It’s hard to dislike California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s daily parodies of Donald Trump, not because the barrage is witty, but rather, despite how politically objectionable “Newscum” (Trump’s dumb nickname for the French Laundry patron) is, the term-limited governor has demonstrated he’s alive. The same can’t be said for many other ambitious Democrats, aside from Zohran Mamdani, and he’s ineligible to run for president.
(MD Gov. Wes Moore and Illinois’ Jeffrey Pritzker have recently jumped aboard the Newsom trolley. Moore: “Donald Trump can stay obsessed with me—that’s fine—but I’ll stay obsessed with working in partnership to continue our historic success of driving down crime in Baltimore.” As a Baltimore City resident, that’s as thin as a current copy of Vanity Fair.)
It could be argued that had Kamala Harris hired a team of savvy social media “influencers” last fall ($2 million each), satirizing Trump on X, TikTok, Instagram, etc. she might’ve made the election closer. (The media was in the tank for Harris, but enthusiasm waned around mid-October, even as obligatory reports of a “tight as a tick,” election, aping a now-forgotten CBS anchor, were published.)
A typical X/Twitter “troll” from Newsom: “I SELDOM WATCH LOW-RATED "GARBAGEMAN" GREG GUTFELD BUT, WHEN I DO, I MARVEL AT THE FAKE LAUGHTER ON THE SHOW. IT SOUNDS LIKE A BAD ‘LAUGH MACHINE,’ IT’S SO OBNOXIOUS AND DISGUSTING, JUST LIKE HIM, ALWAYS LAUGHING NO MATTER WHAT IS SAID. REAL PATRIOTS HATE IT WHEN FOX (‘EDITS THE TAPES’) PUTS GARBAGEMAN GREG ON. FOX OUGHT TO ‘GET SMART’, AND NOT USE LOSERS LIKE THIS. ALSO, THEY SHOULDN’T ALLOW NEGATIVE ADS ABOUT ME. THANK YOU! — GCN.”
A Wall Street Journal article last week, headlined “To Fight Trump, Gavin Newsom Acts More Like Him,” was mostly bias-neutral, and laid out Newsom’s far-fetched strategy (as was Trump’s in 2015) for taking the White House in 2028. Reporter Eliza Collins quotes Garry South, who’s worked with the Governor: “’He tried the respect thing,’ South said. ‘It doesn’t work with Trump. He just thinks you’re a sap, he just thinks you’re a sucker.’ He said more Democrats should follow Newsom’s lead.”
Curiously, Vice President J.D. Vance, currently the most likely GOP presidential candidate three years from now, isn’t mentioned once. The media, and Newsom, just whack away at Trump, Trump, Trump, “fighting the last war,” I’d say, but the man called a “snowflake” by Newsom, is such a domineering target, a “beautiful” symbol for supporters, and is irresistible.
I follow the Newsom Imitation Game, because sociologically it’s of at least passing significance. I dismissed Trump as a serious contender (let alone winner) in 2015—unlike my millennial sons—so I don’t take Newsom’s Every-Day-Is-Halloween gambit for granted. In a jaded country, depending on the economy, it might work. My capacity for political surprise has disappeared. Still, low-budget copycat routines are a long shot.
It reminds me of summer days when I was a kid, eight or nine, and tagging along with my mom for 90 minutes for the semi-weekly grocery shopping. An incentive was stopping by the butcher Trunz, where the fellow behind the counter, no thumb on the scale, always sliced a round of bologna for me, but I also enjoyed my mom’s company and her running digest of national news—hated LBJ and any Kennedy—and neighborhood gossip. I’d wander around the supermarket aisles and, running joke, would surreptitiously drop a six-pack of Coca-Cola in the cart, which she immediately put back, opting instead for store-brand cola, 12 for a buck. My brothers and I drank it, but it didn’t teach us to sing (a fruitless endeavor) and didn’t taste like the real thing.
A week ago, GCN posted on X/Twitter: “THE GOLDEN ERA BEGINS IN THE GOLDEN STATE, ALL BECAUSE OF ME, THE PEOPLE’S GOVERNOR, THE CARTOGRAPHER-IN-CHIEF, WHO WILL NOW LET THE PEOPLE VOTE!!!! THANK YOU, USA!!!” As Tears For Fears sang when GCN was boning cheerleaders in high school (a noted horn-dog later on, the dyslexic Newsom is inoculated on that front thanks to Bill Clinton and DJT), that’s a pale-shelter tweet. One, it’s grammatical, deviating from the Master’s playbook. Two, “cartographer” is a fancy word, and doesn’t fit. Three, it flatlines as a joke.
Newsom’s a 57-year-old Gen Xer, and though he doesn’t seem especially bright, just reckless, he must know that his political future as a sexagenarian and beyond is kaput if he doesn’t nab the Keys to the World in 2028. Maybe an insignificant ambassadorship when a Democrat inevitably wins the White House, maybe a worse fate as a cabinet member, but that’s it.
There’s just one Trump, like it or not, and imitators stealing him blind isn’t likely to work. The mainstream media, in comparison to Trump in 2015-2025, aren’t wasting much time on Newsom. Maybe the likes of Peter Baker (Times) and David Remnick (The New Yorker) think he’s a loser and are measuring Maryland’s Wes Moore. In a rare Times story, published more than a week ago, Heather Knight and Laura Rosenhall tried to make sense of Newsom’s social media flurry.
The reporters quote tech “reporter”/TDS victim (Stage 4) Kara Swisher, who finds GCN posts amusing, but earnestly wonders if that’s the behavior required to win office today. This is better: “The press office has been reluctant to explain who is writing the posts, attributing them to a team of Newsom aides who offer ideas each day. ‘The governor has tasked us with communicating more effectively, so we’re doing it,’ [Izzy] Gardon said. If it’s a really good post, ‘you can credit the governor. If it flops, blame the clueless intern.’”
—Follow Russ Smith on Twitter: @MUGGER2023