The Witness Chronicles, 3/14/25
Schumer’s fail
How Leaders Appear: An Unlikely Hero Emerges?
Tim Walz does what Dems should have been doing for years
And how they disappear. Chuck Schumer, the leading Senate Democrat from my state, gave in to the Republicans and announced he will vote for their awful continuing resolution to keep the government open. And the blowback was instantaneous.
Schumer is known around here as a jovial guy who never misses a press opportunity, showing up at every ribbon cutting in the state. He doesn’t like the hard stuff though, always playing the conciliatory statesmen. But this one is unacceptable and leading the charge is the future of the Party, Alexandra Octavio Cortez, the House firebrand from Brooklyn, who her party elders always underestimate.
Not this time. There is widespread outrage at Schumer’s spineless capitulation. This is not the time for reasonable behavior. We are faced with extremely unreasonable behavior from the White House and his Republican puppets in Congress. And sometimes a new strategy comes from unexpected places.
Like former Vice Presidential candidate Tim Walz, who seems to have an unexpected fire lit under him. And he is doing exactly what Dems did not do during the election campaign. He is on tour and he is hitting enemy territory, white, midwestern, rural Trump strongholds. And they are showing up to hear him.
As a former governor of a farm state, this guy speaks their language. He grew up on a farm and he knows that Trump’s reckless actions are hitting farmers hard and Trump does not care. So he has an audience that wants to hear what he has to say.
This is how grassroots movements start, with unexpected tactics. Except, for Walz, this is familiar territory and most savvy politicians start in places they know well with people who feel they are not being heard. Even if they are not necessarily supporters. That’s something Democrats seem to have forgotten.
Yesterday I wrote about the glaring vacuum in new Democratic leadership and both Schumer’s disgusting performance and Walz’ emerging strategy reinforce my observation that new leaders come from unexpected places and circumstances. This is a perfect example.
And it could not come too soon, with Trump and associates moving at lightning speed with their slash and burn rush to take over the government. And their stone cold display of indifference to how it affects American lives.
There are lessons to be learned here and they need to be learned fast, like now. Schumer’s waffling and subservient belief that things have not changed as drastically as they have, must be left in the dust. That shit is over, or we lose and lose big. This ain’t Kansas anymore.
The deadline for keeping the government open is midnight tonight, Friday March 14th, so the results of Schumer’s choice are not yet known, as I write this. He claims a shutdown will give Trump carte blanche to do even more damage if that is even conceivable. We will see how this plays out today.
Meanwhile, the courts are fighting the fight, blocking Trump and Musk’s illegal firings and freezes left and right. And the lawyers Trump sends to these hearings appear to be unprepared and bumbling, likely because they know their client is breaking the rule of law.
The obvious big question here is how far does Trump go in ignoring court orders and what if he simply refuses to pay any attention to them? And will those serving under him, i.e. the Cabinet, follow his lead? This week he shifted the responsibility for the firings to them, from Musk, in part because Musk has no legal authority to do anything, though it will still be him wielding the axe.
More chaos, per plan, specifically that Project 2025 thing Trump told us he knew nothing about until he hired the authors when he got into the White House. Lies piled on lies. But it looks like they are starting to catch up to him.
Tim Walz going to rural red states and holding town meetings is a perfect example of the Trump loyalty breaking down. Farmers are among the business owners getting hit the hardest and earliest from the Trump freezes, deportations of essential workers (reality: a lot of farm laborers are illegals), and tariffs. Walz knows this and he also knows they need to hear from government, even if it’s a Democrat.
It’s not been unusual for me to write about what a weird environment we are seeking in American politics, but the last two months have gone from weird to dangerous and blatantly criminal. I’m totally convinced that Trump has lost his mind.
This week he told NATO leaders they might have to join us in a hostile takeover of Greenland, something that started out as a quirky Trump fantasy but now seems to be something he is serious about. NATO was aghast at this, given that Denmark, which Greenland is a part of, is a NATO member.
Trump will say that comment was a joke but with this guy those jokes often start to seem like really good ideas and turn into whatever demented policies he has.
The takeaway from this is we are in a gunfight for Democracy’s future, which is why capitulating to Trump is unacceptable. We need to say No at every opportunity or he will continue to push himself into supreme leader. That’s no joke.
None of this is a joke, it’s deadly serious and we need ‘leaders’ like Schumer to wake up or get out of the way.
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Martin Edic
Walz is providing a spark of light in this dark time. Let's hope it ignites!
It would be good to remember that the Nazis were able to take over in Germany because there was a bad recession and people were out of work. They needed a scapegoat to blame it on and that became the Jews.
Trump's rhetoric is way too similar. Let's blame it all on the immigrants.