When Kathy Hochul is talking about going to “war” in a nationwide, brass-knuckle political fight and Chuck Schumer is going quasi-edge-lord on social media taunting Donald Trump, you know it’s a sea change moment. It’s not because even now you expect the most from these two. It’s because even these two — the most conventional and old school of politicians — clearly see what’s being demanded of them and are trying to get ahead of that wave that is transforming the assumptions about power and political action within the Democratic party.
Basically, when Trump took office a lot of Congressional Democrats weren’t voting against him in any kind of consistent way. Like half were voting to confirm his nominees. Its taken a lot of pressure to get them to start fighting at all.