XPost: alt.fan.rush-limbaugh   
   From: smythlejon2@hotmail.com   
      
   Democrats Have Finally Found the Fight   
   It was gifted to them by a rattled Donald Trump   
   Dan Rather   
      
   Aug 18, 2025   
      
      
   It’s a fair bet that Donald Trump had no clue what a Pandora’s 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 — 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 year’s 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 — what a quaint notion these days — 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 they’re doing is cheating, Trump’s negotiations with   
   Texas Governor Greg Abbott were kept on the down-low. No surprise that   
   Abbott quickly acquiesced to Trump’s insistence that Republicans are   
   “entitled to five more seats,” because he won Texas big. This argument   
   shows that Trump either has absolutely no idea how congressional elections   
   work or knows and doesn’t 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. Trump’s latest norm-busting tactic is a   
   gift to Democrats who have been searching for a unifying and actionable   
   fight — emphasis on actionable.   
      
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   Battling the president’s 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 “not condemn   
   countermeasures” to combat Republicans’ “calculated, asymmetric strategy to   
   redraw districts mid-decade.”   
      
   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. “For everyone who’s   
   been asking, ‘Where is the fight?’ Well, here it is,” said Texas   
   Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett, who is at risk of losing her seat because   
   Abbott’s gerrymandering is aimed at Black-majority districts.   
      
   “This is nothing short of a legal insurrection. History will judge us on   
   how we respond to this moment. You’re 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,” Hochul told The New   
   York Times.   
      
   “It’s cheating. Donald Trump is a cheater. He cheats on his wives. He   
   cheats at golf. And now he’s trying to cheat the American people out of   
   their votes,” Pritzker said on “Meet The Press.”   
      
   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 Texas’s seat snatch   
   with his own in California. The aptly named “Election Rigging Response Act”   
   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 hasn’t 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 president’s easily accessible   
   buttons.   
      
   Newsom explained that his aggressive new social media strategy is speaking   
   the only language Trump seems to understand.   
      
   “I hope it’s a wakeup call. The President of the United States — I’m sort   
   of following his example. And if you’ve got issues with what I’m putting   
   out, you sure as hell should have concerns about what he’s putting out as   
   president … 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?” 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.   
      
   “[We] tried to take what he’s doing and push it back in his direction. Now   
   everyone’s so offended. ‘It’s so unbecoming of your position.’ But not the   
   president of the United States that calls people nicknames?” Newsom asked   
   on “The MeidasTouch Podcast.”   
      
   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.   
      
   “This is not the Democratic Party of your grandfather, which would bring a   
   pencil to a knife fight,” Democratic National Committee Chairman Ken Martin   
   said. One might say that this is not your grandfather’s Republican Party,   
   either.   
      
   Governor Hochul understands what is at stake. “All 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.”   
      
   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.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)