I haven't posted a single thing about Gavin Newsom before.
I have wanted to respond to a few posts, which would probably really irritate the people sharing them. I have also seen enough contradictory posts that I don't know that me responding would matter, except you don't really know what other people see.
What else is there for me to do but a blog post where I can go over the different aspects? That's my jam.
You are probably aware that Gavin Newsom has started mocking Trump by imitating his communication style. This includes lots of capital letters, vainglory, and ridiculous photos.
There are people celebrating it and criticizing it. The political alignment is not as clear as you might expect.
There can be the usual argument of whether having fun with mockery is detrimental or takes away from other issues; I wrote about that yesterday, and different opinions can be valid.
Here are some of the specific points and my thoughts on them.
It is a way to make the media deal with Trump's incoherence and the problems in his governance.
That might be worthwhile, but it doesn't seem to be happening. Morning Joe said that Newsom was embarrassing himself and that it was pointless since Trump isn't even up for election now, but he seemed to be deeply uncomfortable saying that. I think maybe Morning Joe is embarrassed at their failures, but refusing to deal with it.
Realistically, the media has ignored so many reasons to cover Trump responsibly that I don't know if there is anything that could make it happen at this point. Like, maybe if there were serious personnel changes, but what we have instead is rich people buying and corrupting media sources. Changes here would be great, but that's not something Newsom can fix, even if that is his goal.
I wish our governor was doing something like that!
That's from an Oregonian. I just want to point out that you cannot read a single thing about what Tina Kotek is doing without seeing massive disrespect being thrown at her for being a lesbian. They would excoriate her for trying something like what Newsom is doing.
I don't agree with everything Kotek does, but I often can see that while something is not ideal it is trying to head off something worse. Even though there have been ICE raids in Oregon, we are being criticized already for not doing more. There are some other areas where federal persecution is going to be a real problem. I don't know the best ways of dealing with all of it, but I am positive Newsom-style mockery would not serve our state well.
Let's look at Newsom's position: he is a straight, white man who is relatively good-looking at the head of the fourth largest economy in the world. While California does have its conservative pockets, overall votes tend more reliably liberal than Oregon, where Democrats generally capture the federal but never the legislature.
Newsom is privileged. You can argue about whether or not what he is doing is the best way of using it, but don't try and pretend that anyone could get away with it.
He could be president!
I do not in any way doubt that part of what he is doing is angling for the 2028 nomination. I do want to note that a big part of this mess that we are in is that people are so quick to jump on bandwagons. Anytime someone says something they like -- even if not particularly profound or even original -- it becomes "This is the one!"
What's really great is that it has the conflict of enemies never being allowed to be human. That means when a Cheney defends democracy -- unexpected, but not so much revolutionary as the least they should do -- you have people saying she should be the running mate on the Democrat ticket. That didn't happen, but then there are still leftists who won't forgive Kamala Harris for having Liz Cheney join her at a rally.
I mean, I guess if the electorate is going to be that fickle with that little attention span and analysis, that's how we got here, but isn't that a reason to change?
It is also worth pointing out that they won't forgive the woman with darker skin, but so easily reconcile themselves to the white guy being an ass. I mean, are we going to learn anything?
But he is anti-trans and anti-homeless people!
I hate to keep going back to race, but one thing we really need to understand is that white men are so closely aligned to power that they very easily sympathize with it. Being elected to a high political office does nothing to discourage that sympathy. That being said, Newsom is definitely a bigger jerk, less focused on service and equity than Joe Biden.
Newsom had his biggest opportunity to oppose Trump and Charlie Kirk on trans rights and he blew it. That should not be forgotten.
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/06/03/newsom-takes-the-heat-for-an-unfair-trans-policy-00384037
He actually does not seem to be doing terrible things with homelessness. That does not mean he has never cleared an encampment or done something inhumane, but he seems to be doing better, and that is worth something.
https://davisvanguard.org/2025/08/newsom-homelessness-progress-report/
Look, if we do indeed get to vote for president again, I do not see myself promoting Newsom or supporting him in the primaries, but if he ended up being the Democrat candidate in the general election I am positive he would still be better than any Republican candidate because their bar is that low.
Nick Fuentes likes him.
This is again something that makes a lot of sense. Newsom is imitating toxic masculinity and he does not have the brown wife and children that Vance has.
It's still pretty gross.
What are some things we can learn from this?
Well, it indicates there is not a lot of intellectual depth on the far right, but we always suspected that.
Would it translate to the general election? I doubt it. Continuing in his current vein would alienate a larger percentage of voters, unless we are campaigning specifically on the idea that some people will get the joke and others won't and that will translate to a majority. That's about as sound a political strategy as the people who believed that a tie in the electoral college would get Evan McMullin elected in 2016.
It does make me think that there actually is some harm in this type of behavior.
I would question that anyway, like if people get all caught up and elated from pure mockery and feelings of superiority, are they going to balance that with caring for people and working toward good?
Maybe sometimes the reason that people get so quick to jump on a bandwagon and have a hero is that then it takes responsibility off of them.
Maybe you can have both, laughing hard and then working hard, with a counterbalance, but I'm going to need to see more evidence.
So far I'm not impressed.
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