The Emergency Ethics of Democratic Defense: Gavin Newsom Is Right to Fight Fire with Fire

When Institutional Arsonists Exploit Procedural Purity

Gavin Newsom has announced he’s considering two options to redraw California’s congressional districts in response to Donald Trump’s explicit order for Texas to redistrict mid-decade to gain five Republican seats. The proceduralists are already sharpening their pencils, preparing to lecture Democrats about “abandoning democratic norms” and “becoming what you oppose.”

They’re wrong. Not just tactically wrong, but philosophically wrong about what democratic principles actually require when facing systematic institutional destruction. Newsom isn’t abandoning liberal values—he’s defending them against forces that would eliminate liberal democracy entirely.

The proceduralist critique rests on a fundamental misunderstanding of what principles are for. They treat democratic norms as ends in themselves rather than means to preserve the conditions that make democratic self-governance possible. When those norms become tools for eliminating democracy, defending them becomes complicity in democracy’s destruction.

This isn’t about partisan advantage. It’s about emergency ethics: what liberal democracy requires when facing actors who exploit liberal restraint to destroy liberal institutions. And the answer, uncomfortable as it may be for those who prefer moral purity to moral effectiveness, is that sometimes defending democratic principles requires tactics that would normally violate them.

The Paradox of Tolerance in Practice

Karl Popper understood this seventy years ago when he articulated the paradox of tolerance: “Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them.”

The key insight is that tolerance is not a suicide pact. It’s a framework for preserving pluralistic democracy, not an abstract principle that exists in isolation from its consequences. When actors systematically work to eliminate those conditions, tolerating their behavior becomes complicity in tolerance’s own destruction.

This applies directly to redistricting. When Republicans engage in systematic gerrymandering designed to eliminate competitive elections, when Trump explicitly orders Texas to redistrict mid-decade for partisan advantage, when Republican officials openly celebrate “efficiency” that would give them eighty percent of seats in states where they received fifty-eight percent of votes—they’re not participating in democratic competition. They’re working to end it.

The proceduralist response—that Democrats should maintain their commitment to fair redistricting regardless of Republican behavior—treats the principle of fair redistricting as more important than the outcome of competitive democracy. But fair redistricting is only valuable insofar as it preserves competitive democracy. When it becomes a tool for eliminating competitive democracy, defending it becomes self-defeating.

The Schoolyard Rules Problem

If you’ve ever played a schoolyard game where one kid keeps changing the rules as the game goes, you should have some intuition for what’s happening. There’s always that kid who declares “no tag-backs” when they’re being chased, then immediately uses tag-backs when they’re “it.” Who moves the goalposts literally and figuratively. Who says “that doesn’t count” whenever they’re losing and “see, I won!” whenever they’re ahead.

What’s maddening about that kid isn’t just the cheating—it’s the way they exploit everyone else’s good faith. They count on other kids wanting to have fun, wanting to keep playing, wanting to maintain the social bonds that games create. So the other kids keep accepting new rules, keep giving second chances, keep hoping that if they just model good sportsmanship, the cheater will eventually play fair.

But of course, that never happens. The cheater interprets restraint as weakness and kindness as stupidity. Every accommodation becomes precedent for further rule-breaking. Eventually, the game becomes unplayable because there are no stable rules anymore—just whatever the cheater decides is convenient in the moment.

The MAGA approach to democracy is exactly that kid. They gerrymander when they can, then cry about “fairness” when Democrats consider responding. They pack courts, then warn about “norms” when Democrats discuss expanding them. They violate every democratic convention, then lecture about “constitutional principles” when anyone suggests accountability.

The proceduralist response is the political equivalent of continuing to play tag with the kid who keeps changing the rules, hoping that eventually he’ll appreciate your sportsmanship and reform himself. But you can’t preserve fair play by letting cheaters win. At some point, you either walk away or impose consequences that restore fair play.

The Failure of Unilateral Disarmament

The tragic example of what happens when Democrats choose procedural purity over strategic effectiveness is Barack Obama and Eric Holder’s “All On The Line” effort. Launched in 2019, this campaign aimed to end partisan gerrymandering through independent redistricting commissions, grassroots organizing, and civic education. It was liberalism at its most idealistic: the faith that if Democrats demonstrated commitment to fair processes, it would create pressure for Republicans to reciprocate.

Obama and Holder genuinely believed that modeling institutional integrity would inspire Republican reform. They invested in transparent redistricting processes, trained over a thousand volunteers, and pushed for independent commissions that would take redistricting out of partisan hands. It was morally praiseworthy work that reflected deep commitment to democratic principles.

But the rising post-truth populist MAGA movement met their unilateral disarmament with a sly grin and the whisper: “suckers.”

Every independent commission Democrats created was one less tool they could use to fight back. Every norm Democrats honored was one more norm Republicans could violate without consequence. Every appeal to “democratic values” was met with the understanding that values are just words—power is what matters.

MAGA looked at Democratic self-restraint and saw opportunity. They understood that Democrats’ commitment to fair processes was exactly what made them predictable and exploitable. While Democrats were building civic education programs, Republicans were building systematic vote suppression infrastructure. While Democrats were advocating for transparency, Republicans were perfecting the art of legal electoral manipulation.

The “suckers” whisper captures the contempt that authoritarians feel for those who constrain their own power based on principle. To the MAGA mindset, Obama and Holder weren’t being noble—they were being stupid. They were voluntarily weakening themselves in a zero-sum competition where the only rule is winning.

The Bigger Person Fallacy

Proceduralists will argue that Democrats should take the high road, be the bigger person, maintain their moral authority by refusing to engage in the same tactics as Republicans. This sounds noble, but it rests on a fundamental misunderstanding of what being “the bigger person” requires.

You can’t be the bigger person unless there’s a shared foundation—a common moral framework where restraint is recognized as strength, where principle is valued over victory, where there’s mutual respect for the game itself. When someone operates from a fundamentally different moral universe, where restraint is weakness and principle is naivety, your “bigger person” behavior doesn’t elevate the discourse. It just makes you a more predictable target.

The MAGA worldview genuinely sees Democratic restraint as contemptible. When Democrats take the high road, Republicans don’t think “wow, they’re being admirably principled”—they think “wow, they’re being stupid and weak.” The moral framework that makes “bigger person” behavior meaningful simply doesn’t exist for them.

This is why the Obama-Holder approach was so tragically misguided. They kept trying to model the behavior they wanted to see, assuming that Republicans shared their basic commitment to democratic legitimacy. But Republicans had already moved to a post-democratic framework where the only question is “does this help us win?”

It’s like trying to play chess with someone who’s playing Monopoly. Your careful adherence to chess rules doesn’t make you noble—it just makes you ineffective against someone who’s buying hotels and charging rent. The shared foundation has to be rebuilt or enforced before “bigger person” behavior becomes meaningful again.

Emergency Ethics vs. Normal Politics

The proceduralist critique treats Newsom’s redistricting consideration as if it’s happening in normal political circumstances where both sides are competing within shared democratic frameworks. But these aren’t normal circumstances. We’re facing what amounts to institutional arsonists who are systematically dismantling the conditions that make democratic competition possible.

This requires understanding the difference between emergency ethics and normal politics. In normal politics, process matters as much as outcome because the process itself maintains democratic legitimacy. You can afford to lose individual battles because the framework for future battles remains intact.

But in emergency situations—when the framework itself is under attack—different principles apply. When facing actors who exploit democratic norms to destroy democratic institutions, defending those norms sometimes requires tactics that would normally violate them.

Consider the chronology and causation that proceduralists want to ignore:

What Texas is doing: Mid-decade redistricting explicitly ordered by Trump to gain five seats, in a state that’s already been found to violate the Voting Rights Act in every redistricting cycle since 1965. This isn’t responsive—it’s aggressive. It’s not emergency measures—it’s systematic rigging designed to eliminate competitive democracy.

What Newsom is considering: A direct, proportional response to prevent Republicans from gaining insurmountable structural advantages through systematic cheating. He’s being transparent about his reasoning: “they’re playing by a different set of rules” and “we can recognize the existential nature of this moment.”

The moral distinction is crucial. One side is trying to destroy competitive democracy; the other is trying to preserve it. One side is the institutional arsonist; the other is the fire department. Treating these as equivalent moral positions is either profound ignorance or deliberate misdirection.

The Tu Quoque Trap

Republicans will absolutely try to use Newsom’s response as retroactive justification for their own systematic norm-breaking. They’ll claim that Democratic redistricting “proves” that both sides are equally guilty of gerrymandering, that there’s no moral difference between aggression and defense, that Democrats have abandoned any right to complain about Republican electoral manipulation.

This is classic authoritarian gaslighting—the abuser claiming that their victim’s self-defense proves they were the real aggressor all along. It’s the domestic violence logic where the person who fights back becomes equally guilty of violence as the person who started the fight.

Don’t let them get away with it. Every time they try this false equivalence, the response should be clear: “You started this. You ordered mid-decade redistricting. You violated the Voting Rights Act. You abandoned democratic norms. We’re responding to protect democratic competition that you’re trying to eliminate.”

The chronology matters. The causation matters. The intent matters. Texas isn’t redistricting to preserve competitive democracy—they’re redistricting to eliminate it. California would be redistricting to prevent that elimination. These are not equivalent moral positions.

The Asymmetric Threat

The most fundamental flaw in the proceduralist critique is that it treats an asymmetric threat as if it were symmetric. It assumes that both parties are essentially similar actors who occasionally break norms for partisan advantage, rather than recognizing that one party has become a systematic threat to democratic institutions themselves.

The Republican Party has become a party of institutional arsonists, creating power vacuums for their well-heeled constituencies to fill with private fiefdoms. This isn’t political competition—it’s systematic demolition of democratic governance. Every agency gutted, every regulation eliminated, every norm destroyed creates space for oligarchic interests to operate without democratic constraint.

Whatever political excess exists on the left—and there is quite a bit—it is much less morally urgent than what’s playing out on the right. Campus speech codes and diversity training requirements are not remotely equivalent to systematic constitutional violations and the construction of detention centers where people drink from toilets.

When one side is trying to eliminate democratic accountability entirely and the other side is arguing about the best way to implement democratic preferences, treating them as equivalent moral threats is either profound ignorance or deliberate misdirection.

The moral urgency is asymmetric because the threat is asymmetric. Democrats want to use democratic institutions to advance their policy preferences. Republicans want to eliminate democratic institutions that might constrain their power. These are not equivalent projects.

What Liberal Democracy Actually Requires

The proceduralist confusion stems from mistaking liberal democracy’s means for its ends. They treat specific procedural forms as sacred rather than understanding them as tools for preserving the conditions that make democratic self-governance possible.

But liberal democracy isn’t about following particular procedures regardless of consequences. It’s about maintaining the framework where citizens can meaningfully participate in decisions affecting their lives, where power is accountable to democratic publics, where peaceful transitions of power remain possible.

When those conditions are under systematic attack, defending them becomes the liberal imperative—even if that defense requires tactics that would normally be inappropriate. The alternative—maintaining “procedural purity” while democracy is destroyed—isn’t principled. It’s self-defeating.

This is why Newsom’s redistricting consideration is more liberal than Obama’s unilateral disarmament. Obama prioritized looking principled over preserving competitive democracy. Newsom is prioritizing preserving competitive democracy, which is what makes principled behavior possible in the first place.

True liberal conviction requires the courage to defend liberal institutions against their enemies, even when that defense looks illiberal to those who’ve forgotten what liberalism is actually for. We need a strong, unrelenting defense of liberal values in this country. And that means playing hardball. Having conviction. Confidence. And standing for truth.

The paradox of tolerance isn’t just philosophical theory—it’s practical wisdom. You can’t preserve tolerance by tolerating those who would destroy it. You can’t defend democracy by letting its enemies win through procedural technicalities.

The Stakes

We’re not operating in normal political circumstances where both sides respect democratic institutions and compete within shared frameworks. We’re facing systematic institutional destruction by actors who view democratic restraint as exploitable weakness.

The Republican Party has abandoned any pretense of serving democratic governance. They operate as institutional arsonists, creating chaos and power vacuums that their oligarchic backers can fill with private governance systems. The cruelty isn’t incidental—it’s the point. When institutions stop functioning, people become desperate enough to accept any alternative that promises basic services.

In this context, Democratic “procedural purity” isn’t noble—it’s complicit. It enables the destruction of the very institutions that make procedural politics possible. It prioritizes the appearance of principle over the preservation of democratic competition.

The honest debate about asymmetric threats sailed when Republicans decided that winning matters more than the legitimacy of the system that makes winning possible. The “both sides” framing isn’t just wrong—it’s actively harmful because it treats institutional arson as equivalent to policy disagreements.

The Choice

Newsom’s redistricting consideration represents a choice between two visions of how to defend democracy. The proceduralist vision prioritizes maintaining specific forms regardless of outcomes, hoping that moral example will inspire authoritarian reform. The emergency ethics vision prioritizes preserving democratic competition through whatever means necessary, recognizing that forms without substance are meaningless.

The proceduralist approach has been tested and found wanting. Obama and Holder’s unilateral disarmament was met with systematic exploitation. Democratic restraint was interpreted as weakness. Appeals to shared values were met with contempt.

The emergency ethics approach recognizes that defending democracy sometimes requires tactics that would normally be inappropriate. It prioritizes preserving the conditions that make democratic self-governance possible over maintaining the aesthetic of procedural purity.

This isn’t abandoning principles—it’s understanding what principles are for. The principle isn’t “follow procedures regardless of consequences.” It’s “preserve the conditions that make democratic self-governance possible.” When procedures become tools for eliminating democracy, defending democracy requires different tactics.

Two plus two equals four. There are twenty-four hours in a day. And when facing institutional arsonists who exploit democratic norms to destroy democratic institutions, defending those institutions sometimes requires emergency measures that would normally be inappropriate.

The proceduralists who critique Newsom’s response are making the same mistake that cost Democrats so much ground over the past decade: they’re treating an asymmetric threat as if it were symmetric, hoping that moral example will inspire authoritarian reform, prioritizing the appearance of principle over the preservation of democratic competition.

Gavin Newsom is absolutely right to consider redistricting in response to Trump’s systematic electoral manipulation. Not because two wrongs make a right, but because sometimes preventing a greater wrong requires tactics that would normally be inappropriate.

The center cannot hold when those charged with holding it treat procedural purity as more important than democratic survival. But it can be defended by those who understand that emergency ethics sometimes require emergency measures—and that the real principle at stake isn’t following particular procedures, but preserving the framework that makes procedural politics possible.

The wire still holds. The choice is ours. And the choice is between principled defeat and effective defense of the principles that make democracy possible.

The revolution is recognizing that defending democracy sometimes requires tactics that look undemocratic. The rebellion is choosing effectiveness over aesthetics. The resistance is understanding that the real principle at stake isn’t procedural purity—it’s preserving the conditions that make democratic self-governance possible.

Remember what’s real. Call emergency emergency. And defend democracy with whatever tools democracy provides for its own defense.