Want to know what a pawn feels like?
Check your mail.
You likely will find the first move in a chess game that is a shake down of California values.
And you’re one of the political chess game’s expendable pawns along with every other registered California voter.
What we’re talking about is the mailer screaming “Unconstitutional Gerrymandering.”
Chances are you received it Saturday. It arrived less than 48 hours after Gov. “California Values” Newsom signed legislation scheduling the $200 million Nov. 4 election.
And if you missed it, they’ll be plenty more in the next 11 weeks.
Rest assured there will also be TV and social media blitzes that could easily set a new record for political campaign spending in California. After all, the future of the republic or the future of democracy is at stake, take your pick.
You might want to buy a new 32-gallon garbage can or two so you can collect them all.
One day, your kids can share it with your great-great-grandkids with how the Republicans and Democrats destroyed democracy in order to save their vision of it.
We’re talking about political gerrymandering not on steroids, but fueled by egomaniacs.
Of course, if you can only see pure blue or pure red, the egomaniac is the guy at the top of the heap — or trying to claw his way up to the pinnacle.
Before continuing, let’s be clear about a few things.
What did anyone expect Gavin Newsom to do?
As for the governor’s nemesis at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, if everyone is being honest he’s likely doing what every two-bit politician and professional gambler fantasizes about.
And what’s that?
Stacking the deck.
The reality is political gerrymandering is as old as the republic, or if your prefer, the democracy if using any variation of the “R” word repulses you. The flip is also true when it comes to the “D” word.
Who does it worse?
Take your pick.
Of course, it depends upon which direction your political sensibilities bend even if you are almost at dead center as opposed to being closer to the left or right fringe of the political spectrum.
Again, do not blame Newsom for “temporary disenfranchising” voters that the independent redistricting commission put in place by voters to take raw political ambition out of the equation.
As for Donald Trump, he knew what he was doing when he escalated the game.
What’s a dozen or so pawns, a rook, a knight or even a queen matter when you want to be the last standing piece — dare one say king — on the board?
Rest assured this is going to backfire on one side or the other and it may be different sides in different states. And by that it may not be one party in particular as opposed to ether the party in the majority or in the minority in each state.
The biggest lie either side will feed you in the coming 11 weeks is this is a case of one and done.
There is no putting the genie back in the bottle.
Ponder what this means for a moment by looking at the First Congressional District that encompasses the pipe dream State of Jefferson and is represented by Doug LaMalfa.
Whoever drew the maps stuffed enough Democratic voters from the North Bay Area to give the Dems an edge.
Redding and Sonoma. Talk about oil and vinegar.
Add the blowtorch that will be the heated rhetoric of the 2026 midterms and Alfred E. Neuman might as well as have said “come, let us reason together” instead of the late President Lyndon Johnson.
Maybe a question Newsom may want to ask is how what is now the self-proclaimed State of Jefferson sent a solid left of center liberal such as Democrat Harold T. “Bizz” Johnson to DC for decades to represent the First Congressional District and elected LaMalfa in 2024.
No one is touching the State Senate or Assembly districts, right? No harm, right?
But that conveniently forgets the sage observation made years ago by Speaker Tip O’Neill, the Democrat Speaker of the House who went toe-to-toe Ronald Reagan.
The observation? “All politics are local.”
But, you say, it’s DC and the federal government.
The federal government, though, is a big player in local politics in California.
And nowhere is that truer than San Joaquin County.
The federal government, as operator of the Bureau of Reclamation, holds the key to whether the Delta Tunnel is a go or not.
Uncle Sam holds the water back at Shasta Dam that Newsom wants to bypass the Delta with by building a $20 billion tunnel.
It needs DC’s OK for the water to be diverted under the Delta.
The redistricting plan, as it now stands, means Josh Harder’s hand — or whoever wins election the 13th Congressional District in November 2026 — is weakened.
That’s because whoever redrew the maps pushed Antioch and Pittsburg into the 13th while effectively slicing in half Stockton — the biggest city in the Delta area of influence — and attaching it to the 7th District.
The water position of the Bay Area is diametrically opposed to San Joaquin County when it comes to the Delta.
The independent redistricting commission understood not tearing asunder communities of combined interest when they redrew the maps in 2020.
Now what San Joaquin County voters are being asked to do Nov. 4 is point a loaded gun at their head for a high stakes game of Russian roulette orchestrated by Donald Trump and Gavin Newsom.
One is a state king and the other is a federal king.
And they have no problem sacrificing every pawn on the board to get what they want.
This column is the opinion of editor, Dennis Wyatt, and does not necessarily represent the opinions of The Bulletin or 209 Multimedia. He can be reached at dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com
