The Fired Guy Is Doing the Boss’s Job

A no-nonsense memo on why Schumer and Jeffries have to go

Nov 10, 2026

The Fired Guy Is Doing the Boss’s Job

A no-nonsense memo on why Schumer and Jeffries have to go

The Jack Hopkins Now Newsletter #1,082: November 10th, 2026.

Let me tell you what happened in Washington this week, because it is the best free lesson in leadership you will get all year.

A Republican congressman from Kentucky named Thomas Massie, a man who lost his primary and is cleaning out his desk, stood on the House floor for an hour and twenty minutes and read eight articles of impeachment against Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. Out loud. Every word.

The White House went to battle stations. Phones rang. Arms got twisted. Republican leaders spent Tuesday hunting for a way to bury the thing in committee before it could reach a clean vote.

Now…ask the only question that matters.

Where were the two people whose actual job is to lead the opposition?

Following. As usual.

Hakeem Jeffries announced he is a “hard yes” on impeachment.

Wonderful. Somebody get the man a medal for joining a parade that was already halfway down Main Street.

This is the same Jeffries who brushed the idea aside less than a year ago, when a member of his own caucus raised it. Back then it was risky. Now…a Republican has done the heavy lifting…the voters have delivered a landslide…and the wind is at his back. Suddenly he is “hard as nails.” Yeah. You smell it, too. I don’t have to name it.

That is not leadership. That is a weathervane…with a press office.

In the business world… there's a name for the fellow who shows up after the sale is closed…and asks for the commission. It is not a flattering name.

Your customers already told you

Here is what the “but they won!” crowd does not want to look at.

Democrats just took the Senate and better than 250 House seats, their biggest House majority since the early nineties. And inside of one week:

More than a million people signed a petition telling House Democrats to choose somebody other than Jeffries as Speaker.
Congressional offices reported hundreds of calls apiece saying the same thing.
A YouGov poll for Indivisible found one voter in ten wants Schumer as majority leader. Fifty-seven percent want somebody else.
Five incoming Democratic senators said they will not vote for him.
On Tuesday, Bernie Sanders and Elissa Slotkin stood in front of the cameras and said so too.

Sanders is the left flank. Slotkin…is a former CIA analyst from Michigan…who speaks for the middle. When both ends of your own organization…deliver the same message…on the same day…you are not looking at a faction. You are looking at a verdict.

Any business owner knows what it means when his best customers start complaining the week after his best sales month ever. They bought the product. They cannot stand the front office.

Voters wanted out of the Iran war…and out of the chaos…and they would have hired almost anybody to get it. Mistaking that…for personal applause…is how comfortable men lose companies.

Nine years and no plan

Here is the part that should end the argument.

Sanders and Slotkin walked out of a meeting of Senate Democrats and reported that the leader…had not laid out a clear goal for the new majority. Slotkin says her vote goes to whoever shows her a concrete plan that is actually different.

Think about that. Schumer has run that caucus since 2017. He has just been handed the keys. And his own people say nobody can tell them where the car is going.

His answer? He is confident he will be elected, and the caucus is united on costs, corruption, chaos and the war.

That is a list of topics. A list of topics is not a plan. A plan has dates…numbers…a first move…and a name attached to every promise. Confidence about keeping the job…is not the same thing as an idea of what to do with it.

Gravel in the gizzard

A chicken has no teeth. It swallows grit, and the gravel in its gizzard does the grinding.

Take away the gravel…and the bird will starve standing…in front of a full trough.

Democrats…are standing in front of the fullest trough they have seen in thirty years. What they lack at the top…is the grit to grind it into anything.

Here is what gravel looks like in a leader:

Goes first. Picks the fight before the polling says it is safe, not after a lame duck from the other party clears the road.
Puts it in writing. First hundred days, on paper, before the vote, so everybody can hold the leader to it.
Can stand to be disliked. By donors, by consultants, by the Sunday shows, by old friends.
Measures results, not effort. Sanders was gracious enough to say nobody works harder than Schumer. Fine. Nobody ever paid an invoice with effort.

You do not have to care for Massie’s politics to see the point. He had no office left to protect…he moved anyway…and the most powerful building in the world spent the day reacting to him. That is what one person with grit does…to a room full of people with titles.

The deadline

I am not here to hand you a name.

Chris Van Hollen is being talked up in the Senate. Nobody has filed against Jeffries in the House…and in a caucus that size…that silence is its own indictment.

Here is what I will hand you: a deadline. House Democrats hold leadership elections November 18 and 19. Senate Democrats vote in December. After that, the concrete sets and you live with it for two years.

So…pick up the phone. Call the people you just elected…and ask one question: “Who has the plan, and who has the gravel to carry it out?” If the answer is a résumé, a seniority list or a speech about unity…you have your answer.

Majorities are rented…never owned. The rent comes due in 2028.

#HoldFast

Back Soon.

-Jack

Jack Hopkins

P.S. The old guard’s whole case is “we won.” So did plenty of businesses, right before the customers found someone hungrier. Winning tells you what the market wanted. It tells you nothing about whether the current management can deliver it.

Sources

Hegseth impeachment

Schumer and the Senate leadership fight

Jeffries and the Speaker race

Beverly Smiles ga

November 18,19, is NEXT WEEK. Jeffries and Schumer need to pledge on paper the next 2years goals, in order of priority of the people’s they represent. Period. They are not Princes. Delay the selection.

1 reply by Jack Hopkins

Sher'

We the People actually won this election. We saved our own asses by uniting into a Landslide Force. Nobody else did it but us. We picked the only viable choice.

2 replies by Jack Hopkins and others

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