After a thorough excoriating by Democrats who are livid at his capitulation to Trump, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has “postponed” his book tour. Hopefully he’ll use the time to do something about Trump’s unshackled authoritarianism. But I suspect he’s treating this like a celebrity caught in a PR kerfuffle and not like an elected official failing his constituency.
We’re going to claim a little credit for Schumer stepping back: Maris Kreizman’s “Shilling Books While Rome Burns: Why Politicians Need to Focus on Their Day Jobs” was not just a concise articulation of the anger many of us are feeling, but her piece was also galvanizing for the book world, who were starting to pressure the stores hosting Schumer.
A spokesperson quoted in Politico said that “Due to security concerns, Senator Schumer’s book events are being rescheduled.” Anecdotally, I know a lot of people who were prepared to protest, so my guess this is as much about avoiding angry crowds as anything else.
Schumer shouldn’t be taking his book out on the road at a moment like this. He made the right call. But choosing to frame this as merely “postponing” or “rescheduling” makes me think Schumer hasn’t gotten the message. We’re not upset because the timing is wrong. We’re upset because the Democrat in the highest office in DC doesn’t seem to be taking what is happening seriously. Voting to advance an aggressively far-right budget and then hitting the road tells me the Senator’s not that worried. Deferring his tour tells me that the Senator thinks everything is pretty much fine, and it won’t be long until things are normal again, once we get past this current unpleasantness. “Rescheduling” means we aren’t being pummeled by a hurricane; we just got caught in a drizzle without an umbrella.
This attitude of postponement until everything quiets down is naive at best and collaborationist at worst.
Schumer should have known without being told that this isn’t a moment for a book tour. As someone who began their career as an elected official in 1974, Schumer should know better.
Trump is disappearing protestors, defunding libraries, bombing more countries, shredding entire federal agencies, crashing the economy, and on, and on, and on. Shit’s bad, and it’s going to take more than pausing some book tours to get things back on track.
