T he new red-state laws have rapidly diffused across the country, often becoming more extreme along the way. Literally the progress of … at least the last half century is being wiped out in the last 15 months.” “That was kind of the point I was making : Is anyone paying attention to what’s going on? It’s happening in real-time. The rights rollback is advancing “like a wildfire,” Newsom told me. But he is perhaps the best person to do so, and he has one distinct advantage over the alternatives: There might be no one in the Democratic Party who is itching more for a fight with the Republican governors leading the red-state charge. Newsom isn’t the only Democrat who could step into the void. The party’s senior congressional leadership is otherwise engaged and, as a collection of political veterans mostly in their 70s, is not particularly well suited to the task, either. This is not a job that President Joe Biden, by temperament or inclination, is well positioned to fill. For “any politician who wanted to gain a national platform, that message is really resonating with where our voters are,” says Sean McElwee, a progressive pollster. That unease has created, in effect, a job opening in the Democratic Party-a vacancy for a leader to formulate a comprehensive case against the rights rollback in the 23 states where Republicans hold unified control of the governorship and the state legislature. Read: The Republican axis reversing the rights revolution senators wielding the filibuster, to rescind or restrict seemingly long-settled rights. The reaction, they said, reflects the anxiety mounting within the Democratic coalition over the ever bolder effort by red states, with crucial support from the GOP-appointed majority on the Supreme Court and Republican U.S.
But several Democratic strategists I talked with this week said the governor should not have been shocked. In an interview at his office in Sacramento on Tuesday, Newsom told me he was surprised at how “resonant” a response he received from Democrats around the country to viral video clips of that moment. “Why aren’t we standing up more firmly, more resolutely? Why aren’t we calling this out? This is a concerted, coordinated effort. “Where the hell is my party? Where’s the Democratic Party? You guys paying attention to what’s going on?” he asked. In a sudden geyser of frustration, Newsom asked why Democrats at every level were not doing more to combat, or even call attention to, this sweeping offensive. But it was something else he said that really stood out: Republican-controlled states are moving not only to restrict or outlaw abortion if the Court allows it, he said, but also to ban books, restrict how teachers can talk about race, make voting more difficult, and target LGBTQ rights through measures like Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill. Newsom pledged that, however the Court ruled, California would ensure legal access to abortion. O n May 4, two days after Politico rocked Washington by revealing the draft of a Supreme Court decision to overturn the constitutional right to abortion, California Governor Gavin Newsom delivered remarks at a Los Angeles Planned Parenthood office-and triggered a small earthquake of his own.