Mediocracy
A country fueled by incompetence gets its most mediocre political leader.
For anyone in Australia or Canada or Europe wondering just what the universe may look like without orbiting the sun that has long been the United States, I’m here to reassure you: you’re gonna be fine. Because while this country is a failing democracy and a faux meritocracy with a heavy lash of kakistocracy and kleptocracy, that’s not really what defines America today. At its heart, it’s a mediocracy.
In every walk of life, you’re reminded just how gobsmackingly incompetent many people are. This week, we’ve dealt with a mortgage broker who doesn’t appear to know Excel. Realtors whose expertise appears to be advising us of properties that have already sold. Homebuyers who think it’s smart to pay 20% on top of already inflated property prices. Drivers who appear unable to locate the skinny pedal near their right foot, or their indicator.
A president is tanking the economy because he doesn’t understand basic economics, while cosplaying as a car salesman. A billionaire who made his fortune through government bailouts, subsidies, and contracts doesn’t grasp the important role the public sector plays. Cabinet secretaries can’t explain what their departments do. Allegedly smart people express shock that an administration headed by and filled with morons is flailing and failing.
And then, shouting “hold my beer” to all of them, is Chuck Schumer.
On Thursday, Democrats in the House of Representatives managed to squarely hang responsibility for the looming government shutdown on the dotardian shoulders of Donald Trump. Schumer initially backed that near unanimous front, before folding like a cheap suit for reasons as logically incomprehensible as they are tactically stupid.
“For sure, the Republican bill is a terrible option,” Schumer said, trying to explain his decision to vote for the Republican bill in the Senate. “It is deeply partisan. It doesn’t address far too many of this country’s needs. But I believe allowing Donald Trump to take even much more power via a government shutdown is a far worse option. I will vote to keep the government open and not shut it down.”
So, the reasoning seems to be as follows. The Republican bill is terrible. But voting against it would contribute to gutting the federal government and facilitating awful Trump policies. Much better to vote for it and … allow Democrats to be tarred with contributing to the gutting of the federal government and facilitating bad Trump policies.
“Congrats Chuck Schumer,” former Republican congressman now mortal Donald Trump enemy
wrote. “You have thoroughly misplayed the funding fight. You’ve done everything possible to take ownership of it, despite Democrats having no levers in govt. Are ya new?”Schumer’s actions are the starkest example of his party’s strategic ineptitude and its old guard’s inability to mount a coherent and effective counter to Trump. On the bright side, though, he may have dramatically accelerated exactly what needs to happen: for Democrats to shed the moderation and triangulation of the past few decades in favor of full-throated support for policies that have long been tarred as “socialism” but are, in the real world inhabited by other countries, simply humane.
Leading that charge is Vermont senator Bernie Sanders and New York congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Both have emerged as the most potent opposition to Trump and his enablers, and there are now open calls for Ocasio-Cortez to mount a primary challenge to Schumer for his senate seat amid what she described as a “deep sense of outrage and betrayal” at what’s transpired.
"There are members of Congress who have won Trump-held districts in some of the most difficult territory in the United States, who walked the plank and took innumerable risks in order to defend the American people, in order to defend Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “Just to see some Senate Democrats even consider acquiescing to Elon Musk … I think it is a huge slap in the face, and I think that there is a wide sense of betrayal if things proceed as currently planned.”
Three final data points that underscore Schumer’s utter mediocrity. First, former speaker Nancy Pelosi—one of the most astute political operators in American history—delivered a stunning rebuke of Schumer’s response to the “false choice between a government shutdown or a blank check that makes a devastating assault on the well-being of working families across America.”
“Let’s be clear: neither is a good option for the American people. But this false choice that some are buying instead of fighting is unacceptable,” Pelosi said, urging senators to vote against the bill, a continuing resolution to fund the federal government for six months.
Second, smart fellow Democrats in the senate also rejected Schumer’s recommendation. One of the smartest is California’s Adam Schiff, who declared himself a “no” vote on a measure that gives “Donald Trump six months to continue wrecking the government.”
“That’s not going to fly,” Schiff said. “What we should do is something short-term, that will allow members of Congress to agree on setting regular funding levels for every part of the government—and to insist that they be observed by the president.”
The final data point? Trump praising Schumer’s “guts and courage” in “doing the right thing.” In the raging wildfire of incompetence that is this presidency, that’s the surest sign you’ve made a terrible, terrible mistake. As Rebecca Traister noted yesterday, while Republicans control all levels of the federal government, that doesn’t mean you stop fighting—even if it’s merely performative. In fact, you do it because of that, as she noted the Tea Party’s “absolutely batshit” support for defunding Planned Parenthood during the presidency of Barack Obama.
“In being willing to fight and get beaten on something—even a massively unpopular thing that no one really wanted—the Tea Party was using muscles that Democrats have allowed to atrophy: right wing lawmakers were showing their base, and their opponents, an eagerness to bare their teeth, sustain injury, risk humiliating defeat, and in doing so, present themselves as warriors on behalf of some principle, idea, piece of policy that (to them) was worth losing for,” Traister wrote.
“In 2024, Democrats ran on warnings that Trump was going to destroy our democracy and now that he and his team are very much in process of doing just that, these same politicians are questioning whether or not to stand up to him and his party, at one of the first opportunities they have to meaningfully do so. It’s ludicrous, but it’s because they’re obsessing over all the angles from which their efforts might lose something for them. They’re not wrong: everything at this point is a losing proposition. But what will capitulation without a fight win them?”
What it will win them is more even voter scorn and disdain, if that’s possible. As Traister notes, a party that “at least tries to stop them could convey something crucial about itself: a drive, a commitment, a willingness to take a hit in service of something bigger and more urgent.”
“That’s crucial when your base, your voters, regular citizens are the ones out there right now taking their own real risks: protesting, calling representatives, publishing critical journalism, quitting their jobs, occupying car dealerships, doing economic boycotts and continuing to speak out against a terrifying administration that any day might classify not owning a Tesla as terrorism,” she said. “These ordinary people know that just winning, baby is not currently an option, but they also understand that not doing anything isn’t either.”
There have been no shortage of reports of Trump voters expressing buyer’s remorse, shocked that the most venal and incompetent president in American history is acting exactly as he promised. Maybe they can claim ignorance or false optimism or just plain stupidity. What’s Schumer’s excuse?
A note about whatever this is …
After writing a few thousand articles for newspapers and magazines, I spent a long time trying a bunch of other stuff. I guess I figured what came (relatively) easily must by definition be less valuable, so I wandered in the corporate wilderness, becoming increasingly frustrated and doing work that felt increasingly lousy.
Sometimes with age comes wisdom, and I’ve realized finding something (relatively) easy ain’t a bad thing. So, this is a space where I’m resurrecting writing for myself, on topics weird and wild and wonderful.
Posts will appear when the mood takes me, but I do try to be consistently inconsistent—sometimes it’ll be a couple of days between drinks; sometimes a week. But if you subscribe, you’ll get a email letting you know I’m ranting. Again.