A letter to new majority leader Chuck Schumer — show some common sense

Dear Chuck,

Voters handed you and the Democratic Party a historic win on Tuesday night.

You can use that power to help address the economic problems of working Americans, doing the country some good and helping to repair a still intensely toxic Democratic brand.

Or you make the same mistake that President Joe Biden made and play to the socialist, deconstructionist far left.

And that will make you very unpopular with voters.

Here’s how to avoid that.

Start with the importance of humility.

The election was mainly a rebuke of President Donald Trump and his erratic and ineffectual prosecution of the Iran war and his trade wars.

The election was not a mandate for the Democrats — and certainly not a mandate for the progressive socialist revolution.

Democrats’ approval ratings are still in the dumps: Only 29% of voters view the party favorably.

Republicans still do much better, with a 38% approval rating on election eve, according to NBC’s poll this week.

You took a shellacking in the 2024 elections because your party was far too radical on nearly every economic and cultural issue.

It’s not clear that you guys learned the lesson.

Democratic policies in blue states are making inflation worse.

Zoning permitting laws make it three times more costly to build an apartment in California than in Texas.

Energy regulations make electricity prices in California, Massachusetts and New York nearly double that of red states like Florida.

Health-insurance premiums have more than doubled after Obamacare regulations choked competition in the insurance industry.

When electioneering slogans like “Abolish ICE” are unmasked, they will be seen for what they are: a fig-leaf euphemism for highly unpopular open borders, amnesty and anarchy.

Democrats think they can score points with endless investigations and possibly impeachment; incoming Oversight Committee chairman Robert Garcia warns the GOP to “lawyer up.”

The last time we chatted, Chuck, we recalled working together during the 1998 Clinton impeachment. That was when you first ran for the Senate.

We chuckled at how the GOP overreached in trying to impeach Clinton, and how voters turned them out office in the 1998 midterms.

There are parallels today.

Voters already trust the GOP more than the Democrats by five points on corruption.

More important, they want you to help solve their economic challenges, not engage in the politics of endless retribution through lawfare.

You also have a rampant antisemitism problem.

The DSA cheered for the Oct. 7 genocidal massacre, and incoming Michigan Sen. Abdul El-Sayed traffics in the worst antisemitic blood libels.

His apparent supporters are calling for the “final annihilation” of Jews.

Civilizations that tolerate antisemitism always experience rapid decline thereafter. The same is true of political parties.

And Americans will pay a heavy price if they cut ties with Israel.

We and the Arab states in the Gulf depend on Israeli intelligence to defeat terror threats.

We depend on their technology and research for our missile defense and advance weapons development.

Our paltry $4 billion in annual aid is a bargain price for these gains.

In places like Georgia, Iowa and North and South Carolina, Democratic gains were about capturing growing numbers of volatile, impatient swing voters looking for practical solutions — not the socialist revolution.

In California, the most left-wing state in the Union, the wealth tax failed.

You and Hakeem Jeffries now have big margins in the House and Senate.

This allows you to engage in policy entrepreneurialism.

If you can forget for a moment about the threat of being primaried by the crazies — and I get that’s a real threat — you will see the long-term benefit to the country and the party of returning back to the Democrats’ great traditions.

Build a growing pie rather than redistribute a shrinking one.

Administer a limited and temporary welfare state for the truly needy.

Promote individual agency rather than dependency on the state.

Stand with our allies who are fighting Nazi movements with a lineage to the 1939 Nazis in Germany.

Embrace common sense on culture.

This is the way back.

Julian Epstein is the former chief counsel for the House Judiciary Democrats and the former staff director of the House Oversight Committee.