California Governor Gavin Newsom is plowing ahead with plans to gerrymander California’s congressional map to match the partisan gerrymander speeding to passage in Texas. He’s also been on a nonstop crusade going back a couple weeks — one half elaborate parody, one half frontal assault — using memes, all-caps, and boffo trash talk to attack Donald Trump. Not everyone likes Gavin Newsom. Personally, I’ve never been strongly in the fan or hater camp. But Newsom is doing exactly what we should be expecting of every Democratic politician today, especially those in executive office at the state level and especially those looking for promotions or to remain in office.
Moving to re-redistrict the state on a rapid turnaround isn’t talk. That’s a concrete and aggressive use of state power to nullify Trump’s latest power grab in Texas. It comes without excuses or agonizing. It’s an unvarnished exercise of executive power (here in the broad sense, as the change requires the legislature and a referendum).
People say “Well, Newsom’s just running for President.” Well, of course he is. This isn’t an endorsement of Newsom for that office. It is saying that this is what the 2028 Democratic presidential primary campaign should be about: who can demonstrate the greatest ability to use power effectively and aggressively to counter Trump and Trumpism. That is what the race needs to be about. And Newsom is the first one to enter that race.
I am hoping that every contender for that nomination enters that race and enters it quickly. That is especially the case for those currently in executive office because their demonstrations, their proofs of concept are needed to battle Trump’s attempted federal crackdown now.
Governors are the key players here. But most states have up to a half a dozen or so elected state leaders with substantial executive power — attorneys general, secretaries of state, comptrollers, etc. It applies to them as well. It also applies to everyone in Congress.
If the Democrats are so lucky as to win a trifecta in 2028 who will be the Senate Majority Leader? Will they be a conventional leader in the mold of Chuck Schumer or even the much cannier and bolder Harry Reid, focused mostly on caucus consensus and incremental reforms? Or will they see the Congress that convenes in 2029 as the critical, can’t-be-squandered opportunity for big structural reforms and the creation of a new, reinvigorated civic and legal order?
Let’s see that competition now. It will be someone in the current Senate. Let’s see a public competition to demonstrate who is up for that task.
As I wrote above, it’s no dig at Newsom to say he’s running for president. Of course he is. That’s a feature, not a bug. It’s at the heart of our system, which seeks to harness individual ambition as a tool to seek out and advance the public will. We need to know who is up to these tasks. And the only way to know it is to witness the skills and character traits and aims demonstrated. We also desperately need those proofs of concept to survive the current moment. So let the race and the races begin. It can’t happen soon enough.