Gavin Newsom's Moment, Texas Dems Fight Back, and the American Left's Cannibalizing
Texas Dem's show force even as a minority party. Newsom is taking this opportunity to thwart Republican gerrymandering efforts in Texas, by redistricting California. So why is the left upset?
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→ Ah you know it’s a late summer Wednesday when the American left has been cannibalizing itself for the past few weeks. I’ve seen so many social media posts and videos in the past week or so of people either saying ‘Newsom is the devil and I won’t accept his energy and actions because he’s not an angel’ or ‘Newsom is the only one doing anything and he’s not perfect but nuance and harm reduction is something we need to heed moving forward.’
The left should figure out what it wants. Fast. The left should absolutely be pushing for the people involved in politics to be better. Anyone who is saying you can’t, or that you shouldn’t are bots, ops, or ignorant.
They should put their energy towards finding the best candidate possible, and understand that they will be, and politicians will always be, imperfect. That doesn’t mean you don’t fight for more, but it does mean when you do find the best candidate for the time you’re in, you put your energy and eventual vote behind them when the time comes.
This is where Gavin Newsom comes in. He’s having a moment right now. And he’s doing it in a very specific way that the democratic base has been begging for, for literal years. Let’s talk about the bad about him first.
Newsom is far from the ideal politician on the left. Here’s the non exhaustive quick hit list on some of the things you can absolutely point to as disqualifying for a politician earning your trust and vote:
Back in November of 2020 of the COVID-19 pandemic, Newsom was found ignoring his own social distancing restrictions at the French Laundry, a high-end restaurant in California.
Back in March of 2025, he drew heavy criticism after saying transgender athletes in women's sports was 'deeply unfair'. This was during his brand new podcast, “This is Gavin Newsom”, when Newsom hosted far right-wing, Turning Point USA founder, Charlie Kirk.
Newsom’s campaign stumping for his current term was largely about housing and homelessness, and many Californians don’t believe he’s done enough to help fix these major problems. In fact, earlier this year, Newsom, with the help of the Supreme Court effectively allowing homelessness to be unlawful, pushed for towns and cities across California to ban homelessness (May 12, 2025 NY Times Article)
“There are no more excuses,” the California governor said in pushing for municipalities to address one of the most visible byproducts of homelessness.
Gov. Gavin Newsom escalated California’s push to eradicate homeless encampments on Monday, calling on hundreds of cities, towns and counties to effectively ban tent camps on sidewalks, bike paths, parklands and other types of public property.
Both paragraphs pulled from that same NY Times article.
Newsom has also played the fiddle with taking centrist democrat stances. And back in May if you’d ask me how I felt about that I’d say he, along with the other democrats also doing that, which is to say nearly all of the establishment and currently elected democrats, were absolutely digging their own graves.
That is still happening in many ways even today. As an example, former Secretary of Transportation under the Biden administration Pete Buttigieg recently made anti-trans comments about trans athletes in sports, saying that trans-women in women’s sports raised “serious fairness issues.” I use this example because the establishment democrats are known for catering to the center-right of American politics, thinking for some reason that anyone already on the right will go with the lesser, centrist options in this day and age of populist movements, which we are also having here in the U.S. It’s a fools errand that hasn’t gotten us anywhere, and won’t any time soon.
Here’s the caveat to all of this - Every moment the democrats worry about decorum, decency and norms, they go two steps backwards. Because every single day that the far-right, conservatives, and Christian nationalists wake up, they are choosing violence against their own neighbors. They are choosing to create a Christian nationalist, conservative America that you truly do not want to come to fruition. And the unfortunate and twisted reality we live in is that they live and breathe that choice, and they literally will not stop until that vision is realized.
The left needs to start living and breathing proactive, actionable policies that are popular. The progressive message is popular. We all know this. The establishment democrats SHOULD know this. That is going mean some frustrating conversations and at times, frustrating positions that these folks are going to take. It’s also going to mean that establishment democrats step outside of their D.C. headquarters and touch some grass. AKA - Get their feet on the ground. In protests, rallies, and more. That does NOT mean that we have to accept the status quo and say, “it is what it is” forever.
If in this moment Newsom has the momentum, and the right mindset and strategy, which clearly he does, then I think it would behoove the leftists, progressive and liberal factions of the U.S. to take notes, and move forward with their agendas how they see fit. It doesn’t erase the policies and actions he’s made in the capacity of Governor, and it doesn’t absolve him of any future policy decisions or gaffs. The entire point of living with no kings is that we shouldn’t and don’t bow down to anyone. If he’s gotta go, he’s gotta go. But it does show us that leadership without hiding behind decorum, decency and norms is effective.
If you think that living by the same rules is going to get you anywhere any time soon, you’re going to be waiting for a long time. The best part about all of this is Newsom isn’t doing anything illegal, authoritarian like, or in opposition to what it is we should be striving for. We all want more representation. If the President of the United States is going to attempt to thwart our freedoms and representation by demanding that a state gerrymanders, don’t you think it’s on us to fight back and make sure that doesn’t happen?
Newsom has the power and influence behind him as the Governor of the biggest state in the union by population, and third biggest by land. He’s got the fourth largest economy in the world. At this moment, he is using all of it to bolster a firm opposition against Donald Trump in a way that Democrats at large have failed to do, even after Biden one the Presidency in 2020.
The democratic party, and any left leaning group in the U.S., should be using this as a blueprint on how to move forward against Trump, and the fascist conservative movement spreading throughout this hellscape. It’s been a long time coming. It’s not perfect, but it’s a hell of a lot better than what the DNC has been doing up to this point.
Let’s also acknowledge without any asterisk or caveat, that Newsom is 100% taking this opportunity to bolster his inevitable run for the next President of the United States. A politician’s single best tactic is to take advantage of opportunistic moments. Newsom and his social media team were no fools when they began this tirade of content that has made it all the way to Fox News. There’s no need to glaze Newsom, and there is also no need to act like this is the first time that’s ever happened. If it gives the democrats 5 seats in the House to combat Texas Republican’s gerrymandering efforts to give themselves, 5 seats in the House, then so be it.
Texas Democrats Started This Wave of Resistance.
It would be dishonest and ignorant of me not to share the same energy I have on Newsom, on the Texas democrats who stood up for as long as they could against Texas House Republicans in their gerrymandering efforts to add 5 US House seats, under the direct order of Donald Trump. Newsom never goes down this road if Trump and the Texas GOP doesn’t call for this gerrymandering, and if the Texas democrats didn’t fight back.
A slight bit of history and context:
Texas Democrats are a majority-minority political party in their respective state.
According to a Texas Tribune Article:
Texas leaders have done this 5 separate times in the states history. 1870, 1979, 2001, 2021, and 2023.
House rules adopted in 2023 impose a $500-per-day fine on lawmakers who leave the state, and indicate that campaign funds cannot be used to pay the penalties.
Attorney General Ken Paxton threatened the lawmakers, saying his office would be “hunting down and compelling the attendance" of any Democrat who flees the state.
State Representative Nicole Collier (D) was “locked in” the state capitol, after Texas Republicans invoked rules that allowed House speaker Dustin Burrows to lock the house chambers and prohibit members from leaving without a permission slip, and an escort by law enforcement.
While on a phone call with CA Governor Gavin Newsom, Texas Rep. Nicole Collier abruptly left the call after being told she was committing a felony.
Tracing back a bit - Texas republicans began actively working towards gerrymandering Texas voting districts to gain 5 more seats in the United States House of Representatives. Republicans have the slimmest of majorities right now, currently at 219 Republicans - 212 Democrats. Three democratic lawmakers have died since the election, and one Republican lawmaker resigned.
Rep. Sylvester Turner (D-TX) died 03/05/2025.
Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-AZ) died 03/13/2025.
Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA) died 05/21/2025.
Rep. Mark Green (R-TN) resigned 07/21/2025.
According to CNN- Republicans won 220 House seats in the November elections, while Democrats won 215, the most narrowly divided House majority since the outset of the Great Depression, almost a century ago.
This means, with all of the changes that have happened so far, including the untimely deaths and Green’s resignation, the house majority Republicans can only afford to lose 3 votes in any given party-line vote. This is a razor thin margin for error. It would be disingenuous to believe that this matters a lot right this moment when it comes to votes. Republicans and democrats by in large vote along party lines for just about everything. But if we are to assume we have midterms in November of 2026, then Republicans should be incredibly nervous. And their efforts in Texas suggest that they are. The gerrymandering they’ve BEEN doing for years suggests that they are frightened. Without gerrymandering, they literally don’t have the votes. It’s also why Trump is looking to get rid of mail in voting and voting machines. This is just basic voter suppression tactics. But it has incredibly real world consequences.
The map above shows the newly and more extremely gerrymandered district lines in Texas after the vote on August 22nd. It’s important to understand how diverse Texas is, and how much this will affect the voting power of a person of color. Texas is home to majority-minority districts, where the majority of the people who live in that district belong to a racial group that has been historically underrepresented, such as Black or Latino voters — to avoid diluting their vote.
According to TX State Representative Vince Perez of the House District 77 in El Paso, who wrote a Time Magazine artic, his team estimates “it would take roughly 445,000 white residents to secure one member of Congress, but about 1.4 million Latino residents and 2 million Black residents to secure the same. In effect, the political “worth” of a Latino Texan is cut to one‑third of a white Texan’s, and for Black Texans, to one‑fifth.”
What’s especially insideous about this, beyond the fact that this is very much drawing racial lines between districts to give white voters more voting power than their non-white Texan neighors, is that the most recent Census shows that the diversity of Texans has changed for the first time in history. White Texans are no longer the majority in Texas. Hispanic Texans are for the first time since at least 1850.
According to the Census Bureau Data, curated and reported by the Texas Tribune, Hispanic residents accounted for 40.2% of the state’s population in 2021, while non-Hispanic white residents accounted for 39.4%, according to estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau.
All of this shows consistent efforts by the Republicans at the national stage and at the state levels, with the backing and demanding of Donald Trump, to further suppress and consolidate voting power to districts that are white and conservative. And what we see in the data is that this country is as diverse as it’s ever been, and they know damn well that this is their last shot at maintaining power and relevance. It’s why they are using violence, fear, voter surpression and are packing the courts and government agencies with people who will only answer to Trump and the authoritarian cause. It’s their only move.
That doesn’t feel good, and doesn’t sit right, because we can see what they are doing with the power that they do have… but it should be seen as the opening the left needs to do the exact opposite. Knowing how seriously unpopular this is with voters, including republican voters and independent voters, focusing on local, state and federal policies and what we can all do to make American’s lives ACTUALLY better, should be the main focus.
Press freedom and freedom of speech are being threatened everyday in the United States. Billionaires like Musk and Trump want you to believe that a free press isn’t critical to a democracy. Companies like Fox, CNN, and other mainstream media companies pander, and in some cases have even paid Trump in a preemptive surrendering (looking at you Paramount). I need your support to keep this tiny little space pumping out work. From video explainers, to articles, it would be a huge help if you could subscribe. Thank you so much.