumer's more cautious approach.
- It's not just the party's left flank. Susan Rice, the former top Obama and Biden adviser who has had her share of run-ins with progressives, called on Schumer to "grow a spine" and on all "self-respecting" Dems to refuse to "roll over and play dead."
The other side: Democratic strategist James Carville called on Democrats to do exactly that — "roll over and play dead" — last month, letting Republicans "crumble beneath their own weight and make the American people miss us."
- Sen John Fetterman (D-Pa.) backed the CR and has shown willingness to work with Trump on some issues.
- Gov. Gavin Newsom has been hosting chummy interviews with MAGA warriors, including an interview with Steve Bannon in which he expressed surprise that Republicans were willing to go along with the CR.
- By contrast, Pritzker, a potential 2028 rival of Newsom's, is building his brand as an anti-MAGA warrior. He tweeted Friday that Democrats "have the power to stop the cessation of power" to Trump and Musk, and must oppose the CR.
Yes, but: Influential left-leaning blogger Matt Yglesias made the exact opposite argument — that Dems had no plausible path to constraining Trump and Musk in the CR fight and thus the "responsible" thing to do was keep the government open.
- "If you want to stop Republicans from doing bad things you need to win races," he wrote.
What we're watching: The grassroots are team fight all the way, but team cave believes they'll ultimately be vindicated in 2026 and beyond for steering a more prudent course. That's if they don't tear each other apart first.
