It is virtually a given that the outgoing GOP House majority, having voted by wide margin to make the insurrection-friendly Jim Jordan their new minority leader, would have been at least equally united in defending Pete Hegseth – that is, if the vote to impeach the incompetent ‘secretary of war’ had gotten past the procedural vote that buried it in committee. 

But that does not excuse the leader of the outgoing minority, Hakeem Jeffries, from being so bad at his current job that eleven Democratic House members weren’t even present for the procedural vote. As Minority Leader, it is Jeffries job to ensure that current minority whip Katherine Clark was doing her job of ensuring the votes of those missing members. Instead, Clark was attending an event for the AIPAC-tied group ‘Elect Democratic Women’ (EDW), while Jeffries took time from lobbying for his next job to at least show up for the vote.

Again, the missing votes were not outcome-determinative. The impeachment articles would’ve likely gone to committee anyway. Even if the committee referral had been defeated, a House vote to send the articles to the Senate would likely have failed as well. But, of course, we’ll never know… any more than we will ever know what the current Senate might’ve done, in the immediate aftermath of the Blue Tsunami House Republicans seem determined to ignore.

But that’s not the point. There will be other opportunities and – unfortunately – additional reasons to impeach Hegseth after the incoming House and Senate Democratic majorities are seated. The point is that Jeffries missed an opportunity to demonstrate to voters that his caucus has the unity and resolve the next two years are going to require. More importantly, he missed an opportunity to demonstrate qualification to serve as the next Speaker of the House… beyond merely being already in place as current minority leader.

But he ain’t doing that.

At least in the Senate, there is finally the beginnings of debate over Chuck Schumer’s equally arrogant assumption that his seniority and sense of entitlement provides the same automatic pass on becoming the next Senate Majority Leader. Weeks after new senator Dr. Abdul el-Sayed first suggested it, Senator Chris Van Hollen has finally announced he will challenge Schumer for the leadership role. A week earlier, senators Bernie Sanders and Melissa Slotkin held a joint press conference in which Sanders flatly said he would not be backing Schumer and Slotkin made clear she wasn’t supporting anyone – not without a plan to meet the mandate for change voters had expressed in the election.

Sanders and el-Sayed have since announced their backing for Van Hollen. So far, they are the only senators to do so (Slotkin has not, even though she referenced a ‘productive conversation’ with Van Hollen in the press conference). But even though Schumer insists that he ‘has the votes’, the majority of the caucus remains uncommitted, with many expressing an interest in ‘new leadership’ without explicitly endorsing Van Hollen. It should be remembered that the leadership vote is a secret ballot. Should Schumer be mistaken in the votes he believes he has… it wouldn’t be the first time.

The fact that Van Hollen, at age 67, even qualifies as ‘new leadership’ says a great deal about the geriatric tendencies of U.S. political leadership. But he qualifies as a change in at least one important regard: he is unequivocal about the need to revise the current blank-check relationship between the U.S. and Israel, which Schumer is equally unequivocal in defending. But whether or not Van Hollen’s challenge succeeds, Slotkin is absolutely correct to call for a leadership debate… it is far overdue.

The likelihood of a similar debate in the House, at least so far, seems unlikely – but it needs to happen there as well. Americans far more voted against Republicans than they voted for Democrats in this last election. If the Democratic Party wants to make this a permanent realignment, they need to do more than merely reaffirm the same stagnant, corporatist leadership that enabled the rise of Trumpism in the first place. Jeffries needs to explain how, exactly, he plans to be anything more than a rubber stamp for AIPAC.

If not, we all know how the next two years will play out. Trump will do something fundamentally abhorrent, Schumer will draft a sternly-worded rebuke, Jeffries will feign helplessness, and the Tech Oligarchs who were happy to fund Trump’s vanity projects will start quietly cutting deals with the new majority party to preserve as much of their ill-gotten gains as possible. 

Meanwhile, the people who voted for Trump two years ago and voted for Democrats two weeks ago will prove two years from now to be no better informed than they were in the first place. The ones who consider themselves ‘independent’ will likely vote for whatever candidate the GOP finally stands up to replace Trump’s rotting corpse out of a delusion belief in the virtues of ‘divided government’. In other words… the beatings will continue until morale improves.

Or an alternate scenario: the Democratic Party demonstrates that they deserve the same chance at having both Congress and the White House as was squandered on the Republicans in 2024. If that happens, we could be at the beginning of a second Progressive Era – perhaps not as long as the first one, but perhaps equally effective in steering America toward a more just and equitable society. In a speech today at the Democratic Caucus’ “What’s Next” event in Denver, Van Hollen delivered a beginning vision for doing precisely that.

That possibility is too important to be overridden by the entitlement of career corporatists. If Schumer and Jeffries intend to lead, then they should lead on behalf of the people who gave them that opportunity. If not, they should absolutely step out of the way.

Image courtesy MS-NOW