Sen. Chuck Schumer's sudden decision on Thursday to support a Republican bill that avoids government shutdowns has infuriated his fellow Democrats, and some have already spoken to the 74-year-old New York Democratic leader about key challenges.
Schumer's seemingly angry eruption over surrender thrusts public opinion by seeing generational disparities emerged as one of the Democrats' deepest and most consequential changes.
Young Democrats are increasingly complaining about what they see as weakness in the efforts of old security guards to push Trump back. They speculate how party leaders are delivering their message, like Schumer, who wields his flip phone during the Tiktoc era, as Republicans dominate Digital Town Square.
And they demand that the party develop a bold policy agenda that can answer the despair of tens of millions of people struggling financially when their belief in American dreams is getting dark.
In other words, the younger generation is done with respect.
Those who say more militants are advocated when opposing Trump say party elders tend to be unfamiliar with the kind of cute political warfare that they are sought after.
“Our party needs a more fighting spirit,” said 40-year-old Chris Delugio, a suburb of Pittsburgh. “This is not a normal administration, they are willing to do something dangerous.”
The division “doesn't just follow the generational line,” he said. “But I think new, younger members might get this intuitively.”
Delfio said Democrats who were elected before the Trump era tend to be shaped by fond memories of their commities and friendships across the aisle. “We've had a little younger or recently come to Congress and we haven't had the old experience of things being more functional and all political parties get along well,” he said.
New York president Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez pointed out that he would shoot down questions about future primary elections for Schumer, who blew up into the political scene by killing the party giants at a major challenge in 2018, but who hadn't voted until 2028. He urged him to turn himself around.
The party prescriptions for each young lawmaker may differ. But many of them talk about the commands to fight and act. Massachusetts leader Jake Ouchinkoros, 37, said Democrats need ambitious strategies to address the educational obstacles caused by the coronavirus pandemic, and they need to take on social media companies that are promoting homebuilding and loosening social fabrics.
“I'm interested in ideas. Do you have any big ideas about how to govern better than Trump?” he said. “The young lawmakers have that urgency and ferocity.”
That urgency also drives young Democrats to push their elders out of the way. Some elderly House Democrats have already been kicked out of major posts in Congress. The young main challenger has laid the foundations to try and expel more senior lawmakers from the office completely among those targeting former speaker Nancy Pelosi, 84.
And in private, lawmakers in their 30s and 40s praise the need to decipher the mysteries of the internet for their older colleagues. She recently said she had to explain to another House member what the podcast is.
“The generation that took us to this point doesn't have the skills or stomach to take us to the next point,” said Amanda Littman, who leads Something, a progressive group recruiting younger, diverse Democrats and seeking local offices.
Litman said he's already heard of it in 2026 from at least half a dozen young people plotting key issues for Congress.
“If not a tea party, you wouldn't be surprised to see a wave of challengers, especially against the old Democrat incumbents,” Littman said. “It's not going to be ideology. It's going to be style.”
Biden's hangover
The party, which fatefully robbed the 81-year-old standard rep in 2024, is now seeing a reminder of the dangers of relying on older leaders.
Connecticut leader John Larson, 76, froze over a minute last month after suffering a “complex partial attack” on the house floor.
Schumer and Maxine Waters, 86, of California, chanted, “We'll win!” With a demonstration that was almost inspirational besides eyerolls and numbness among young Democrats.
Or Texas Representative Al Green, 77, waved his wand to Trump while addressing the president's congressional joint session. (“If Democrats want a 77-year-old lawmaker to be the face of their resistance and bring the president, to the point,” Chair Mike Johnson, the top Republican in the conference room, Chorted a day later.)
“It overshadows everything,” democratic strategist Tyson Brody said of the issue of age. “And it's a very neat explanation of why we lost it and how all ideological people can fall behind. A shortcut to “How do you rebrand the Democrat?” ”
Of course, age is an incomplete way to measure all of the various democratic disagreements.
83-year-old Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders has swam around the battlefield states and has drawn a large crowd of young people while filing populist economic lawsuits against Republicans.
On Thursday, Schumer explained his decision to vote in a New York Times opinion article to keep the government open.
“As bad as going through a continuous solution, I think government shutdowns are far worse,” Schumer wrote.
A group of new Democrat senators opposed his approach, including Sen. Elissa Slotkin of Michigan, Michigan, who pushed Schumer to communicate his party's response to Trump's Congress speech this month.
Neither party has a monopoly on gerontistism. Sen. Mitch McConnell, 83, a former Republican leader, recently announced he would not seek reelection. In December, former Texas Republican representative Kay Granger, 82, was found to be living in a senior residential facility while still in office. And then there's Trump (78). He has become the oldest person ever to be launched as president.
Still, Democrats who are primarily dealing with age issues, either Dick Durbin (80) of Illinois, Ed Markey (78) of Massachusetts, or Jack Reed (75) of Rhode Island, are running for reelection or not yet in control, heading into the mid-term 2026.
24-year-old David Hogg was recently elected vice-chairman of the Democratic National Committee, who said that since the election, Democrats need a youth movement.
“This doesn't mean you don't need experienced people at parties. We definitely do,” Hogg said. “But for God, we really need a young leader too.”
The school's shooting that built a national profile against gun violence, a survivor of Parkland, Florida, said Hogg wanted Democrats to “control responsibility for many of our party,” but “can use the asset that it is” as “the asset that it is.”
“There is only one Gen Z member of Congress elected in the last two elections,” he said. “That's insane.”
In fact, young Democrats tend to communicate with voters more authentic online.
California's leader Sarah Jacobs, 36 – recently told her she had to explain what the podcast is to her unnamed Democrat colleagues – has begun posting videos of “Get Ready With Me” on Instagram, where she discusses complex policy issues while applying makeup.
“The Democrats beat people who watch cable news and read the newspaper,” Jacobs said. “We've lost people who don't feel like they're part of politics at all, so how do we go to them, rather than keep trying to force them to come to us?”
“Old vs. young”
The frustration of young House Democrats boiled even before Trump took office.
Young people are, of course, relatives to the Congress. The top Democrat in the judiciary is currently 62, not 77. And Arizona's representative Raul M. Griarba, one of the ousted Democrats, passed away Thursday.
Ocasio-Cortez, 35, a fourth House Democrat, lost a bid to lead the Democrat on the 74-year-old Supervisory Board a month after saying he was battling esophageal cancer.
New York president Pat Ryan, 42, gave a speech to Ocasio-Cortez, who recalled that he told his colleagues that he ideologically disagrees with everything, but that she is the type of “fighter” that the party needs now.
Ryan said the biggest factor in lawmakers' effectiveness is the length of service, not Washington's age, and he is happy to present new lawmakers as risky and complete and authentic.
“If you come to an old world that has slowly and carefully risen, then something like that will mostly be trained from you,” Ryan said. “On the other hand, if you come after Trump, you were really catalyzed by a lot of that raw life and emotions.”
The new lawmakers are comparing notes through a text chain limited to House Democrats who served no more than five terms, among other methods.
One incumbent Democrat who could face the challenger in 2026 is Stephen F. Lynch, Massachusetts, who took office in 2001. Lynch retreated after a woman pleaded more aggressively against Trump at a Boston event last month.
“I can decide,” Lynch said, repeating the phrase four times. “You want to decide that? You need to run for Congress.”
Among those who saw the exchange was Patrick Loose, 38, a former aide to Massachusetts government Deval Patrick.
“That's not explicitly the times,” Roast said. “But these jobs are not intended to be held captive for decades.”
Another challenger has been declared to be Saikato Chakrabarti, 39, former chief of staff for Ocasio Cortez, who is playing against Pelosi of San Francisco.
“We're in this moment of crisis and we're seeing the Democratic seniority model fall apart,” Chakrabarti said.
He argued that the old Democrat security guards understand how cumbersome Republicans are to solve them, even at the depths of the nation's troubles.
The shocking upset of Ocasio-Cortez's senior House Democrats in 2018 was “painted as the left and the center,” he said. “Not anymore. It's change and current situation. It's young, whereas it's young.”
