Progressive New Jersey Democrat Lisa McCormick rails against the Capitulation Caucus

In a move that has ignited fury among the party’s grassroots, Senate Democrats on Thursday struck a deal with President Donald Trump and Republicans to avert a government shutdown, opting for negotiation at the very moment they held maximum leverage over the administration’s immigration crackdown.

The agreement, which funds most of the government and provides a two-week extension for the Department of Homeland Security, was met with immediate and scalding condemnation from progressive insurgents who view it as yet another capitulation.

“How many times are these morons going to walk into a conflict without being adequately prepared?” asked Lisa McCormick, a New Jersey progressive Democrat mounting a primary challenge against incumbent Senator Cory Booker. “The Capitulation Caucus is not equipped to succeed. They bring a knife to a gunfight every single time.”

The deal, which leaders hope will clear Congress before a Friday midnight deadline, postpones a bitter fight over the tactics of federal immigration agents. It comes in the wake of two fatal shootings of civilians by officers in Minneapolis this month, killings that have intensified scrutiny of what McCormick termed a “draconian enforcement scheme.”

McCormick, who the Jersey Journal once called ‘more progressive than Bernie Sanders,’ sailed into the leadership of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer for what she described as a pattern of choosing the easier path of compromise over the hard duty of resistance.

“They had a shutdown as leverage. They had public outrage. They had momentum from landslide victories last November,” said McCormick. “And they folded. They funded his military invasion of U.S. cities. His secret police. His attacks on our democracy.”

The frustration is not confined to activist circles. Approximately one-third of Democratic voters describe their party as weak, broken or ineffective, according to recent surveys, a testament to the considerable pessimism festering within its ranks.

“The Trump administration’s Department of Homeland Security is out of control, endangering the well-being and lives of Americans,” said McCormick. “Democrats have an obligation to ensure that DHS follows the law and fulfills its role to enhance—not compromise—the security of Americans, but the spineless Senate Democrats once again snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.”

This internal dissent reflects a profound dissatisfaction with a leadership class that many perceive as disconnected from the working-class neighborhoods bearing the brunt of political failures.

“There exists a new upper class in politics that’s completely disconnected from the average American,” McCormick said. “Most people are mad as hell that these imbeciles are ruining the country.”

The Thursday agreement followed a Democratic blockade of a broader spending package, a protest demanding strict new limits on immigration operations.

Those demands included banning officers from wearing masks, requiring body cameras and visible identification, ending random sweeps, and mandating judicial warrants for searches.

Yet rather than force a confrontation and get what they deserved, Democratic negotiators settled for a temporary patch and a promise.

McCormick reserved particular scorn for the eight Democratic senators who broke ranks last November to support a spending deal after a record 40-day shutdown, a vote that failed to restore Medicaid cuts for 16 million Americans or extend now-expired health insurance subsidies.

Affordable Care Act (ACA) enrollment dropped by more than a million after those subsidies expired last year, causing monthly insurance premiums to skyrocket. McCormick said people will die as those numbers are likely to rise in the year ahead.

“Instead of fighting for core principles, they made the shutdown a ridiculous and costly act of political theater,” she said. “They are either liars or losers. We cannot afford to keep them.”

She also questioned the judgment of Senator Andy Kim, who voted to confirm Kristi Noem as Homeland Security secretary.

“Noem was terribly unqualified,” McCormick said. “The neo-fascist Republicans telegraphed their intentions so clearly that playing politics as usual was incredibly shortsighted.”

The critique extended to her own primary opponent, Senator Cory Booker. McCormick noted Booker’s vote to confirm Charles Kushner as ambassador to France, his acceptance of contributions from four dozen billionaires despite claims of rejecting corporate PAC money, and his record of missed Senate votes. “He plans to do it again when he runs for president,” she said. “He never stopped Donald Trump from doing anything.”

In a social media post, Trump endorsed the deal, saying “another long and damaging Government Shutdown” would be bad for the country.

Republican leaders expressed relief, while some, like Senator Lindsey Graham, suggested any final compromise should also force so-called sanctuary cities to cooperate with federal authorities.

For McCormick and her allies, the calculus is simple.

The Department of Homeland Security, she argued, was established to counter terrorism, but it has become a terrorist organization.

.“After Americans were murdered by Gestapo-like ICE agents, they are the terrorists roaming U.S. cities,” McCormick said. “And being nice to them is not fighting back.”

The agreement, she concluded, is merely a delay of an inevitable reckoning—one that the current Democratic leadership seems unwilling to face. “This is not a polite call for reform,” McCormick said. “This is a demand for revolution inside the Democratic Party. Chuck Schumer must be fired. And if Senate Democrats refuse to remove him, then they too must be removed.”