Arnold Schwarzenegger stepped into the fight over California’s mid-decade redistricting with blunt clarity, publicly calling out Governor Gavin Newsom’s claim that the gerrymandering plan would be “temporary.” The former Republican governor didn’t mince words in his CNN interview, warning that once politicians start bending maps to entrench power, “temporary” quickly means permanent.
What Newsom and his allies are pushing — Proposition 50 and a special-election map grab — isn’t abstract policy tinkering; it’s an explicit effort to redraw lines to net Democrats as many as five extra House seats. This isn’t a theoretical argument about fairness, it’s raw power politics dressed up as “defense” against Republican moves in other states.
Schwarzenegger was ruthless in dismantling Newsom’s “temporary” narrative, telling Jake Tapper that believing government when it promises temporariness is naive at best and dangerous at worst. He predicted that future commissions will rationalize continued gerrymandering, and he called the whole claim “total fantasy,” reminding voters that once politicians taste permanent advantage, they rarely give it back.
Conservative commentator Dave Rubin amplified Schwarzenegger’s message by sharing the clip, and the reaction makes the point for us: even voices the left once courted are disgusted by this kind of partisan chicanery. Rubin’s DM clip spread quickly among conservatives because it exposes a simple truth — Democrats are tempted to rewrite rules when the results don’t go their way, and too many in the media treat that behavior as clever rather than corrupt.
Let’s be honest with ourselves: this is about the lust for power, not principle. Gavin Newsom’s pitch that he’s merely “fighting back” won’t convince Americans who still believe in fair play and representative government, and it shouldn’t fool any patriot who thinks elections should reflect votes, not engineered outcomes.
If conservatives care about saving what’s left of fair elections, we have to do more than tweet and grumble. Support nonpartisan maps, back groups fighting Proposition 50, and hold media figures and self-anointed elites to account when they normalize cheating. Schwarzenegger’s intervention is a rare moment of clarity — don’t let the left steal our republic while they lecture us about democracy.
