I Hope I Die Before I Get Old
By 
Younger Democrats are chafing at and increasingly complaining about what they see as the feebleness of the old guard’s efforts to push back against President Trump. They are second-guessing how the party’s leaders — like Mr. Schumer, who brandishes his flip phone as a point of pride — are communicating their message in the TikTok era, as Republicans dominate the digital town square.
And they are demanding that the party develop a bolder policy agenda that can answer the desperation of tens of millions of people who are struggling financially at a time when belief in the American dream is dimming.
In other words, the younger generation is done with deference.
Some who argue for more militancy in opposing Mr. Trump say the party’s elders tend to be less comfortable with the type of unbending political warfare that is called for.
“Our party needs more of a fighting spirit,” said Representative Chris Deluzio, a 40-year-old from outside Pittsburgh. “This is not a normal administration, and they’re willing to do dangerous things.”
The split is “not solely along generational lines,” he said. “But I do think the newer, younger members maybe get this intuitively.”
Mr. Deluzio said that Democrats elected before the Trump era tended to be shaped by fond recollections of comity and camaraderie across the aisle. “Those of us who are a little younger or have come to the Congress more recently, we don’t have the experience of some days of yore where things were more functional and the parties all got along,” he said.
Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, who burst onto the political scene by slaying a giant of the party in a 2018 primary challenge, pointedly declined to shoot down a question about a future primary against Mr. Schumer, who is not on the ballot again until 2028. Interviewed on CNN on Thursday, she called his turnabout on the legislation — which every Democrat in the House save one opposed — a “tremendous mistake” and urged him to reverse himself.
Schumer is beyond worthless. He makes 2024 Joe Biden look like a man ready to communicate with the public. I think this is also 100% correct:
The Democratic Party’s problems are not about being moderate or left. That’s a consultant and pundit red herring
The problems are in party organization, the culture of “it’s their turn” nominations, candidate recruitment, gerontocracy, inability to shape media topics, and coming off hella lame
— Jake Grumbach (@jakemgrumbach.bsky.social) March 14, 2025 at 9:00 AM
There’s been a lot of news articles reporting on leftists in the Democratic Party thinking that the way forward was their own personal policy preferences and Third Way idiots saying the same thing about their beloved Catfood Commission politics. But however true that reporting is, it really misses the point. The issue is not ideology, it’s strategy and tactics. And that is a very generational divide. The people who rose in the Clinton years, including Bubba Bill himself, are just completely out of touch with how to respond to the current reality. There needs to be a revolution in the Party and getting rid of Chuck Schumer tops the agenda.