‘We are at war – bring it on’: Democrats ready to fight dirty to stop Trump\
David Smith Washington bureau chief
Sat 9 Aug 2025 11.00 EDT
It was a stirring speech that brought Democrats to tears. “When someone is cruel or acts like a bully, you don’t stoop to their level,” Michelle Obama told them in Philadelphia in 2016. “No, our motto is: ‘When they go low, we go high.’”
Fast forward to Ken Martin, chair of the Democratic National Committee, speaking in Chicago this week. “This is not the Democratic party of your grandfather, which would bring a pencil to the knife fight,” he insisted. “This is a new Democratic party. We’re bringing a knife to a knife fight, and we are going to fight fire with fire.”
It was a brutally honest acknowledgement of what a decade of Donald Trump’s politics has wrought. Out go the courtly and courteous playing-by-the-rules Democrats convinced that Maga is a passing phase, a fever that will break. In come a new generation of pugnacious Democrats prepared to take off the gloves and fight dirty.
www.theguardian.com
David Smith Washington bureau chief
Sat 9 Aug 2025 11.00 EDT
It was a stirring speech that brought Democrats to tears. “When someone is cruel or acts like a bully, you don’t stoop to their level,” Michelle Obama told them in Philadelphia in 2016. “No, our motto is: ‘When they go low, we go high.’”
Fast forward to Ken Martin, chair of the Democratic National Committee, speaking in Chicago this week. “This is not the Democratic party of your grandfather, which would bring a pencil to the knife fight,” he insisted. “This is a new Democratic party. We’re bringing a knife to a knife fight, and we are going to fight fire with fire.”
It was a brutally honest acknowledgement of what a decade of Donald Trump’s politics has wrought. Out go the courtly and courteous playing-by-the-rules Democrats convinced that Maga is a passing phase, a fever that will break. In come a new generation of pugnacious Democrats prepared to take off the gloves and fight dirty.
‘We are at war – bring it on’: Democrats ready to fight dirty to stop Trump
Republican push for gerrymandered congressional maps triggers down-and-dirty from new generation – will it work?



