Chuck Schumer versus the resistance

This is a real issue for the party. Do we resist at all costs? Or is there another strategy?

https://www.wsj.com/articles/chuck-schumer-vs-the-resistance-1486511957?mod=e2two

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has the toughest job in Washington, and nothing on the horizon is likely to make it any easier.

In November 2018, 33 senators will be up for re-election; 25 are Democrats or independents who caucus with the Democrats, and 10 of them are at risk. Five Democrats—Joe Donnelly of Indiana, Claire McCaskill of Missouri, Jon Tester of Montana, Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota and Joe Manchin of West Virginia—represent red states that Mitt Romney carried easily. Donald Trump did even better, romping to victory with margins between 19 and 42 percentage points. In 2012 Mr. Tester received only 49% of the vote; Mr. Donnelly, 50%; Ms. Heitkamp, 51%.

Another tranche of Democrats—Florida’s Bill Nelson, Michigan’s Debbie Stabenow, Ohio’s Sherrod Brown, Pennsylvania’s Bob Casey Jr. and Wisconsin’s Tammy Baldwin—represent five of the six states President Trump moved from the Democratic column in 2012 to the Republicans in 2016. It requires little imagination to predict where Mr. Trump will be campaigning in the fall of 2018, or the effect his presence may have among the working-class voters who gave him his margin of victory in 2016.

Sen. Schumer’s overriding political imperative is to prevent Republicans from widening their Senate majority next year. To maximize his chances, he will have to allow endangered Democrats to go their own way on votes that could be used to bolster their opponents. This means defending them when they break with blue-state Democrats while doing his best to forestall debilitating primary challenges from disgruntled progressives. The formula for Democratic victory in North Dakota and West Virginia is very different from Vermont and Massachusetts, a reality that the supporters of Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren must be persuaded to accept.

This is Mr. Schumer’s thankless task, which he cannot evade, whatever the short-term impact on the support he enjoys from his party’s left wing. The alternative—an ideologically driven purge of Democratic moderates—could consign the party to minority status for a generation.