Chuck Schumer Officially Becomes Meme
The further adventures of Chump Schumer
Chuck Schumer doesn’t receive enough praise. That’s usually because he doesn’t deserve any. However, it’s only fair that we recognize the Democratic Senate leader’s recent achievement in absolute absurdity.
During an appearance Sunday on CNN’s State of the Union, Schumer was asked how the party planned to respond to Donald Trump’s ongoing presidential crime spree, in particular his financial strong-arming of Harvard University under the twisted pretense of defending Jews. (Watch below.)
“We sent him a very strong letter just the other day asking eight very strong questions,” Schumer said out loud where people could hear him.
Then State of the Union host Dana Bash spoke to Schumer like he’d just written the Great Pumpkin: “Well, you’ll let us know if you get a response to that letter,” she said. It was the ultimate verbal pat on the head.
Schumer won’t admit, of course, that Trump has weaponized antisemitism, and Schumer himself has helped enable this transparent assault against colleges and other institutions that won’t bend to Trump’s will. (Schumer has smeared the United Nations as antisemitic because it’s called out Israel’s actions against Gaza.) It’s tough to say you’re wrong, but surely that’s preferable to making a meme of yourself on national TV.
Schumer’s fecklessness is bad enough but he’s so out of touch he doesn’t realize that “send a very strong letter” has become a punchline for people who put too much faith in process and institutions. They reveal themselves as clueless to the true threat and completely unable to function in a reality where the bad guys don’t follow polite, country club rules. Schumer, with his grandpa glasses perched on his nose, epitomizes flaccid leadership.
This pitiable phenomenon has so many examples in media that “Strongly Worded Letter” is now a well-established trope, with its own lengthy entry at TV Tropes.
In 2004’s Team America: World Police, UN inspector Hans Blix offers a Schumeristic ultimatum to North Korean dictator Kim Jong-il.
Hans: I’m sorry, but I must be firm with you. Let me see your whole palace or else!
Kim Jong-il: Or else what?
Hans: Or else, we will be very, very angry with you ... And we will write you a letter, telling you how angry we are!
The classic sketch comedy show A Bit of Fry & Laurie offers an amusing spin on the trope, when Hugh Laurie’s character threatens to write “a very stiff letter ... on cardboard.” (Watch below.)
The Good Place skewered the concept during a storyline where the angelic beings in charge of the Good Place are too passive and conflict-averse to confront obvious injustice. Their idea of immediate action is spending thousands of years just to form an investigative committee. Reformed demon Michael (Ted Danson) points out that every second they delay, an untold number of innocent people are wrongly tortured in the Bad Place, but the Good Place leaders refuse to break the rules. Yes, this should sound tragically familiar.
“The Titanic is sinking,” Michael laments, “and they’re writing a strongly worded letter to the iceberg!”
While we’re on the subject of icebergs, I should mention the scene from the end of Titanic, when a freezing Jack (Leonardo DiCaprio) tells Rose (Kate Winslet), who’s floating on the door that she won’t share for perfectly good buoyancy reasons, “I don't know about you, but I intend to write a strongly worded letter to the White Star Line about all of this.” (Watch below and cry a little.)
However, that’s knowing gallows humor on Jack’s part. Chuck Schumer lacks Jack’s self-awareness and boyish charm. He thinks he can just keep holding on to that floating political door until midterms, perhaps even longer. Dana Bash asked Schumer if he agreed with Sen. Jon Ossoff that Trump should be impeached and whether he considered that a priority for Democrats if they regain control of Congress. Schumer took longer to answer than I’d expect from someone remotely conscious, and his answer was more sluggish than a Good Place Committee meeting.
“Well, look, right now, President Trump is violating rule of law in every way,” Schumer said, demonstrating a masterful command of the obvious. “We’re fighting him every single day in every way.” His use of “we” is exceedingly generous to himself. (Watch below.)
“And our goal is to show the American people over and over again, whether it's the economy, whether it’s tariffs, whether it’s Russia and overseas, and whether it’s rule of law, how bad he is,” Schumer rambled on. “And two years is too far away to predict. Our job is day to day to day to show who Trump is, what he is doing. And it’s having an effect.”
This is nonsense. Schumer only made vague references to Trump’s horror show without offering specific gruesome details. It’s as if he never watched his Republicans buddies hammer former President Hunter Biden on the Sunday shows. Trump has deliberately wrecked the economy, and people with names have lost their retirement savings and their jobs. Trump hasn’t just “violated the rule of law.” He’s disappeared people to Salvadoran torture prisons and laughed in the Supreme Court’s face.
Schumer doesn’t mention the recent interviews with Time and The Atlantic where Trump clearly demonstrated that he’s either insane or senile, possibly both, but the fact that Schumer claims he’s still “wait and see” on Trump’s impeachment has me questioning his cognitive abilities. Maybe he thinks it’s still April 2017.
Fortunately, Michigan Democratic Rep. Shri Thanedar has introduced articles of impeachment against Trump, for all the obvious reasons, but the Democratic Party’s actual leaders, the ones with the nice offices, should be calling for Trump’s impeachment and removal every day.
There is an annoying segment of Democrats who reflexively oppose any action that they think progressives support or have encouraged. They’ve actually praised Schumer’s candor for more or less admitting that Democrats are whipped and can’t really do anything but write Trump strongly worded letters with copious exclamation points. (Watch below.)
Democrats can’t just assume they’ll directly benefit from Trump’s sinking approval rating, while not actually promising to stop Trump. Yes, it’s much harder than simply taking control of the House, as Republicans did in 2022, and preventing Trump from passing legislation. Trump has ignored Congress all together and sent Elon Musk’s chainsaw loose through the federal government. He’s imposed disastrous tariffs that, as Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes said, “aren’t only economically reckless,” they’re illegal. If midterm voters deliver Congress to Democrats, they’ll expect action, not blue-ribbon committee on the political efficacy of taking action today.
Schumer told Bash that he’s ignoring calls (or even strongly worded letters) to step down as Senate leader. He’s the person best qualified to keep the Democratic Party running in circles.
When I first saw Schumer’s latest threat to send a “strong letter, with eight strong questions,” I really did wonder if it was parody. (sorta like Lindsey Graham’s insane nomination yesterday of Donnie to be the new Pope.) Schumer is the poster child for clueless, old, way-too-comfortable pols who refuse to see when it’s time to go. He’s beyond ineffectual; he’s now an obstacle, which is the last thing Dems need in their own party.
BTW Stephen, thanks for the Meryl Streep “flaccid” moment. Death Becomes Her has long been one of my favorite movies.
Schumer is a frickin embarrassment, and wtf is a strongly worded letter going to do? JACK SHIT. Nothing. Less than nothing. He needs to retire. I have had enough of this nonsense.