Schumer caves. This must be his last term.

No confidence. No avocadoes. Resign.

Twenty-four bloody hours after saying Democrats would not help Republicans avert a shutdown, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer announced he would vote for cloture anyway, and help a “terrible … deeply partisan” bill pass, one that “doesn’t address far too many of this country’s needs.”

Schumer Will Clear the Way for G.O.P. Spending Bill, Breaking With His Party

Mr. Schumer is probably right. He is, after all, the “adult in the room.” So when he tells us we must accept the District of Columbia’s local budget being arbitrarily cut by a billion damn dollars, threatening the city’s teachers, police officers, basic infrastructure, then the alternative, “allowing Donald Trump to take even much more power via a government shutdown,” is probably actually “a far worse option.”

Mr. Schumer, after all, cashed President Donald Trump’s donation checks for fourteen years in New York. This money bought him a lot of avocados, and also some insight into how the Mandarin Mussolini operates.

So, when the minority leader warns that “the Trump administration would have full authority to deem whole agencies, programs and personnel nonessential, furloughing staff with no promise that they would ever be rehired,” I assume his old friend telephoned and told him so.

That would be catastrophic. If Mr. Schumer believes the president means to do the federal government that much harm, then we should expect he has prepared a way to stop that mad king. Just today, Mr. Trump told the NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte how much he wanted to conquer Canada. Canadian redditors have noted they have seen French nuclear submarines park in Halifax. Now, reporters must seriously ask Republicans if they’re willing to risk war with NATO to acquire Canada.

If Mr. Schumer has no plan, then every Democratic senator should vote against cloture, commence a weeklong speaking filibuster, and spend it demanding he resign. Either way, primary opponents for Mr. Schumer should immediately announce and start their campaigns tomorrow.

I do think the senator could have done the right thing, but regardless history will never let us be sure—we have no time machines to experiment trying it the other way. There is hardly anyone, except one guy I know who makes artisanal guacamole, who has any confidence in Mr. Schumer or thinks his maneuvers savvy—and that will be the case even if he makes the best possible moves in every circumstance.

I have defended Mr. Schumer's utility as leader on two basic points:

(1) his institutional familiarity; only someone versed in the Senate can navigate tough votes as well, and

(2) his pre-existing relationship with Mr. Trump gives him more ability to work out better deals with than the president than Dick Durbin.

These traits are not on display now and I think it is gambling to assume they will ever be again without real assurance. Mr. Schumer is a coward. In the event he is not a coward, and he was in fact noble, great, and right today, then we should still call him a coward, because nobody else will look well on a party that celebrates this man.