'Disarray' doesn't come close to describing it — Democrats are disintegrating

Continuing Democratic divisions from Washington’s recent funding fight show their party is disintegrating. Its fissures run between the House and Senate, between their base and their elected leaders, between establishmentarians and ideologues, and between generations.

These fissures are getting worse on their own, and Trump is also making them worse.

Washington was recently embroiled in yet another annual funding fight. The twist this time: Republicans wanted to pass a continuing resolution to keep the government running and Democrats wanted to block it.

Through the administration’s Department of Government Efficiency effort, Republicans have been targeting the government piecemeal. Their argument in this funding fight was to keep the government operating, so DOGE could continue doing what it has been doing.

Democrats opposed it for the opposite reason: If Republicans intend to cherry-pick parts of government for shutdown, they reasoned, we should force a complete shutdown.

Only one Democrat dared buck his party’s Bolshevik wing in the House. The fight then went to the Senate, where the minority’s ability to filibuster gave Democrats a more realistic chance to stop Republicans’ funding bill.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) was willing to do so ... until he wasn’t. He and eight other Democrats (plus Independent Angus King of Maine) voted to break their party’s filibuster and support the Republicans’ funding bill.

In the aftermath, all hell has broken loose among Democrats. When asked whether new Democratic leadership was needed in the Senate, the House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) responded only, “Next question.” When asked whether he still had confidence in Schumer, Jeffries again evaded, answering with “Next question.”

Other House Democrats weren’t so reticent. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), whom livid Democrats have urged to challenge Schumer for his seat in 2028, labeled Schumer’s reversal “a tremendous mistake.”

Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) urged Senate Democrats to vote against Schumer’s position, while firebrand Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) said “he’s absolutely wrong.”

Of course, such intraparty bicameral brawling is as old as Congress itself. Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill (D-Mass.) famously said, “The House Republicans are not the enemy, they’re the opposition. The Senate is the enemy.”

But today’s Democratic splits go far beyond that. Jeet Heer of The Nation called for Schumer’s immediate resignation. Ditto Indivisible, “one of the nation’s largest grassroots progressive organizations.” Left-wing activists are protesting outside Schumer’s home.

MSNBC host Symone Sanders Townsend announced on air she was leaving the Democratic Party. Former MSNBC personality Toure Neblett announced during a CNN interview that he was considering doing the same thing.

Democrats’ fight also splits along generational lines. Even before the spending fight, former Speaker Pelosi had been challenged by a former staffer of Ocasio-Cortez. At the time, Saikat Chakrabarti said, “I respect what Nancy Pelosi has accomplished in her career, but we are living in a totally different America than the one she knew when she entered politics 45 years ago.”

Regarding Ocasio-Cortez, Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.), who voted for the funding bill, said, “I hope you can relay how little I care about her views on this.” Regarding Fetterman’s criticism of a fiery House committee exchange, Ocasio-Cortez accused him of not standing up to bullying, to which Fetterman responded on CNN, “Of course, that’s absurd.”

This intraparty turmoil has been simmering since Trump overwhelmed Democratic nominee Kamala Harris last November. Trump won a narrow but decisive victory nationwide. But outside of the most liberal states of California, New York, Massachusetts, and Washington — that is, in 46 states that make up 80 percent of electoral votes — he won 53.3 percent to 46.7 percent.

Democrats have struggled ever since to find a message, messenger, or any sense of unity. What they’ve found instead is fury, disunity, disorganization, and impotence — despite Trump’s nominally small November victory and Republicans’ even smaller House and Senate congressional majorities.

In contrast to 2017, when Trump’s upset victory pulled Democrats together as a unified opposition, Democrats’ only current unity comes from attacking each other. Unable to successfully attack let alone stop Trump and his popular agenda, Democrats are lashing out at everyone available — namely, at themselves.

The beneficiary of Democrats’ self-inflicted wounds is of course Trump, who is always favored by the weakness of his opponents — Hillary in 2016, Biden and then Harris in 2024. He has never benefited from this more than he does now. Altready strong on paper, backed by House and Senate majorities and the Supreme Court, Trump is being made to look stronger still by his weakened, divided opposition.

What’s more, Democrats’ attacks on their establishment, congressional leaders and older generation risks erosion of the fragile firewall between a Democratic Party that can pass as somewhat reasonable and one defined by leftist firebrands' self-immolation.

To appreciate the effect of Democrats’ cannibalistic cabal, just look at the senators who have announced so far that they won’t seek reelection in 2026. Expect more retirements to come, particularly in the House, as it becomes increasingly clear Democrat candidates cannot run and win on their base’s policy priorities.

As Democrats boost Trump, the more Trump wins. The more Trump wins, the more Democrats defect or quit.

In 2018, the midterms brought in Democrats’ far left. Today, their far left is their party. Because of it, as Democrats feed on themselves, Trump is feasting on them.

J.T. Young is the author of the recent book, “Unprecedented Assault: How Big Government Unleashed America’s Socialist Left.” He has more than three decades’ experience working in Congress, the Department of Treasury, the Office of Management, and Budget, and representing a Fortune 20 company.

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