The Negotiation

What Schumer's surrender revealed

On November 8, Chuck Schumer proposed extending the Affordable Care Act’s enhanced subsidies for one year. This was the fortieth day of the government shutdown. The subsidies expire December 31. After that date, twenty-four million Americans who buy insurance through the ACA marketplace will see their premiums more than double. Schumer was offering to prevent this for one year, possibly, if Republicans would agree to reopen the government.

The Republicans said no.

I learned this at my desk at home, at the usual time, with the usual Jameson. The news arrived the way it always does now: push notification, headline, another thing that happened in Washington that will ripple out to here, to everywhere, to people whose lives will come apart over a few hundred dollars a month.

The Democrats called this negotiation. The Republicans called it a nonstarter. I’ll tell you what I call it: the Democrats putting twenty-four million people’s healthcare on the table as a bargaining chip, and the Republicans refusing even that.

By Monday, eight Senate Democrats had agreed to end the shutdown in exchange for a promise of a later vote on the subsidies. Not an extension. A vote. A promise to vote.

They called this getting something.

I’m sixty-six years old. I’ve been watching this my whole adult life. And I need to say something plainly: I don’t think the Democratic Party is interested in fighting for us anymore. I’m not sure they ever were, but I’m certain they aren’t now.

Let me be specific about what Schumer was offering, because the details matter.

Not a restoration of what had been lost. Not an expansion of coverage. Not even a permanent extension of the temporary relief. One more year. One more year of what people already had, which was less than what they needed, which was itself a compromise of a compromise of what might have actually worked.

He offered this knowing it would be refused. He offered it on day forty of a shutdown that had furloughed 670,000 federal workers and left 730,000 more working without pay. He offered it while flights were being cancelled, while food assistance programs were running out of money, while the country was collapsing in real-time.

And here’s what I think: the collapse was the point. You wait until things are bad enough that people are desperate enough that even a promise of a vote looks like victory. Then you take the promise and declare you fought, that you got something, that this was the best that could be done.

Tim Kaine actually said the shutdown was worth it because it prevented federal workers from being fired. Worth it. Forty days without pay, worth it. Twenty-four million people about to see their premiums double, but we got a promise of a vote, so worth it.

This is what they think fighting looks like. This is what they think we deserve.

And I’m tired of pretending this is acceptable.

Here’s the question I keep coming back to, the one I pour another Jameson to avoid thinking about: Do they even want to win?

Not in the sense of wanting to occupy offices,they clearly want that. I mean do they want to win in the sense that would require actually fighting for the people they claim to represent?

I don’t think they do. And I think the reason is simple: they’re more interested in maintaining their positions than in using those positions for anything.

Look at who’s running the party. Chuck Schumer is seventy-four years old. Nancy Pelosi just retired at eighty-five. Before she stepped down from leadership in 2022, her key lieutenants were Steny Hoyer, eighty-one, and Jim Clyburn, eighty. There are more than fifty House Democrats over seventy. Three have died in office this year alone, each death padding the Republican majority they died opposing.

Eleanor Holmes Norton, Washington D.C.’s delegate, is eighty-eight. She struggles to do her job. She sometimes appears not to recognize people she has known for years.

She is running for reelection.

The median age of Americans is thirty-nine. The median age of Democratic leadership is closer to the grave than to the people they represent.

Now look, I’m sixty-six. This isn’t some young person’s rant about boomers. This is me saying: these people need to go. Not because they’re bad people,Pelosi was masterful, strategic, ruthless when needed. The Affordable Care Act probably doesn’t exist without her.

But she held onto power until she was eighty-two, and when she finally stepped aside, she left behind a party with no succession plan, no prepared younger generation, no one who had been mentored into readiness.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said it in 2020: “The House is extraordinarily complex, and I’m not ready. It can’t be me.” She was thirty-one. Talented, driven, capable. But not ready because no one had prepared her to be ready. Democratic leadership had spent decades concentrating power while doing nothing to prepare anyone to inherit it.

Obama saw this years ago. “I see in the U.S. Congress people who’ve been there 20, 30, 40 years,” he said. “And because they’re still there, they’re blocking the 25- or 30- or 35-year-old who is more of their time and could be more innovative and creative [in] solving the problems we face today, rather than the problems we faced 35 years ago.”

He was right then. He’s more right now.

The problems we face,climate collapse, the wholesale looting of public resources, the fact that half the country believes reality itself is negotiable,these are not problems that people in their seventies and eighties are equipped to solve. Not because of age itself, but because their entire political formation happened in a world that no longer exists.

Schumer came of age politically in the 1970s and 80s, when bipartisan dealmaking was still possible, when the filibuster was a tool rather than a weapon, when Democratic donors were labor unions and civil rights organizations rather than hedge fund managers and tech billionaires. He has spent forty years learning to operate in that world.

That world is gone. But Schumer remains, still trying to cut deals with people who have no interest in dealing, still negotiating from a position of weakness and calling it statesmanship.

They need to go. All of them. Not because they’re bad people, but because they’re incapable of responding to the moment we’re in. And they won’t leave voluntarily because power is the only thing they know.

But here’s the deeper problem, and this is what really keeps me up at night finishing the bottle: it’s not just that they’re too old. It’s that they don’t work for us.

Let me give you some numbers that should make you angry.

In 2020, twelve people,six supporting Democrats, six supporting Republicans,accounted for 7.5% of all federal political donations. One in every thirteen dollars came from twelve people. Michael Bloomberg spent $1.1 billion of his own money trying to buy the Democratic nomination. He failed, but he established a principle: in the Democratic Party, you can buy your way into relevance if you have enough money.

The practical effect is that Democratic policy increasingly reflects the preferences of people who can write seven-figure checks. Not on every issue,there are still differences on abortion, on voting rights. But on the questions that matter to donors,antitrust enforcement, financial regulation, corporate taxation,the differences narrow considerably.

Reid Hoffman, the tech billionaire and major Democratic donor, went on CNN to complain about Lina Khan, the FTC chair who has actually been enforcing antitrust law. Hoffman said “antitrust is fine. Waging war is not.”

Translation: regulation is fine as long as it doesn’t regulate anything that matters to me.

Whether Khan survives in a future Democratic administration is an open question. She has strong support among progressives and among the public. But she also has powerful enemies among the donor class, and the donor class has influence that the public does not.

This is the fundamental corruption at the heart of modern Democratic politics: the party claims to represent working people while being funded primarily by people who profit from working people having less power. The contradiction gets resolved by doing things like negotiating away healthcare subsidies while sending fundraising emails about resistance.

A December 2025 study found a direct causal connection between large campaign contributions and legislative voting patterns. This is not speculation. This is measurement. Researchers examined donations and roll-call votes and found that after Citizens United, the share of giving from the top 1% rose dramatically, and congressional voting aligned more closely with high-income interests.

In Virginia in September, three Democratic lawmakers accepted money from Dominion Energy despite having pledged to reject utility donations. They accepted the money because Dominion wanted something,weaker climate regulations and the lawmakers wanted to get reelected. The pledge was broken quietly. The regulations were weakened quietly. No one was held accountable.

This happens constantly, in every state, on every issue where corporate interests conflict with public interests. And Democratic leadership, rather than fighting it, has increasingly embraced it.

There’s a think tank called Third Way, funded by corporations and wealthy donors. They recently released a memo arguing that Democrats should move away from small-dollar donors and instead rely more heavily on super PACs and wealthy individuals. The memo also suggested the party adopt a “pro-capitalist” stance and stop “demonizing wealth and corporations.”

The memo was not controversial. It was treated as reasonable advice.

Because in the Democratic Party as it currently exists, being funded by people who benefit from inequality while claiming to fight inequality is not seen as a contradiction. It is seen as pragmatism.

I know what the counterargument is. Pelosi herself made it: you need power to do anything, and getting power requires money, and money comes from people who have it. Take the money. Win the elections. Then do good things with the power.

The problem is that the good things keep not happening. Or they happen in compromised form, negotiated down to what donors will tolerate.

The Affordable Care Act was passed without a public option because insurance companies wouldn’t tolerate one. Financial regulation was watered down because banks wouldn’t tolerate strong oversight. Climate legislation gets blocked or weakened because fossil fuel interests won’t tolerate meaningful change.

And healthcare subsidies get put on the table as a negotiating chip because, ultimately, Democratic leadership is more worried about getting blamed for a shutdown than about twenty-four million people losing their insurance.

Here’s what I believe: the current Democratic Party is structurally incapable of fighting for transformative change because transformative change would threaten the interests of the people who fund the party.

You cannot take money from pharmaceutical companies and then fight for single-payer healthcare. You cannot take money from tech billionaires and then break up tech monopolies. You cannot take money from Wall Street and then seriously regulate finance.

Every cycle, voters are told that this time will be different, that once Democrats win, they’ll be able to do the things they promised. Every cycle, Democrats win or lose, and either way, the fundamental arrangement remains unchanged. The donors keep donating. The corporations keep lobbying. The regulations stay weak. The loopholes stay open. The money keeps moving upward.

Schumer’s capitulation on the shutdown is not an aberration. It is the system working as designed. He negotiated from weakness because weakness is baked into the party’s structure. You cannot fight for working people when your funding comes from people who profit from working people’s powerlessness.

So here’s the uncomfortable question I’ve been circling around: Is the Democratic Party worth saving?

Not as a political vehicle,obviously, in a two-party system, you vote for Democrats or you vote for Republicans or you don’t vote, and not voting just makes things worse. I mean as an institution, as an organization, as a structure for achieving progressive change,is it salvageable?

I don’t think it is. Not in its current form.

The party is led by people who are too old, too compromised, too committed to a style of politics that stopped working decades ago. The gerontocracy is real, and it’s not just about age,it’s about ossification, about a leadership class that would rather lose gracefully than win by fighting.

Sixty percent of Democratic voters disapprove of their party’s congressional leadership. There’s a hunger for something different. But the party structure makes change nearly impossible. Leadership positions are held for decades. Campaign money flows to incumbents. Primary challenges are discouraged or actively sabotaged. The result is stagnation punctuated by occasional disasters.

What would a different Democratic Party look like? Younger, obviously. But also structurally different. Funded by small donors rather than billionaires. Willing to fight rather than negotiate from fear. Committed to policy that actually redistributes power rather than just talking about it.

This party does not exist. It may never exist. The incentives run entirely the other way. The path to power in the current party runs through taking donor money, making promises you know you can’t keep, and then governing in ways that don’t threaten the fundamental arrangement.

Some people are trying to build something different. The mutual aid networks, the tenant unions, the climate activists, the teachers fighting for their students, the nurses fighting for their patients,they’re building something outside the party structure because the party structure has failed them. They show up. They organize. They help each other. They do not wait for permission.

This is not revolution. It’s survival. But in survival, there’s at least the possibility of something else.

The party, as it exists, offers no such possibility. It offers only the promise that if you donate and vote and phonebank and knock on doors, maybe, possibly, they’ll fight for you when it matters.

They didn’t. They won’t. The evidence is overwhelming.

Let me bring this back to what started it: the subsidies.

They were created in 2021, during the pandemic, when Democrats briefly controlled government. They were meant to be temporary,everything is meant to be temporary when you can’t get the votes for permanent. They extended eligibility to people earning above 400% of the poverty line and increased assistance for everyone else. Since then, marketplace enrollment has more than doubled, from eleven million to over twenty-four million people. Most of them receive the enhanced subsidy.

In seven weeks, most of them will lose it.

A woman named Elizabeth Wick, fifty-seven, living in Arlington, Texas, currently pays $862 a month for insurance. Next year, without the subsidies, her premium will be $1,380. A cancer patient named Montgomery pays $541 now. Next year: $1,758. Montgomery is on oxygen. She gets scans every three months. She told CNN she’ll probably become uninsured and die.

When the subsidies expire, a family of four earning $45,000 a year, currently paying zero in premiums, will pay $1,607. A sixty-year-old couple earning $85,000 will pay $22,600 a quarter of their annual income.

This is what Schumer was negotiating. This is what he put on the table. This is what he agreed to walk away from in exchange for a promise to vote.

And I’m supposed to believe the party is on my side? I’m supposed to donate and phonebank and knock on doors because this time will be different?

I’m sixty-six years old. I’m tired. I’ve been doing this since I could vote. And I’m watching Democratic leadership negotiate away people’s healthcare while sending me emails asking for money to fight for healthcare.

The subsidies expire December 31. We have seven weeks. The Republicans have promised a vote. The vote will probably fail. The premiums will double. Montgomery will probably become uninsured. Elizabeth Wick will figure out what to cut from her budget. The twenty-four million will adjust or they won’t.

And the Democratic Party will send me an email explaining that they fought as hard as they could, that this was the best they could do, that if I just donate $15, next time will be different.

I don’t believe them anymore.

I think the party is beyond saving. I think the leadership needs to go. I think the donor-driven structure needs to be torn down. I think we need something fundamentally different.

I don’t know what that looks like. I don’t know if it’s even possible. But I know this: what we have now isn’t working. It’s never worked. And pretending it will work if we just try harder, if we just donate more, if we just vote harder,that’s the con they’ve been running on us for decades.

Montgomery is racing to get her scans before her insurance expires. Elizabeth Wick is calculating her budget. Twenty-four million people are about to open their mail and see numbers they cannot pay.

And Chuck Schumer negotiated from weakness, folded predictably, and called it statesmanship.

That’s the Democratic Party in 2025. That’s what we’re being asked to save.

I’m pouring another Jameson. And I’m wondering if maybe the party isn’t worth saving at all.

But let me tell you something I’ve learned in sixty-six years of watching this game.

The system is designed to make you feel helpless. It’s designed to make you think that your only power is your vote, and that your vote only matters every two or four years, and that between those votes you should just watch and wait and maybe donate $15 when they ask.

That’s the con.

Your power is not your vote. Your vote is the least important thing you have. Your power is your time, your attention, your refusal to accept what they tell you is inevitable.

I’ve watched this cycle repeat my entire adult life. Democrats promise change. Republicans block it or Democrats block themselves. Everyone tells you this is just how government works, that change is slow, that you have to be patient, that you have to be realistic.

And you know what I’ve learned? The people telling you to be realistic are the people who benefit from nothing changing.

Real change has never come from being realistic. It’s never come from waiting for permission. It’s never come from donating to the DNC and hoping they’ll fight for you this time.

Real change has come from people who refused to accept the unacceptable. The labor movement didn’t happen because workers voted harder. It happened because workers organized, struck, shut things down, made it more expensive to ignore them than to negotiate with them. Civil rights didn’t happen because Black Americans waited patiently for white politicians to do the right thing. It happened because people put their bodies on the line, disrupted business as usual, made it impossible to look away.

The system works the way it works because we let it. The Democratic Party is what it is because we keep showing up for them no matter what they do. The donors have power because we’ve accepted that money is how politics works.

None of this is inevitable. None of this is natural. All of it is a choice we’re making collectively, and we can make different choices.

Here’s what I think you should do. Not what the party wants you to do. Not what the emails tell you to do. What I think actually matters.

Stop giving money to national campaigns. I mean it. Not a dollar. When the DNC sends you an email, delete it. When Schumer’s campaign asks for $15, don’t give it. They have billionaire donors. They don’t need your $15. And your $15 just allows them to pretend they represent you while they do what the billionaires want.

If you want to give money, give it to local organizations doing actual work. Tenant unions. Mutual aid networks. Climate groups blocking pipelines. Organizations helping people who are being crushed by the system. Give money to primary challengers taking on incumbents. Give money to people who haven’t been bought yet.

Show up locally. I know this sounds boring. I know national politics feels more important. It’s not. The zoning board meeting where they’re deciding whether to approve another luxury development,that matters more than anything happening in D.C. The school board meeting where they’re cutting budgets while giving administrators raises,that matters. The city council meeting where they’re deciding whether to criminalize homelessness,that matters.

These meetings are attended by almost no one. Which means if you show up, if you bring five people, if you speak during public comment, you have actual power. Not theoretical power. Not “maybe if enough of us vote” power. Actual power.

Organize with your neighbors. Not around elections. Around problems. Is rent too high? Organize a tenant union. Are people going hungry? Start a food share. Is someone being evicted? Show up with twenty people and negotiate. Is the water contaminated? Make it impossible for officials to ignore.

This is not sexy. It will not trend on Twitter. It will not feel like you’re participating in history. But it works. It’s the only thing that’s ever worked.

Stop waiting for Democrats to save you. They won’t. They can’t. The party is structurally incapable of fighting for transformative change. Accept this. Grieve it if you need to. Then move on.

Vote for Democrats in generals if you want,I probably will, because Republicans are worse. But don’t expect anything from it. Don’t invest your hope in it. Don’t let voting be a substitute for organizing.

The system wants you to believe that politics happens in Washington and your job is to watch and vote and donate. That’s a lie designed to keep you powerless. Politics happens everywhere. It happens when you and your neighbors decide you’re not going to accept rent increases. It happens when parents occupy a school board meeting and refuse to leave until budgets are restored. It happens when nurses strike and won’t go back until they have safe staffing ratios.

That’s politics. The other thing,the campaigns, the debates, the emails,that’s theater.

I know this sounds bleak. I know it sounds like I’m saying nothing matters, that we should give up on the system entirely.

That’s not what I’m saying.

What I’m saying is: the system as currently constituted will not save you. Waiting for the Democratic Party to become what you need it to be is like waiting for your landlord to become your friend. It’s not going to happen because the relationship is not designed for that.

But that doesn’t mean you’re powerless. It means your power is elsewhere. It’s in your community, in your relationships, in your willingness to organize with other people who are also getting crushed.

The mutual aid networks in Phoenix, the tenant unions in New York, the climate activists blocking pipelines, the teachers fighting for their students, the nurses fighting for their patients,they’re not waiting for permission. They’re not waiting for the Democratic Party to save them. They’re building power outside the system because the system has failed them.

That’s where the hope is. Not in the next election. Not in the promise that this time will be different. In the stubborn refusal of ordinary people to accept that this is how things have to be.

I’m sixty-six years old. I’ve lived through a lot of American history. I’ve seen movements rise and fall. I’ve seen parties transform and ossify. I’ve seen hope and I’ve seen betrayal.

And here’s what I know: change is possible. It’s rare, it’s hard, it requires more than most people are willing to give. But it’s possible.

It won’t come from the Democratic Party as currently constituted. It won’t come from voting harder or donating more or hoping that the next leader will be different. It will come, if it comes at all, from people organizing outside the system’s permission structures, building power in ways the system doesn’t control.

The Democratic Party might be part of that eventually. Probably not. Probably it will continue as it is until something forces it to change or replaces it entirely.

But that’s not your concern. Your concern is what you can actually do. And what you can actually do is show up locally, organize with your neighbors, build mutual aid networks, make it expensive for the powerful to ignore you.

Will it work? I don’t know. Probably not in the ways we want, not in our lifetimes. But it’s the only thing that’s ever worked. And not doing it,waiting for Democrats to save us, hoping that this time will be different,that definitely won’t work.

Montgomery is racing to get her scans. Elizabeth Wick is calculating her budget. Twenty-four million people are about to see their premiums double.

The Democratic Party negotiated from weakness and called it statesmanship.

And somewhere, someone is organizing a tenant union. Someone is starting a food share. Someone is showing up to a zoning board meeting with five neighbors. Someone is refusing to accept that this is how things have to be.

That’s where the future is. If there is one.

Pour yourself a Jameson. Think about what you can actually do, not what you’re supposed to believe is possible. Then do it.

The system is counting on you to feel helpless. Prove it wrong.

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Thanks for being here. Thanks for not giving up.

Now go organize something.