The Revenge of the Baileys
What it looks like when you don't have a strategy
Happy Friday.
The Republican Party, with the help of 10 Democrats, voted for cloture on the spending bill. The government is now “funded” through September.
In case you wonder which Democrats voted for the spending bill, here is the list:
Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-New York (age: 74; up for reelection in 2028)
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-New York (age: 58; up for reelection in 2030)
Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pennsylvania (age: 55; up for reelection in 2028)
Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Illinois (age: 80; up for reelection in 2026)
Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii (age: 52; up for reelection in 2028)
Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nevada (age: 60; up for reelection in 2028)
Sen. Gary Peters, D-Michigan (age: 66; retiring)
Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-New Hampshire (age: 78; retiring)
Sen. Maggie Hassan, D-New Hampshire (age: 67; up for reelection in 2028)
Sen. Angus King, I-Maine (age: 80; up for reelection in 2030)
I think it’s notable that only Durbin is up for reelection next year. I think it says something that two of them are retiring. I think it’s interesting that the rest think time is on their side, especially because I think at least 2 of them are highly likely not to be seeking reelection.
The spending bill, among other things, cedes Congress’ power to levy tariffs to the Executive Branch. Once the President raises a tariff, Congress has now rendered itself powerless to stop him.
Trump and his OMB head, Russell Vought have already announced they intend not to honor the spending bill in any event. They will impound funds they don’t want to spend. The spending bill is, at this point, purely symbolic.
Last night, on All In With Chris Hayes, Minority Leader Sen. Schumer said this,
“[M]y job as leader is to see things a little bit ahead down the road and see how horrible this would be and alert people to it.”
He also said,
“I can tell you, I’ve been through shut downs before.”
This is managerial hubris, and it’s extraordinarily common. It is frequently my job, in my business, to help my clients both assess the current moment, and see down the road. The great temptation, especially for very experienced managers, is to think that the current situation, because it shares some characteristics with something they have been through before, will be exactly the same as before. And because they have experience with how those “before” times worked out, they think that gives them foresight.
But this often backfires. For one thing, as my dad used to say, “that was then, and this is now.” You can reason by analogy, but you must also distinguish the current situation from what has gone before — you have to be able to see not only what is the same, but also what is different.
That gives you a truer sense of where you are. And getting oriented to your current position is critical.
But this is where the concept of the “snapshot in time” is potentially very perilous. You have to take that snapshot more than once; each time, you should be able to determine the rate and direction of change. The vehicle is on the road — but is it moving, and if so, which direction, and how fast?
It’s my impression that Schumer has not assessed which direction the vehicle (the MAGA party) is headed, nor how fast they are going. His calculus appears to be that he will not have to be blamed for a government shutdown; that the impoundments and other actions taken by the President and DOGE will be deeply unpopular come the September budget vote; that at that point, he and his Democratic colleagues will have more leverage.
And I think some of the reason he is so complacent has to do with something he has talked about many times, and that I wrote about elsewhere back in 2021. Chuck Schumer, when he is deciding what his constituents want him to do, consults the Baileys of Massapequa. Who do not exist. But if they did…
The Baileys (who used to be called the O’Reillys, before Chuck decided that was too ethnic), have been with him for 2 decades, at least. He seems to have made them up for his 2007 book, Positively American.
They amount to what we call, in my work, personas.
Personas were invented in the mid-1980s by Alan Cooper to help him think through how a user of software he was designing would interact with the program. They were intended to make software more user-friendly. By the mid-1990s, they’d made the leap into marketing, where they became imagined “day in the life” archetypes of various kinds of consumers. They were at least in theory meant to help marketers stay grounded in real people’s purchase behavior.
And so then, a decade later, they were adapted again — this time as the “people” Schumer could point to when he wanted to justify his own beliefs.
It’s unclear if the Baileys are grounded in any research of any kind, or whether they are spun entirely from his own fantasies. He did say of them, back in 2007,
“As swing voters, Schumer said, “the Baileys were very anti-Hillary when she ran in 2000, but they voted for her in 2006.” He went on, “They like Rudy. It depends on how he plays it. If Rudy continues to adhere to the right-wing Republican line, just cutting taxes for the wealthy, he won’t get their vote.””
The Baileys aren’t base Democrats. They’re swing voters who hate property tax, defend human intelligence programs at the CIA, and this is true (to the extent that it can be true about fictional people), would order the kung pao chicken. In 2022, Nassau County, where the Baileys don’t live, went for Schumer’s opponent by three points. In 2020, Nassau County went for Joe Biden by 10 points. Chuck may think he loves the Baileys, but they don’t love him back.
Why is it that Chuck likes the Baileys so much? Maybe one reason is that his actual base voters (the voters who live in Manhattan, the Bronx and Brooklyn, where Chuck won by +71, +62, and +53 respectively) aren’t too happy with the way things are going. The feeling, historically, is mutual. Here’s Chuck again, from that New Yorker piece from 2007:
Liberal élitism, he said, as he stirred Sweet ’N Low into his tea with a chopstick, alienates middle-income families from the Party. “Middle-class people don’t think everybody should have to drive a tiny little car to achieve improvement in global warming,” he said. Invoking opponents of expanding the tuition tax credit to the middle class, he went on, “If we listened to the New York Times editorial board, we’d have twenty-one votes in the Senate.”
One of many problems with Chuck and his persona couple is that while the Baileys have names (Joe and Eileen, by the way) and jobs (he works in insurance and she works part time in a doctor’s office — I’m guessing they’re both retired by now), the liberal elites he has so much disdain for are just as broadly and bizarrely drawn. His criticisms in the excerpt above seem to be drawn from years before he made these comments to Jeffrey Goldberg.
Schumer lives in a fantasy world of his own design, untethered from reality, and time, and the preferences of his own party’s voters — the voters who shoo him into office, faithfully, year after year. And are now bombarding him with criticism. But the criticism is not reserved only for Schumer.
According to recent Quinnipiac polling, 48% of registered Democrats said their most urgent issue is “protecting democracy”. 74% of them said they are pessimistic about freedom of speech being protected in the United States. Almost all of them would have blamed Trump or the Republicans for a shutdown if one had occurred. 69% of them say the position of the United States as the leader of the free world is over.
Just two weeks ago, 49% of Democrats disapproved of the way the Democrats were handling their job in Congress. 82% were very dissatisfied with the way things were going. 48% thought the system of checks and balances were not working well at all (another 32% thought the system was working “not so well”).
If you stay loyal to your least enthusiastic customers at the expense of your best customers, eventually, your best customers will take their business someplace else.
After this week, I am more convinced than ever that the Democratic party is an empty vessel, and some group of leaders could fill it if they showed they had any fight in them at all.
Headlines
Knowledge Destruction
NASA closes offices, lays off staff as it prepares for larger workforce reductions, Jeff Foust, SpaceNews, 3/10/25
In compliance with an Executive Order, NASA cut chief scientist Dr. Katherine Calvin and eliminated the Office of Technology, Policy, and Strategy; the Office of the Chief Scientist; and the Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility (DEIA) Branch of the Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.
Related:
NASA eliminates chief scientist role, other offices, Andrew Freedman, Axios, 3/11/25Related:
The Planetary Society: reported cuts to NASA would amount to an “extinction event” for space science and exploration, press release from The Planetary Society, 3/7/25 (Archive); “It could also shatter the nation’s science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) educational pipeline, and decimate the world’s most capable and accomplished scientific and engineering workforce.”
U.S.A.I.D. Official Orders Employees to Shred or Burn Classified and Personnel Records, Edward Wong, New York Times, 3/12/25 (Archive)
USAID employees were ordered by acting executive secretary Erica Y. Carr to destroy classified documents, prompting litigation efforts to prevent further disposal. Legality and compliance with the Federal Records Act remains unclear, while groups like The American Foreign Service Association and The National Security Archive raised alarms.
“The documents being destroyed could have relevance to multiple court cases that have been filed against the Trump administration and the aid agency over the mass firing and sudden relocation of employees, the rapid dismantlement of the agency and a freeze on almost all foreign aid money.”
Related
USAID order to delete classified records sparks flurry of litigation, Rebecca Beitsch, The Hill, 3/12/25 (Archive)Related
DON'T SHRED ON ME! USAID documents destruction breaks the law, according to National Security Archive, statement from the National Security Archive, 3/12/25 (Archive)
NCUA Board Member Tanya F. Otsuka Statement on the Decision to Remove Total Overdraft and Non-sufficient Fund Fee Data, press release from National Credit Union Administration, 3/13/25 (Archive)
While NCUA Chairman Kyle Hauptman (former banker turned Republican staffer/appointee) decided to unilaterally change public reporting requirements for credit unions, board member Tanya Otsuka criticizes the choice and subtly calls out the lack of collaboration with Board members. Alongside the weakening of the CFPB, consumer protections dwindle as data transparency slips.
Brain Drain
NASA, Yale, and Stanford Scientists Consider 'Scientific Exile,' French University Says, Emanuel Maiberg, 404 Media, 3/13/25 (Archive)
Last week, French university Aix Marseille Université launched the Safe Place For Science program, inviting US scientists to continue research in France for fear of censorship or defunding by the Trump administration. The program has been met with immense interest from scientists across several prestigious research institutions, citing at-risk research areas: environmental studies, humanities, health (including epidemiology and LGBT+ healthcare), and astrophysics.
Related:
The initial Safe Place For Science : une quarantaine de scientifiques américains répondent à l’appel d’Aix Marseille Université, press release from Aix Marseille Université (French), 3/12/25 (Archive); University president Éric Berton states “Nous assistons à une nouvelle fuite des cerveaux” - “We are witnessing a new brain drain”Related:
Brain-drain to Paris: France courts US scientists unhappy with Trump, Anne-Laure Dufeal, Brussels Signal, 3/10/25 (Archive); includes collected statements from other French academic officials in support of research preservation, including from Philippe Baptiste, France’s Minister for Higher Education and Research; Yasmine Belkaid, director general of the Institut Pasteur; and Nobel prize recipients Esther Duflo and Anne L’Huillier.
New Jersey’s revered Monmouth University Polling Institute to shut down in July, Madison Fernandez, Politico, 3/12/25 (Archive).
In the official statement, university president Dr. Patrick Leahy cites “changing political and media landscapes” as cause for difficulties in polling. Unable to meet expenses and seemingly failing to address polling skepticism, a “year-long review” with the university board concluded with the institute’s closure.
Related: Important Update on the Monmouth University Polling Institute, statement from Monmouth University, 3/12/25 (Archive).
You’re welcome, Canada.
Canada is so furious at the US right now, Sean Collins and Zack Beauchamp, Vox, 3/14/25 (Archive).
Between tariff retaliations and supposed motivations for occupation, US politics continues to rattle relationships with and within Canada. In response, Canadian parliamentary leadership continues to shift amidst the parliamentary race.
Related: The Labor Party of Canada’s prospects have improved by 12 points since Trump took office.
Have a great weekend. Don’t forget to backup your data.