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Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) has made himself the face of the Democratic change in tactics when dealing with Trump and his party, but there is a broader sense that the urging of the elite consultant class that Democrats needed to move in Trump’s direction has been rejected and the party has unified on a strategy to fight and fight hard.
While Gavin Newsom was doing podcasts with Steve Bannon and Charlie Kirk, House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries had been sounding the alarm before Trump came into office and trying to drag congressional Democratic leadership into fight mode.
After Chuck Schumer was nearly run out of the party for caving to Trump on government funding, the tide seemed to shift. When Trump moved on trying to rig the midterm election, it seems that Democrats at all levels got on the same page.
Leader Jeffries put the Democratic strategy into words with a new twist on a Michelle Obama quote.
Jeffries said while talking about Texas Republicans advancing their gerrymandering:
Republicans in Texas were counting on Democrats to behave like bystanders while the extremists tried to rig the midterm elections. They were wrong.
Texas House Democrats thwarted Greg Abbott and Donald Trump for weeks by leaving the state—mobilizing grassroots supporters across the country and stirring up a national response. While the gerrymandered map passed the state House today, we are thankful for the courage, character and conviction shown by the legislators on the battlefield.
During the quorum break, Governor Gavin Newsom and California Democrats unveiled a fair map that proportionally responds to the extreme mid-decade Texas gerrymander. In the spirit of fairness and in accordance with the Voting Rights Act, the recently released California map is lawful and temporary. I strongly support this enlightened and forceful effort.
Democrats will continue to aggressively pursue fairer maps from coast to coast. When extreme MAGA Republicans go low, we will hit back. Hard.
There is no more when they go low, we go high.
Now it is when they go low, we hit them hard.
That is the attitude that Democratic supporters have wanted to see on display since Trump returned to office. The media is still trying to criticize Democrats for fighting back and refusing to see Trump’s authoritarian tendencies, but what matters is that Democrats have a united strategy and they understand that they need to fight back and fight back hard.
Note: Please don’t fill the comments with responses like “It’s about time.” There are elected Democrats and Independent allies who have been trying to move their party for months. People like Chris Murphy, Chris Van Hollen, Bernie Sanders, Maxwell Frost, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Greg Casar, Jasmine Crockett, Al Green, Elizabeth Warren, Sheldon Whitehouse, Ron Wyden, Hakeem Jeffries, and many, many others.
It is not their fault that the media has, in many cases, ignored their efforts, and some members of their party’s leadership were slow to grasp the message. PoliticusUSA and The Daily with Sarah Jones are two of the few outlets that have consistently dedicated time to covering these efforts and informing you of what is happening.
What is essential is that they all are on board now, and the new strategy is the key to winning in 2026 and saving democracy.
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