California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D), a strong supporter of President Biden for reelection, recently launched a major new organization called Campaign for Democracy, warning that there is an existential crisis to American democracy.
This new organization will almost certainly raise substantial money from donors based on Newsom’s history of prodigious fundraising from small donors as well as large — donations he will then send on to individuals, candidates and political and cause-related groups.
Campaign for Democracy has had a strong early focus on enlightened Democrats and groups in red states, and he envisions it will offer substantial support in blue and purple states as well, through the 2024 elections.
Newsom’s personal campaigning should be a strong asset for President Biden, as well as for Democratic House and Senate candidates. Newsom’s efforts could help Democrats regain control of the House, increase their Senate majority and help Democrats and groups supporting candidates at the state level in multiple states.
Newsom is tapping into factors that are very profound.
Every so often in politics, there are movements of huge numbers of voters who are moved by dramatic generational factors.
Consider young people today. For the first time in memory, young people are growing up from the turn of the century facing the prospect of being mass murdered by military-style weapons in schools, houses of worship, concerts, nightclubs and other places they frequent.
They are plagued by this generational burden. Many young people, when they were in school, witnessed in person or on television these mass murders with military weapons. They were taught, even when they were very young, where to hide in basements of schools and houses of worship in the event of an active shooter.
Whether they were nine-year-old children in Christian schools in Tennessee or inner-city children in urban communities, no matter what their background or where they live, this creates intense psychological pressures that would be a major long-term crisis for any of us, if this happened when we were their age.
They came to learn they needed protection from these evil killers with guns. And they came to learn who would politically battle to defend them, to get the guns, and who would side with the people with the guns, that would kill them.
Republicans who take hard-line non-negotiable positions in favor of the military weapons are not only violating the overwhelming public opinion of most Americans of all ages, they are inspiring gigantic numbers of young people to come in waves into the political system, support Democrats, donate money to them and vote for them.
Similarly, on reproductive freedom, several generations of pro-choice Americans, especially women, have believed for five decades that reproductive freedom was their right under the Constitution. Suddenly that right was taken away, in a Supreme Court decision that was shamefully leaked.
See the results in the recent Wisconsin Supreme Court election, where liberal Milwaukee County Judge Janet Protasiewicz won!
Then, many states across the nation began to debate laws that would create prohibition against reproductive freedom, or criminalize what was a 50-year constitutional right against women and against their physicians.
Now, a federal judge in Texas seeks to prohibit abortion pills for everyone, and with a federal judge in Washington state offering a different opinion, hopefully, but not definitely, the Supreme Court will set this right.
For young women across the nation, reproductive freedom they believed was their right for their entire lives is being destroyed. For the pro-choice Americans this a generational crime, for which Newsom and others are giving them a generational moment to vote, campaign, donate and defend their hopes, dreams, rights and democracy.
Budowsky was an aide to former Sen. Lloyd Bentsen (D-Texas) and former Rep. Bill Alexander (D-Ark.), who was chief deputy majority whip of the House of Representatives.