Fans of The Simpsons have known for decades the meaning of the German word schadenfreude, taking pleasure in someone else’s pain. Many conservatives felt that emotion on Sunday night, when the agreement by eight Senate Democrats to end the “Schumer shutdown” and reopen the federal government prompted widespread gnashing of teeth among the left.
Beyond taking pleasure in Democrats’ misery, conservatives, not to mention elected Republican leaders, should use the sturm und drang on the left as a cautionary tale. Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., promised Democrats a vote on extending enhanced Obamacare subsidies when the government reopens — a fair enough request. But if Republicans decide to give Democrats the votes to enact the measure, they will split their political base just like Democrats have done.
Left's Uncontrolled Rage
On the one hand, I understand the anger among the left at the Democrat Party for reopening the government without getting substantive concessions on lawmakers’ chief demand, i.e., an extension of the enhanced subsidies. On the other hand, I don’t understand the focus on Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., for somehow not keeping the eight Senate Democrats in line to prevent them from cutting a deal with Republicans.
What exactly do these leftists think Schumer could have done to these rank-and-file lawmakers who decided to defy their own leadership? Lock them out of their Senate offices? Send them to their rooms without dinner? Tell them he will have New York Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani arrest them if they travel to the Big Apple, just like Mamdani wants to arrest Benjamin Netanyahu?
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