Schumer, Jeffries & Co. need to get real about the enemy to the left

Democratic Socialists, high on their victories last Tuesday, are already calling out House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Gov. Kathy Hochul; the hard left’s hate for Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer was already well-established — so when will they get serious about fighting back?

One Election Night DSA crowd shouted, “You’re next” when Jeffries showed his face; NYC DSA chief Gustavo Gordillo told The New York Times that Hochul “knows we’re coming for her.”

Lefty candidates across the country talk of ousting Jeffries and Schumer from leadership, while regular Democrats wonder if they have what it takes to beat back the radicals.

Yet Jeffries says the DSA’s march won’t “reshape who we are” as Democrats; Schumer falls back on “We’re going to stop Trump” as if the hard lefties can’t say the same, but louder.

Hochul says . . . well, who cares? She’s already paid off Mayor Zohran Mamdani with billions in taxpayer cash for his agenda, ensuring no threat from the left in what will obviously be her final re-election campaign.

If she wins, she’ll keep up the concessions; it’s what she does.

The DSA’s plan is obvious: Keep turning city government into its own patronage farm and power base, starving old-school Dems’ supporters; play “salami politics” by slicing away at safe blue seats to win majorities of the Democratic caucuses in the state Assembly and Senate to push their legislative agendas and to start gerrymandering legislative and House districts to give them safe DSA seats.

They know perfectly well that Jeffries winked at the redistricting that helped defeat the Squad’s Rep. Jamaal Bowman in a 2024 primary; expect them to return the favor as soon as they can: Watch out, Reps. Grace Meng and Richie Torres.

And this movement is national: DSAers are grabbing Democratic seats not just in urban America, but even in the suburbs.

Whatever they say in public, Jeffries and Schumer need to admit the Democratic establishment has been empowering the radicals’ rise, and reverse the course that’s dooming the old school.

If regular Dems don’t come with a post-Trump vision for the party to rally the center to their cause, the party on its return to power will be stuck playing the hard left’s game just as it did in the Biden years.

Admit the enemy isn’t only to the right; instead of gerrymandering to eliminate Republican seats and create safe Democratic ones that the DSA can then take over, create more competitive ones that can elect more-centrist Dems like Reps. Tom Suozzi and Laura Gillen — even if it means risking electing a few centrist Republicans like Rep. Mike Lawler.

Heck, quietly work with Republicans to undo hard-left power grabs like Sen. Liz Warren’s Consumer Protection Agency.

Democrats have spent the last decade exploiting Trump-hate, a “strategy” that has actually helped both Trump and the far left.

If you don’t want to get eaten by the revolution, you need to make fighting the extremists your top priority, because they’ll never stop gunning for you.