TexasDems Shall Lead You

 

CBS asked Texas Rep. Ann Johnson if Democrats “ran from the fight.” Her response was epic: “No, abandoning your job is going to Cancun during a deadly freeze.” Then she went nuclear: “When Trump asked Georgia GOP to ‘find 11,000 votes,’ they said no. When he asked Texas GOP to steal 5 seats - they said, ‘Does July work for you?’ ”

 --@CallToActivism

It's all-out warfare over gerrymandering, the abuse of gerrymandering and the ironic but concomitant use of gerrymandering. Those absconded Texas Dems are heroes for standing up against the abuse part, the flagrant abuse. The TexasDems took the small power they had -- their required presence so that the Republican majority's business gets done  -- and broke the rules to break the quorum, at possibly great personal cost to themselves (if threats become reality). Now as for the use of gerrymandering, as the only poetic response to Republican corruption, by states like California and New York -- "You gerrymander. We can gerrymander too, damnit!" This is the knife brought to the knife fight recently celebrated by the new Chair of the DNC, Ken Martin. Yesterday Martin, joining Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker and a host of other Democratic leaders, got feisty while meeting with the Illinois refugees:

I have expected zero of Ken Martin and have given him an equal amount of attention, so I kind of dig this new guy who's willing to take the nuclear option: "This is not the Democratic Party of your grandfathers, which would bring a pencil to knife fight. This is a new Democratic Party. We’re bringing a knife to a knife fight, and we’re going to fight fire with fire."

Hope he means it. Hope he has leadership qualities. Hope he has follow-through.

NOTE: Gerrymandering as retaliation makes it hard for some progressives who've advocated for years for "redistricting commissions" shielded from politics, an end to the political tool of the gerrymander. Progressives like moi.  But hell! I'm practical. You get practical when survival itself is threatened.