By Mary Jones & Don Terry | Saturday, August 23, 2025 | 6 min read
For years, Democrats prided themselves on being the guardians of political norms. They insisted that America’s fragile institutions could be preserved only by restraint, compromise, and an almost religious adherence to “the rules.” But rules only work when both sides agree to play by them. And now, facing Donald Trump’s renewed assault on democratic systems, Democrats in California have decided that survival requires something very different: fighting fire with fire.
This pivot didn’t happen in a vacuum. It began in Texas, where Republicans—prodded by Trump—rolled out a mid-decade redistricting blitz that stunned even veteran political watchers. Mid-decade redistricting is rare, not because it’s illegal, but because it’s long been seen as a raw power grab. But Governor Greg Abbott and his allies didn’t blink. They hijacked a legislative session meant for flood relief and used it to redraw congressional maps in a way designed to hand Republicans five more U.S. House seats. The move was both brazen and chilling.
Democrats in Texas, realizing they were powerless on the floor, bolted from the state in protest. It was a desperate tactic, more symbolic than effective, but it exposed just how far Republicans were willing to go—and how little they cared about appearances. For Trump’s party, democracy is no longer about persuasion. It’s about stacking the deck.
And that’s where California entered the story. Governor Gavin Newsom, no stranger to political theater, looked at Texas’s gambit and declared that the days of Democrats politely wringing their hands were over. He rolled out the Election Rigging Response Act—a blunt instrument meant to show Republicans that Democrats could play hardball, too.
The proposal would let California voters adopt a new congressional map favoring Democrats if red states like Texas insist on keeping their gerrymandered lines. It’s a “mirror strike,” as some strategists have called it: not hidden, not dressed up in euphemisms, but deliberately proportional. Newsom framed it not as a cynical power grab, but as the only rational response to one. “Trump doesn’t play by any rules,” he said. “If we keep playing by the old rules, we’re just handing him the matchbook to burn down democracy.”
That argument is resonating, and not just with progressive diehards. Former President Barack Obama—who built his career on rejecting hardball politics—endorsed Newsom’s approach as “responsible” and “measured.” For Obama to bless such tactics is remarkable. It signals that even the party’s most cautious voices now see Trump’s strategies not as politics as usual, but as existential threats.
California Assembly Member Buffy Wicks, a co-author of the legislation, was even more blunt: “We view this as a blatant power grab designed to rig the election. We’re not going to let Donald Trump dismantle our democracy.” The language of restraint is gone. What’s left is a determination to fight on Trump’s terms, not out of enthusiasm, but necessity.
And necessity may be the right word. Because what’s happening in Texas isn’t isolated. Republican-controlled legislatures in Ohio, Florida, Indiana, and Missouri are reportedly weighing similar mid-decade redistricting schemes. Add in Trump’s promises to outlaw mail-in ballots by executive order, his crusade against voting machines, and his creation of federal “task forces” aimed at intimidating local election officials, and the picture becomes stark. This is not tinkering at the margins. This is an assault on the mechanics of democracy itself.
The Democratic response represents more than a tactical adjustment. It’s a shift in political identity. For years, Democratic voters complained that their leaders were too timid, too deferential, too eager to appeal to norms while Republicans gleefully shredded them. An AP-NORC poll even found 25% of Democrats describing their own party with words like “weak,” “ineffective,” and “disorganized.” That frustration is now exploding into a new philosophy: when the other side drops the gloves, you can’t keep shadowboxing.
Beto O’Rourke put it crudely but clearly at a rally: “There are no refs in this game. F— the rules. Whatever it takes.” Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin echoed the sentiment more diplomatically, saying, “This is not your grandfather’s Democratic Party, which would bring a pencil to a knife fight.”
The stakes could not be higher. The 2026 midterms will be the first national referendum on Trump since his return to power. His agenda—tax cuts tilted toward the wealthy, mass deportations, safety-net rollbacks—is deeply unpopular outside his base. Republicans know this. Which is why manipulating the playing field may be their best shot at holding Congress. As Fordham professor Christina Greer put it, “The only way Republicans will have some success in 2026 is to make sure they disenfranchise as many people and gerrymander folks out of districts.”
The deeper danger here isn’t just partisan advantage—it’s the corrosion of the democratic compact itself. Trump’s claim that states are merely “agents” of the federal government in counting votes represents a radical distortion of constitutional law. Legal experts across the spectrum reject it as authoritarian fantasy. Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon put it plainly: “The Constitution says nothing about the president of the United States waving a magic wand over election systems.”
And yet, if Democrats simply rely on the courts while Republicans redraw maps and dismantle voting systems, it may be too late. The fire spreads faster than the firefighting.
Which brings us back to California. For some, Newsom’s move feels like Democrats finally waking up. For others, it’s a dangerous acceleration of constitutional hardball, one that risks legitimizing the very tactics they oppose. Both sides may be right. Fighting fire with fire always risks burning down the house. But the alternative—unilateral disarmament—may mean handing Trump the keys to the house altogether.
American democracy has survived civil wars, depressions, and impeachments. But it has never survived the outright abandonment of rules by one party while the other insists on decorum. That is not balance. It is suicide.
The question for Democrats, then, is not whether they like the fight. It’s whether they’re willing to lose the republic by refusing to engage in it. The 2026 midterms are shaping up not just as a contest for congressional control, but as a reckoning over whether democracy itself still has enough muscle to defend its own survival.
And as bitter as the pill may be, California Democrats are making a bet: if saving democracy means getting their hands dirty, so be it. Because the alternative is no democracy at all.
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