The Rigger in Chief

Listen up! Gavin Newsom warns us that Trump is already trying to rig the next election.

I have long been a fan of Gavin Newsom. The other day, it was barely noon and already my democracy was under assault. Again. I sat with my mushroom coffee, trying to ignore the latest shout from the digital void, when Gavin stepped in like a handsome West Coast prophet holding receipts.

He said what we’ve all known deep in our marrow since that orange-frosted grifter first slid down his gold-plated escalator with all the grace of a wounded walrus. He’s not just trying to win the next election. He’s trying to pre-cheat his way through it

Newsom didn’t come in whispering. He came in hot, pulling back the curtain on Trump’s new trick, which isn’t really new, just more blatant.

The plan, if you can call it that, is to draw maps so gerrymandered they might as well be doodles in a padded room. Texas is the new laboratory of anti-democracy, and Trump is the mad scientist in a lab coat made of ego and spray tan. He’s whispering in Republican ears, telling them to carve up congressional districts like leftover meatloaf, turning swing seats into guaranteed wins before voters even get a chance to breathe.

This isn’t about serving the people; it’s about slicing them up like cake. Voters, especially the ones with darker skin, longer hours, and fewer lobbyists, are being diluted, cracked open, packed together, made voiceless by map lines so crooked they look like they were drawn by a drunk with a grudge.

Trump wants to redraw democracy itself. Not because it’s broken. But because it worked, once, and he hated the result.

Let’s not pretend this is shocking. The man has the morals of a mall Santa with a record.

He has always cheated. He cheated at charity, at taxes, at marriage, at truth. In business he stiffed contractors. In office he stiffed the Constitution. And in elections, he stiffed reality itself. When he lost the popular vote, he called it fake. When he lost the electoral college, he called it fraud. When he lost the courts, he called them corrupt. The only time Trump believes a system works is when it serves him. Preferably with ketchup

He’s no longer just denying the game is fair, He’s rewriting the rules before the whistle blows. And he’s doing it not with stealth, but with the swagger of a guy who thinks a subpoena is a party invite.

He wants to redraw congressional districts mid-cycle, which is kind of like trying to restart a poker hand because you don’t like the cards. Only in this version, he’s trying to take your cards, mark them, and deal from the bottom.

Newsom, bless his spine, isn’t having it.

He’s countering with an audacious move of his own, trying to put the power of redistricting into the hands of actual voters.

You know, the people.

The ones who haven’t bought beachfront property in delusion. While Trump sends goons to threaten lawmakers and hints at federal force like he’s auditioning for a third-rate dictatorship, Newsom’s saying: let’s vote. Let’s do it out loud and in public, with ballots and daylight and decency.

Meanwhile, the rest of us are stuck watching the circus and wondering if the tent will collapse before intermission. We’ve seen this act before. Trump always reaches for the levers he claims others are pulling. He is the man who shouts “rigged” while holding the rigging in his hands. He projects like a bad movie.

And the worst part? His fans think it’s genius. They think cheating is smart. But a con artist isn’t smart. He’s just loud and shameless and unwilling to lose without wrecking the joint on his way out.

So yes, Newsom called him out. He said it plain and simple. This man is trying to rig the next election. And if that feels familiar, it should. Because when Trump said in 2016 that he’d only accept the result if he won, we all should have heard the smoke alarm. We didn’t. (Well, I did, but a lot didn’t. Now we live inside the fire.

I want to believe we still have time. That we’ll wake up. That maps will matter less than turnout, that votes will matter more than tricks. But I also know this. If we keep letting a twice-impeached carnival barker rewrite the rules, we won’t have a democracy left to gerrymander. Just a gold-plated stage and one very sweaty man shouting into a crowd that no longer believes him.

And that will be his greatest loss.