The Opposition Dilemma: Why Democrats Still Play “Normal”
In the Gutter with Newsom and Hitting Below the Belt with NAFO
“When they go low we go lower”
“Some prefer a chew toy to the hard bone of truth. But only one strengthens the jaw.”
Woofgang Woofgenstein
Sage of the Sidewalk
If calm press conferences and strongly-worded letters could stop authoritarianism, America would look like Denmark by now. Instead, we see Democrats politely tapping the mic while Trump, his legal stormtroopers, and a network of authoritarian fellow-travellers smash guardrails like contestants on a game show where the buzzer is democracy.
Something is broken in the operating system of the American opposition. And Gavin Newsom, of all people, has stumbled into a prototype patch.
Let’s talk about it plainly.
The Definition Problem
Before we go further, two quick definitions so we’re not playing language Twister:
Normalcy Politics
The reflex to behave as if institutions are intact, rules will be followed, courts will act neutrally, elections are safe and bipartisanship is still a functioning mechanism. It prioritises procedure, decorum, and “not rocking the boat,” even when the boat is on fire and someone is pouring petrol onto the deck.
Counter-Authoritarian Prototype
A leader, strategy, or policy model that deliberately abandons performative normalcy in favour of active resistance, using state power, aggressive legal counter-moves, and narrative disruption to slow or block authoritarian capture. Not a full blueprint (yet) but a proof of concept.
Now that we’ve named the dragon and the sword, why is it happening?
Why Democrats Keep Playing Normal While Reality Isn’t
For decades, Democrats internalised an identity: we are the responsible custodians of institutions. The adult in the room. The rule-of-law party. The “if we behave, the public will reward us” party.
In a stable democracy, that instinct is healthy.
In a system under active autocratic assault, it’s a trap.
The dilemma:
Act normal, and you look calm, but you enable the erosion of rights and democratic infrastructure because you refuse to escalate.
Act like the alarm is real, and you risk being labelled “extreme,” “hysterical,” or “just as bad as them”, and Democrats seem to loathe that frame more than actually losing.
This isn’t about messaging incompetence; it’s about a psychological and procedural chokehold. The party is terrified that if it stops playing by the old rulebook, it will lose its old identity and legitimacy.
Meanwhile, Trumpworld, MAGA, CPAC, Project 2025, Turning Point, Orban and Russia, weaponise that exact hesitation.
How Trump and Russia Weaponise Normalcy
Trump and his ecosystem (including Russia’s state-aligned propaganda networks) have mastered a tactic we need to name:
Procedural Normalcy Capture
The strategy is simple: move faster, more aggressively, and more shamelessly than institutions are designed to handle, then rely on opponents to be too polite, too cautious, or too bound by “proper process” to respond in time.
It works because:
Institutions are slow by design.
Authoritarians move fast by intent.
Democrats refuse to abandon the slow lane.
You saw this during the state-led persecution of transgender people: rights stripped via rushed legislation, executive orders, and compliant courts, while Democrats responded with hearings, op-eds, thoughts and prayers, and “concerns.”
Trump and Russia don’t need to persuade the majority. They just need to act with impunity while the opposition waits for permission.
Enter Newsom: A Prototype, Not a Messiah
Newsom is not the full answer. But he is something the opposition has lacked: a working model of what a fighting democratic response looks like in the short term.
His approach combines three ingredients most Democrats refuse to mix:
Lawfare with teeth
He treats courts as battlegrounds, not temples. He files early, fast, and often. He litigates to block, not to signal.Narrative Counter-Strike
He doesn’t just issue statements, he enters the meme-space, the info-feeds, the fast-twitch online trenches where political reality is shaped now.State Power as Shield
He uses California as a counter-sovereign structure, codifying protections, funding resistance, and forcing constitutional conflicts on his terms, not the autocrat’s.
Is it enough to save the nation? No.
Is it enough to buy time? Maybe.
That matters.
Newsom is a prototype: proof that the opposition can break the normalcy spell without collapsing into chaos.
A NAFO Analogy
NAFO didn’t defeat Russian propaganda by asking the UN for a stern resolution.
NAFO fought asymmetric disinformation with asymmetric ridicule. It refused to grant the Kremlin the seriousness it craves. It polluted the enemy’s information supply lines with mockery, speed, and swarm tactics that bureaucracies can’t deploy.
Newsom isn’t NAFO, but he’s the closest thing the U.S. institutional opposition has seen to NAFO-energy with California state power behind it.
The parallel is moderate but meaningful:
NAFO Style (Bottom-Up)
Bottom-up swarm
Memetic disruption
Civilians self-mobilised
Psychological operations
Newsom (Top-Down)
Top-down state power
Memetic + legal disruption
Governor soft-mobilising a state
Political & legal counter-ops
Combine the two, and you get a model that can resist both propaganda and policy capture.
Why Newsom Helps — But Isn’t Sufficient
Newsom buys time. He may slow authoritarian advances. He forces legal fights in forums where rights still stand a chance. He shows Democrats a way to act like the house is actually on fire.
But a prototype is not a doctrine.
To survive this era, the U.S. opposition needs a two-layer ecosystem:
Top-Down Resistance:
Governors, AGs, state legislatures using Newsom-style power moves to shield rights and bog down authoritarian expansion.Bottom-Up Mobilisation:
NAFO-style civic energy, ridicule, memetic resistance, decentralised counter speech, and organised non-deferential activism that refuses to treat authoritarianism as just “the other side of politics.”
One without the other collapses:
Top-down alone becomes elite theatre.
Bottom-up alone becomes noise without policy teeth.
Together, they become a democratic immune system.
The Short-Term Reality
Newsom doesn’t restore the republic.
He slows the invasion.
But a slowdown, right now, is vital.
Every month bought:
Protects more people from state-led persecution
Preserves ground for future reversals
Allows civic resistance to organise
Keeps space open for accountability that would otherwise close
“Innovation emerges at the fringe… where it can afford to become prevalent enough to establish its usefulness without being overwhelmed by the inertia of the orthodox system.” — Kevin Kelly
He is not the final evolution of the opposition. But he is the first mutation in the right direction.
And mutations are how species survive shocks.
If Democrats want to move beyond symbolic resistance and into effective counter-authoritarian strategy, they must stop cosplaying 1998 and start treating governance like the contested terrain it has become.
Newsom is not “the answer.”
But he is proof that answers exist beyond the comfort of normalcy.
The question now is whether anyone in the Democratic Party will evolve and scale the prototype before the window closes.
Is The Future Going Green?
NAFO is strongly focussed in Europe, it supports global freedom and democracy, and it’s priority is always on Ukraine. The American people will need to find their own solution, or maybe they already have?
You know how contaminated the Greens are here, that was literally how we started talking back in the day, right? A Green New Deal ... starting here in the Big Blue Wall ... maybe. But draw a line from the southeast to the mountain west ... that's going to be a big fat failed parastate.
The time factor is critical, and I’m glad you draw attention to the role it plays in shock-and-awe authoritarian incursions. I think we (collectively) need to assess it in a cultural context for a fulsome articulation, alongside analyses of legislative resistance.
The US seems infatuated with accelerationist approaches, whereas many (if not all/most) European nations are a bit more suspicious of the move-fast-and-break-things approach. The prevalence of constitutional monarchies may have something to do with that, as it seems to create a degree of stability or ‘state viscosity’.
The UK is shaping up to be a test of that hypothesis. Farage’s Trumpian tactics are undoubtedly attractive to the protest vote (I’d better not say too much about that demographic, because I’ll be rude and this isn’t Tw*tter), but I see the beginnings of a healthy, very British rejection, and life outside social media continuing pretty much as it always was, without any apparent revolutionary appetite.
The polls suggest something completely different, of course. I can’t see the physical reality they claim to represent, to the point that I am wondering if astroturfing has levelled up.
We live in interesting times, as they say. Thanks for your writing.