All High Roads are Closed!*
Tiresome are the toothless declarations that this or that is an “existential threat to democracy,” that “we are in a constitutional crisis.” “Strongly worded” letters posing “very strongly worded questions” to suss out what every rational person sees as obvious pretext might have moved the needle in an era when Republicans made even a token attempt to honor their oaths, but now such efforts are ruthlessly mocked — and ignored by recipients.
Democrats are not in the best of shape, to put it kindly. A large measure of the dissatisfaction comes from loyal Democrats who are driving down the approval ratings. The party controls no levers of federal power and has been unable, or unwilling, to employ much more than milquetoast strategies. Its messaging on the fascist takeover has been pathetic. The well-founded perception persists that old-school leadership refuses to adjust or is incapable of adapting to the new reality of an opponent that plays by no rules in its dishonorable quest to gain and hold power. The Democrats continue bringing “pencils to a knife fight,” according to the DNC chair. They continue pouring “new wine into old wineskins.” The analogies write themselves.
Republicans eagerly rig the system because they know they can’t win and hold power without cheating. Trump’s approval ratings on every pollable policy and personal trait are abysmal and continue tanking. A majority of voters are unhappy with the administration’s harmful agenda of eliminating healthcare and food assistance for millions. A majority of Americans are not happy with tariffs and having to pay the Trump tax, a sluggish economy, immigration policy and enforcement, a federal government that works much worse than before. A majority of Americans, by more than two to one, strongly disapprove of the administration’s continuing Epstein coverup. Who isn’t skeptical, cynical really, that a convicted sex trafficker, who continues denying that she and her deceased partner in sex crimes engaged in any non-consensual sex with children, would implicate the only person who could grant her what now appears to be the inevitable pardon?
The now-stagnant trust — that Republicans believe in a constitutional republic and self-government, the equal application of the rule of law, that the differences are in policy and not in the foundational principles that preserved democratic institutions for two and a half centuries — paved a higher road that now leads to dead ends and crashing headlong into concrete barriers.
In 2016, Michelle Obama gave her now-famous aphorism, “when they go low, we go high,” during the Democratic National Convention. Eight years later, she made it clear that with a morally bankrupt fascist set on destroying the country, traversing the high roads is the equivalent of handwringing.
In How the Democrats Became the Party That Brings Pencils to a Knife Fight (The New Y0rk Times, August 15, 2025), Jia Lynn Yang does a remarkable job tracing the history of a party in which “progressives and Democrats are uncomfortable with the acquisition and the use of power in ways that Republicans are not,” quoting former Attorney General Eric Holder’s epic understatement.
To challenge Republican cheating, lawlessness, obstruction of justice, contempt of court, strong arming, extortion, racism, and the fascist agenda, Yang observes, “[r]ecent developments around gerrymandering suggest that the party is beginning to surrender an attitude that has defined it for decades. But a more profound transformation will require a shift in how the party conceives of itself. For generations, the Democrats’ love of procedure has wound its way into the party’s voter base, its leaders and its governing philosophy. To really change would require a return to a party that barely exists in living memory.”
In other words, for those steeped in the gospel of Jesus, the Sermon on the Mount isn’t working. It’s time to revert to Old Testament ways. The Republicans are, after all, worshiping at the bone-spurred hooves of the golden bully.
Gavin Newsom has taken up the cause and his strategies appear to be working in the short term. May this bright light so shine on the DNC and all Democratic Governors and state attorneys general.
Newsom is using the democratic process — a special election — to answer the imbalance Texas has undertaken to cheat ahead of the 2026 mid-terms and maintain control of the House. To accomplish this feat, Abbott and the racist Republican Texas legislature are redistricting and gerrymandering through undemocratic means to disenfranchise Black and Latino voters. In his official statement on the aptly named California’s Election Rigging Response Act, Governor Newsom said:
“California will not sit idle as Trump and his Republican lapdogs shred our country’s democracy before our very eyes. In just six months, Trump’s unchecked power has cost Americans billions and taken an ax to the greatest democracy we’ve ever known. This moment calls for urgency and action — that is what we are putting before voters this November, a chance to fight back against his anti-American ways.”
Newsom extended an olive branch, inviting Trump and Texas to stand down. They didn’t. See Everything to know about Gavin Newsom’s newly signed proposal, special elections and how California voters feel (Abené Clayton, The Guardian, August 22, 2025).
And the right-wing media can’t seem to comprehend that Newsom’s brilliant mimicking and mocking of Trump, which they characterize as childish, embarrassing, juvenile, exposes them and their dear leader to hypocritical disconnect. Why Gavin Newsom’s social media posts trolling Trump are oddly effective (Zeeshan Aleem, MSNBC, August 23, 2025).
So for the Epsteinth time,[i] Democrats, all high roads are closed!
Robert Hodgson Van Wagoner, the talented fiction writer and novelist, is my brother. He deserves considerable credit for offering both substantive and technical suggestions to my blog. His second novel, The Contortionists, which Rob himself narrates for the audio version, is a psychological page-turner about a missing child in a predominantly Mormon community. It is a literary masterpiece.
[1] I can’t take the credit for this. I saw it on social media and decided I had to use it.