Protesters rallied outside of Sen. Chuck Schumer’s Brooklyn residence early Friday morning fueled by growing outrage with the Democrats’ tepid opposition to President Donald Trump’s agenda of slashing federal jobs and critical services as the government faces the possibility of a shutdown at midnight.
Organizers planned the demonstration quickly over a text thread on Thursday evening after the Senate minority leader abruptly announced he would vote to keep the government running. The move paves the way for the Republican-controlled Senate to approve a spending bill to fund the government through Sept. 30, effectively torpedoing his own party’s attempts at a filibuster. Schumer had been vocally opposed to the measure as recently as Wednesday.
The GOP-backed legislation includes billions of dollars in cuts across federal agencies and an increase in defense spending. The budgetary moves would compound weeks of turmoil in which thousands of federal workers have been fired, and billions of dollars in funding for foreign aid, public health research and education services have been slashed under Trump and his special advisor, Elon Musk.
Schumer’s about-face will allow the Republican agenda to move forward with little resistance at a time when constituents are impatient for more opposition, said protesters. The crowd of a hundred people broke into repeated chants of “vote no or go.” One protester held a sign that said “Fight for us!” Another said simply, “Someone please do something.”
“We’ve been told for months that the Democrats are going to hold their fire until they have leverage and then to surrender that leverage — the only one that exists — feels like a real betrayal to his constituency and the country, ” said Shay O’Reilly, 35, an organizer who helped plan the event.
The event was co-sponsored by the advocacy groups Indivisible and Food and Water Watch.
Sen. Schumer’s office did not immediately return a request for comment.
“Everyone is screaming from the rooftops to ask the Democrats to actually be an opposition party and they just refuse to do it,” said Carey Tan, 39 who held a whiteboard sign where she had scrawled in red dry erase marker “It’s a coup, get a clue!”
Tan said she attended the morning protest after growing frustrated with not being able to get through to her Senators after making dozens of calls over the last few days.
“I’m horrified watching this coup happen in real time and so few of our so-called leaders are acknowledging the severity of it,” said Tan. “They seem to have no self-preservation instincts, let alone an instinct to protect all of us.”
Speakers addressed the crowd with a few words at a time which the crowd echoed back in unison, so the entire crowd could hear. The tool is known as the “people’s microphone,” and circumvents the need for sound amplifying devices like megaphones which require permits.
“It’s up to Chuck, who’s salary we pay, so he can live in this exceptionally expensive building to actually work for us,” said Jessica Roth, an environmental advocate, while pointing to Schumer’s apartment building on Prospect Park West. “It’s our lives he’s supposed to be protecting.”
Sen. Chuck Schumer speaks at the State of the Bronx address, Feb. 21, 2019. Credit: Ben Fractenberg/THE CITY
Since Thursday, Schumer has been arguing that a shutdown would be a worse outcome.
“The Republican bill is a terrible option,” he said on the Senate floor, “but I believe allowing Donald Trump to take even much more power via a government shutdown is a far worse option.”
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-Queens) called Schumer’s decision “a terrible mistake” during an appearance on CNN Thursday, while pointedly avoiding saying whether she’d primary Schumer in 2028.
Protesters in Brooklyn were also unsatisfied with his explanation. “Not whipping the whole caucus to vote no, in the face of everything that Trump and Musk are doing is just insane,” said one woman who asked not to be named for privacy.
She added that she hadn’t protested in awhile, but “I will probably be doing it constantly now. Things are only going to get worse.”
Our nonprofit newsroom relies on donations from readers to sustain our local reporting and keep it free for all New Yorkers. Donate to THE CITY today.
The post Anger Grows at Sen. Chuck Schumer in Protests Outside His Brooklyn Home appeared first on THE CITY – NYC News.
