The Maryland Democrat has been critical of Schumer, who has led the caucus for nearly a decade.
Sen. Chris Van Hollen announced Thursday that he would challenge Chuck Schumer for the top Democratic leadership role in the Senate, arguing the party needs to take a more populist direction.
“In this election, the American people called for change. They called for a change from Donald Trump’s disastrous policies — but even bigger than that, a change from the status quo that isn’t working for working people,” Van Hollen, who represents Maryland, said in a statement obtained by The Washington Sun.
Hot Damn!
Okay Libs. No excuse now. It’s been a week of “well nobody is running against him” but that’s done. Time to put up or shut up. Who you gonna stand with? The new blood or the ancient blood? The man whose leadership has given us Trump? Or literally anything else?
Cuz I’ll tell you this, the more and more you think about it the more it feels like a Chuck Schumer led Democratic Party will not only end up in massive Republican victory in 2028, it might be the end of our democracy. I don’t know if democracy in the United States would survive the wave of apathy and surrender that would come from seeing this momentous Blue Wave betrayed by the Democratic corporate Old Guard. I think there’s an extremely valid risk that you would kill momentum for generations of voters.
(Imma write a letter to my senator elect right this second. Do the same.)
It’s not about the apathy and surrender per se—if that was the case 2008 would’ve been fatal—but rather the fact that giving the Republicans another trifecta or something close to it in the next decade or so would likely not be survivable.
I think it’s even more than that though. As misguided and idiotic as it is a lot of people I think voted for Trump because they wanted change and thought he would bring change. Clearly not. But that same sentiment I think in a lot of ways spurred the Blue Wave. You can hear it in multiple interviews they’ve had with voters over the last few weeks. People want change, you hear it over and over and over again. More than any single issue.
So if once again change doesn’t come even with that massive voting surge I think there’s a real chance the American people, or at least the vast majority of them more than we’ve ever seen, just check out. So what happens when the majority of the voting populace no longer believes in democracies capacity to actually govern? What happens when we combine that with the Republican clap back? I think they lay down and take the end of democracy. I think Republicans finally finished dismantling the thing and we no longer have one.