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Democrats Have Finally Found the Fight
It was gifted to them by a rattled Donald Trump
Dan Rather

Aug 18, 2025


ItAs a fair bet that Donald Trump had no clue what a PandoraAs box he
opened when he demanded that Texas launch an off-cycle gerrymandering
scheme to gain five Republican seats in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Trump is scared u scared for his majority and scared for how a Democratic Congress could at least slow some of his dangerous doings. He knows he may lose control of Congress because of his unpopular policies: throwing
millions off Medicaid, pushing up prices with tariffs, rounding up people without due process. Trying to ensure that next yearAs elections are not a clear defeat, he is attempting to rig the system.

Gerrymandering is the manipulation of electoral district boundaries to
benefit a specific political party. Many states have nonpartisan
redistricting commissions to counter the practice.

Normally u what a quaint notion these days u states update their
congressional district maps after the national census, which takes place
every decade. Many Republican and some Democratic state governments have previously gamed the system for advantage. But for a president to demand it
of a state so blatantly, and mid-decade, is a dangerous new low.

Because they know what theyAre doing is cheating, TrumpAs negotiations with Texas Governor Greg Abbott were kept on the down-low. No surprise that
Abbott quickly acquiesced to TrumpAs insistence that Republicans are
oentitled to five more seats,o because he won Texas big. This argument
shows that Trump either has absolutely no idea how congressional elections work or knows and doesnAt care.

So Abbott called a special session of the legislature to approve the new
map. In response, Democratic legislators left the state to stall the vote.

Trump 2.0 has been replete with issues Democrats need and want to fight,
but with no majority in either congressional chamber, they have had few opportunities to move the needle. TrumpAs latest norm-busting tactic is a
gift to Democrats who have been searching for a unifying and actionable
fight u emphasis on actionable.

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Battling the presidentAs redistricting power grab is uniting centrists and progressives. Democrats are thrilled to have something to get behind, even
as it means abandoning some of their ideals of good governance.

Common Cause, a governmental watchdog group that has long and vociferously opposed gerrymandering, said in a statement that it would onot condemn countermeasureso to combat RepublicansA ocalculated, asymmetric strategy to redraw districts mid-decade.o

The front-line offense for the Democrats is a handful of vocal blue state governors: Gavin Newsom of California, JB Pritzker of Illinois, and Kathy Hochul of New York. The three have welcomed the Texas Democrats to their states, provided hotel rooms, held strategy sessions with them, and
promised to redraw their own state maps to counter Texas.

Their actions have been buoyed by an uptick in national fundraising, heightened media attention, and public demonstrations. oFor everyone whoAs been asking, aWhere is the fight?A Well, here it is,o said Texas
Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett, who is at risk of losing her seat because AbbottAs gerrymandering is aimed at Black-majority districts.

oThis is nothing short of a legal insurrection. History will judge us on
how we respond to this moment. YouAre a leader of a great state like New
York in 2025 when Donald Trump and Republicans decided to hijack our democratic process and twist it to meet their own ends, and what did you
do? The answer has to be: We stood up and fought back,o Hochul told The New York Times.

oItAs cheating. Donald Trump is a cheater. He cheats on his wives. He
cheats at golf. And now heAs trying to cheat the American people out of
their votes,o Pritzker said on oMeet The Press.o

Redrawing the New York state map may be hard to accomplish by November
because of state rules. In Illinois, it might not yield more than one Democratic seat, if that. But California is another story.

Governor Newsom quickly figured out a way to counter TexasAs seat snatch
with his own in California. The aptly named oElection Rigging Response Acto
is a ballot measure that will be triggered only if Texas goes ahead with
its plans. It would shift five California Republican districts to the Democrats.

But Newsom hasnAt stopped with his ballot measure. He is now going toe-to-
toe with Trump on the digital battlefield, parodying his writing style, trolling his social accounts, and pushing the presidentAs easily accessible buttons.

Newsom explained that his aggressive new social media strategy is speaking
the only language Trump seems to understand.

oI hope itAs a wakeup call. The President of the United States u IAm sort
of following his example. And if youAve got issues with what IAm putting
out, you sure as hell should have concerns about what heAs putting out as president a I think the deeper question is: How have we allowed the normalization of his tweets, Truth Social posts over the course of the last many years to go without similar scrutiny and notice?o said Newsom at a
recent press conference.

Some in the press have taken Newsom to task for his glib posts. But many others understand that the governor is parodying the president for effect.
He is exposing a double standard.

o[We] tried to take what heAs doing and push it back in his direction. Now everyoneAs so offended. aItAs so unbecoming of your position.A But not the president of the United States that calls people nicknames?o Newsom asked
on oThe MeidasTouch Podcast.o

In modern times Democrats often have avoided bare-knuckle political
brawling, preferring to play by the rules, hoping they would be rewarded at the polls. But with Trump, there are no more rules and no referees. So for Newsom and his fellow governors, the gloves are finally off.

oThis is not the Democratic Party of your grandfather, which would bring a pencil to a knife fight,o Democratic National Committee Chairman Ken Martin said. One might say that this is not your grandfatherAs Republican Party, either.

Governor Hochul understands what is at stake. oAll this could change the
power dynamic so quickly, really, not just for a few years, but for a generation, where Democrats will never have a chance to regain the power necessary to have a balance in Washington.o

Stealing congressional seats is the move that has, at minimum, united some major parts of the Democratic Party. They have been forced to fight back against a president willing to take ever greater steps to retain power.
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