At the 2016 Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, Michelle Obama offered advice for her party on how to handle the vitriol of Donald Trump’s campaign against Hillary Clinton, coining the now-famous phrase, “When they go low, we go high.” But, according to Nicolle Wallace, it’s time for Democrats to abandon that approach.
On Thursday’s “Deadline: White House,” Wallace said it’s time for Democrats to follow instead the lead of figures like California Gov. Gavin Newsom. This week, the governor sat down with Politico in what Wallace called a “wake the F up speech” for Democrats.
“Wake up,” Newsom said to Christopher Cadelago during “The California Agenda: Sacramento Summit” on Wednesday. “We’re losing this country in real time. This is not bloviation. This is not exaggeration. It’s happening … The rule of law is being replaced with the rule of Don, period, full stop. And so we have to assert ourselves with more clarity and conviction.”
Wallace said Newsom was “the man currently taking on Donald Trump with seemingly everything he’s got” and praised him for challenging the president. “Every pushback, every speech, every interview, every tweet, every maneuver” from the California governor, she said, appears “to be getting under Trump’s skin and getting at the heart of what this fight is about and where it is being waged.”
According to Wallace, that fight is “so much more about the foundations of our country than just debates about different policies. It is about democracy, whether it endures. It is about right and wrong and whether we are on the right side of any of this. It’s about the rule of law — whether we still have one.”
While Wallace acknowledged that she loved “what seemed to be the worldview from Democrats at one time, which was ‘When they go low, we go high,’” she said that kind of approach “only worked for Michelle Obama.”
“Nobody else should have followed that advice,” she said.
In addition to Newsom, Wallace noted, “a structural opposition” has begun to emerge among some Democrats, as “multiple governors are standing up and leading a charge against Donald Trump’s autocratic policies and rhetoric.” Wallace included Govs. JB Pritzker of Illinois and Wes Moore of Maryland as part of that.
You can watch Wallace’s full analysis in the clip at the top of the page.