Dems Reject Schumer, Join Republicans To Give Trump Another
More than a dozen Democratic senators voted with Republicans to confirm President Donald Trump’s latest nominee. The Senate confirmed David Perdue of Georgia to become Trump’s ambassador to China, an all-important post given the significance of trade and national security issues with the world’s second-largest economy.
The vote was 64-27 in favor of cloture, which requires 60 votes. In 2022, Trump backed Perdue in his attempt to primary incumbent Gov. Brian Kemp (R), but he wasn’t successful.
Meanwhile, the Democratic Party is continuing to lose support among one of its key voter blocs, young people, according to a new survey.
This comes as Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer is still facing swift blowback after his government shutdown efforts blew up in his face last month.
Swing voters in a major battleground state noted in the latest Engagious/Sago focus groups that they were frustrated with Democrats for prolonging the federal government shutdown, only to ultimately end it without securing a commitment from Republicans to address rising health insurance premiums.
Even some voters who supported President Trump last November said they still look to Democrats to safeguard health care affordability and the social safety net for lower-income Americans.
But in this week’s panels, seven of the 13 Biden-to-Trump swing voters in Georgia said Democrats emerged from the shutdown looking worse than Republicans. Two said Republicans looked worse, while four said both parties appeared equally at fault,
according to Axios.
“They gave in to the Republicans,” Trilya M., 53, of Loganville, said of Democrats. “They did not stand their ground with them, and now it’s going to affect the people that [have] the Affordable Care Act.”
It was for what?” said Christine L., 54, of Peachtree City. “It really does make them look bad.”
“They always project to be a party of the people who they care about, the disenfranchised, the people who are in poverty … but their actions contradict it, they don’t really care,” noted Elijah T, 33, of Conyers.
“Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries beat the heck out of this and wasted 41 days dragging their feet before eight Democrats finally decided enough is enough,” said Brian B., 61, of Norcross.
Rich Thau, President of Engagious, who moderated the focus groups, told Axios: “Democrats gave swing voters — who already hold the party in profoundly low esteem — yet another reason to mistrust them.”
Eight of the 13 participants said they still approve of the administration’s overall performance since President Trump returned to office in January.
The five who expressed disapproval pointed to inflation, high food prices, concerns about the job market, aggressive immigration enforcement, and a perception that the administration has not approached its governing responsibilities with sufficient seriousness, Axios reported.
Axios observed two online focus groups Tuesday night with 13 Georgia voters who supported Joe Biden in 2020 and then backed Donald Trump in 2024.
Nine participants identified as independents, three as Republicans, and one as a Democrat. While focus groups are not statistically representative like traditional polling, the responses offer insight into how some voters are processing current political developments.
Eleven of the 13 said they were aware of Democrats’ recent wins in off-year elections in strongly Democratic jurisdictions, including contests in Virginia, New Jersey, California, and New York City.
Of the thirteen surveyed, ten indicated they would support a constitutional amendment to establish an upper age limit for future U.S. presidents, with most suggesting a limit between 65 and 75 years old, the outlet said.
A New York Post editorial board piece published noted that rank-and-file Democrats are largely dispirited and frustrated after a lengthy shutdown failed to win concessions from majority Republicans on issues important to their party.
“Democrats pointlessly kept the government shut down for 41 days (and still counting!), purely to satisfy their squalling left flank’s need to do something to ‘resist’ President Donald Trump,” the editorial began
.
“After they shut it down, they opted to claim the point was to force the GOP to extend expiring Covid-era Affordable Care Act subsidies — though the Dems themselves had set the expiration date back in 2021,” it continued.
"""My husband brought his mistress to our daughter’s wedding—and then asked me to give her my seat beside him.
"""My husband brought his mistress to our daughter’s wedding—and then asked me to give her my seat beside him. For a few seconds, I honestly thought I was looking at the wrong table, because my name card had vanished and Melissa’s was sitting exactly where mine had been on every seating chart. She wore a pale blue silk dress, lifted her champagne as if she belonged there, and avoided my eyes when I stopped beside the chair. David stood up, pointed to an empty seat at the next table, and quietly said, “For tonight, why don’t you sit over there?”
I had spent fourteen months helping our daughter, Emily, plan that wedding, from dress fittings and florist meetings to late-night calls over napkins and seating charts. That morning, while I fastened the pearl buttons on her gown, she made me promise I would enjoy the day and not let anything between her father and me touch it. I meant that promise, because whatever was left of my marriage, I would not make my daughter’s wedding the battlefield where it died. But David had apparently made a different plan, and he expected me to cooperate with it in silence.
When I asked what Melissa was doing there, David’s face showed guilt for only a second before he hid it behind irritation. He acted as though I were creating the problem simply by noticing that his mistress was seated at the family table in the place reserved for the bride’s mother. Then Melissa looked at me and said, “Honey, today really isn’t the day to make Emily uncomfortable.” I almost laughed, because the woman who had been sleeping with my husband for nearly a year was now warning me not to embarrass my own daughter.
I could feel people settling into nearby seats, laughing and talking, unaware that my marriage was being quietly rearranged in front of them. David kept his voice low and told me we should not “do this here,” as if the humiliation belonged to me because I refused to disappear politely. I looked at the empty chair he had chosen for me between a cousin and someone from the groom’s side, and I realized something colder than anger. This was not spontaneous; he had thought about where Melissa would sit, and he had assumed I would move.
For twenty-eight years, I had been the woman who adjusted, explained, forgave, and made excuses when David forgot anniversaries, missed dinners, or put work ahead of family. When he became distant, I learned to expect less instead of asking for more, and somewhere along the way he mistook that patience for permission. Even now, part of me considered taking the other chair, smiling for photographs, swallowing the humiliation, and telling myself it was all for Emily. I actually reached for the chair because protecting my daughter still mattered more to me than winning a public fight.
Then I heard one word behind me: “Mom?” Emily was walking toward us in her wedding dress, still glowing from the ceremony, and at first she looked confused rather than angry. Her eyes moved from me, to the empty chair, to Melissa, then back to the family table where she had personally placed me months ago. David quickly stepped in and announced that he had “rearranged a few things,” as if changing the bride’s seating chart without permission were no more serious than moving a centerpiece.
Emily asked why I was not sitting in my seat, and David casually pointed to the neighboring table and said I would be sitting “right there.” Her smile disappeared, and her eyes dropped to the place card in front of Melissa. I watched my daughter’s expression go completely still as she picked up that card and turned it over in her hand. In that instant, I understood the worst part: Emily had not approved this, and David had brought his mistress into our daughter’s wedding believing he could force everyone to accept what he wanted once it was already done.
What Emily did not know was that six months earlier, I had discovered David’s affair through a message that appeared on his phone while he was in the shower. Melissa had written, “I hate pretending I don’t miss you when she’s around,” followed by another message asking whether Friday was still theirs. When I confronted him, David spent eleven minutes calling me paranoid, insecure, dramatic, suspicious, and unfair before I repeated Melissa’s words exactly. The silence that followed ended our marriage long before either of us ever said the word divorce.
We had kept the details quiet because Emily was planning her wedding, and I refused to turn her happiest season into a crisis about us. David told me he was “confused,” that what he had with Melissa was “more complicated than an affair,” and that he needed time before making decisions. I agreed only that Emily’s wedding came first, so we slept in separate rooms, spoke carefully, and tried to appear functional while our marriage quietly collapsed. I believed David understood that one day required restraint, but he had apparently used that silence to prepare something else.
Three weeks before the wedding, he had casually asked whether Emily had finalized the family table and whether every seat had been assigned. At the time, I thought it was harmless conversation, but standing there with Melissa’s card in my daughter’s hand, I finally understood why he had asked. He had been checking whether there would be room, and when there was not, he simply removed me. Emily looked up at her father and asked, very quietly, “Where is Mom’s place card?”—and for the first time that night, David had no easy answer.
…FULL STORY IN THE COMMENT 👇👇👇"" "
