There is a natural tendency to peer backward through rose-colored glasses. Yes, the world was burning and falling apart in 1968, too. But the news came with the Chronicle in the morning and the Examiner in the afternoon. In the evening, when Walter Cronkite told you “And that’s the way it is,” that’s the way it was.
That isn’t the way it is anymore.
Life moves at an exhausting clip these days. You’ll forgive me for referencing a news development that took place long, long ago: Last week.
Transit advocates, led by state Sen. Scott Wiener, held a San Francisco rally a week ago today, bemoaning the office of Gov. Gavin Newsom essentially reneging on a $750 million loan to prevent the collapse of Bay Area transit agencies.
These funds were pledged in June’s budget. And yet, in September, the governor’s finance office abruptly stated it would not provide them.
Wiener, Mayor Daniel Lurie’s team and others dug in, and, lo, Newsom quickly announced an about-face (again). Headlines blithely declared that the governor “revived” the $750 million lifeline. But he really didn’t; there is no commitment in his announcement. We are, essentially, back to where we were in June.
To reach an agreement with legislators, budget for it, string along existentially threatened transit agencies for months, then attempt to extricate yourself from the deal — and then, just as quickly, make a grandiose but noncommittal return to the table — is an interesting way to do government.
And a bad one. This is bad governance.
In the case of Newsom, it prompts a larger question: What is governance anymore? Among voters who’ve heard of Newsom, it’s hard to say it’s his knack for governance that has wowed them.
As lieutenant governor, his technobabble inspired Stephen Colbert to ask for a “bullshit translator.” As mayor of San Francisco, he dropped incongruous and ill-fitting aphorisms from The Grateful Dead or Tony Robbins into speeches.
In his current iteration as California governor he’s remade himself as “Gavin C. Newsom,” aka “GCN,” President Donald Trump’s No. 1 troll. His social media posts have become a perfect mirror to the unhinged, semi-coherent and semi-grammatical rantings of our autocrat-in-chief.
(Example: WOW!! SEAN HANNITY JUST SAID TO HIS DOZENS OF VIEWERS: “HE’S TRYING SO HARD EVERYDAY. GOT TO GIVE HIM CREDIT.” THANK YOU SEAN!! SORRY YOU ARE IN A SLUMP! … — GCN)
By essentially mimicking Trump’s own words, down to the all-caps rants and/or random capitalizations, Newsom’s ploy exposes his right-wing critics as hypocrites for not making the same complaints about Trump. Very clever.
To Democratic voters starved for any sign of pugnacity in the face of not-so-creeping fascism, however, this became more than just creative jerkiness on the internet. It was leadership. Newsom has now vaulted into the upper echelon of Democratic standard-bearers. From mean tweets.
What a world, what a world, what a world.
There is a dichotomy here. On the one hand, we have Newsom — at best fecklessly, and at worst malevolently — attempting to renege on a deal to sustain public infrastructure that serves millions of transit-dependent residents. This is important to real people’s lives, but also unglamorous and low-profile.
On the other hand, we have Gavin C. Newsom skyrocketing to the top of national presidential polling on the basis of satirical mean tweets written by his young staffers.
You’ll forgive me for referencing a cultural development that really did take place long, long ago: Gavin Newsom has become Gov. Max Headroom.
For a moment there in the mid-1980s, Max Headroom was big. He was described as “TV’s hottest personality who is not a person,” and as a computer-generated AI TV presenter.
But he was neither computer-generated nor AI. He was an actor wearing prosthetics, speaking with an electronically induced stutter and standing in front of a shifting pattern of colored lines that resembled nothing so much as your seventh grade Trapper Keeper.
To viewers, however, he was a head in a box with a cool slicked-back hairdo, always ready with a clever dig. Like our governor he looked good in sunglasses. So, in essence, this is “Gavin C. Newsom,” a cool internet persona who exists solely on your screen and is divorced from any flesh-and-blood incarnation.
There is a place for the social media avatar of The Resistance. There is a place for ridiculing a would-be dictator. Dictators wither when people laugh at them. But this is not governance.
Gavin C. Newsom’s willingness to provocatively trash-talk a fascist sets him apart in a party led by aging marshmallows. His behavior is a pure dopamine hit for a considerable segment of the population. Like any good reality TV character or professional wrestler, GCN is Giving the People What They Want.
This is no way to run a railroad. But it is quite possibly a way to win the White House. Donald Trump in 2023 told his voters “I am your justice … I am your retribution.” He was.
Democratic voters, hopefully, want more than retribution. As a start, they appear to want someone to stand up to Trump, in even the most performative and superficial way. In the party of Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries, that’s more than most elected officials offer.
Sometimes, there’s a man; well, he’s the man for his time and place. He fits right in there. If Democrats are the party of diminished expectations, then this is GCN’s time. This is GCN’s place.
This is, in fact, the logical conclusion of training voters to expect less and less from their government and its elected officials.
Politicians like Newsom are not sending a generation of ex-soldiers to college on the G.I. Bill. They are not passing the Civil Rights Act. Voters, instead, have been reduced to backing the candidates who tweet the things they think.
In Trump’s case, these are terrible things. But the unhinged, semi-coherent and semi-grammatical rantings of our autocrat-in-chief aren’t purely performative. They are in furtherance of an unhinged worldview.
He says terrible things because he thinks terrible things and wants terrible things. Trump’s trolling abets what has turned out to be a pretty clear agenda. He has been an extremely consequential president. He is doing these things.
In contrast, Newsom’s trolling of the troll backs no coherent (or incoherent) plan of action. It jabs a bully in the eye — which is fine; jab away. But it does little else, short of raising the national profile of Gavin C. Newsom.
Ideally, the Democrat who challenges Trump or Trumpism would stand for something. But pinning down what Gavin Newsom stands for has long been akin to eating soup with a fork.
Governing matters. That’s something to think about when your bus or train won’t come and you’re left staring at your phone, watching what now passes for the news delivered by influencers sitting in the front seat of a car or incongruously wandering through the streets.
And that’s the way it is.
A political party that rewards performative antics, especially when they are distracting from real-world failures which impact the party’s main constituents, deserves to lose.
I truly hope Democrats don’t fall for this nonsense.
The only San Francisco politicians who have ever found success outside of the city are those who learned how to play the game AND knew how to tone down their progressive instincts and rhetoric in order to reach and appeal to a wider audience.
So that is Feinstein, Pelosi and Harris nationally. And Newsom, Wiener and Haney at the state level.
Politicians can be pure or gain power. They cannot do both.
“especially when they are distracting from real-world failures which impact the party’s main constituents, deserves to lose.”
This is why Joel is being recalled exactly. YES ON A!
Q,
So, who will Mayor Lurie choose to replace him ?
Of course, I like returning the seat to the Chinese and Gordon Mar.
go Niners !!
h.
“The Chinese” is a racist notion TBH. They are not a bloc even though their local information is severely siloed from few local sources. Whoever Lurie picks must respect the constituency in its entirety and not just the transplant techie yuppies that Engardio obviously favored exclusively, or they too will be gone in a year’s time. Lurie had better get with the program on respecting the will of the West Side, or it’s his vote next time.
No, Q, the term “Chinese” is not racist. It simply denotes people who are Chinese or who derive from China.
Read it again David. “The Chinese” as a noun is not respectful of individuals and their very different life experiences, reduces them to a racial bloc implying bloc mentality. That’s not actually the case even though historically they’ve been treated so by SF politicos. There are plenty of Chinese voters on both sides, including extremes of both sides. Certainly a district with something like 60% asian residents is more likely to have like representation, but the idea that they’re voting solely by race is, I think, kind of reductive.
“My experience in life is that my kind of writing wins Nobel prizes and Academy Awards and yours puts people to sleep.”
Ah, the infallible defense, good choice.
Well, enjoy that Nobel and other well-earned laurels, I guess, which make you immune to even a light critique of word choice… can’t have that, right?
It was intended as something to think about and maybe consider in future comments, that’s all.
We can avoid “the whites” and “the blacks” etc, “the gays” without being unable to talk about those groups. It connotes things regardless of what you mean, and I don’t believe you meant it that way.
Q and David,
I’m aware that my colloquial Ozark idiomatic interpretation of the language can be crude and offensive to some but it works with my personal audience and myself.
I find styles such as your own to be shallow and boring but that’s just me.
Don’t feel like the Lone Ranger when you seek to correct me.
Sadly, when I hack away at my keyboard in the Modern world I am never alone as my style alerts a variety of robot censors living in my machine who suggest not only what my next words or phrases should be but also why my previous phraseology is wrong.
My experience in life is that my kind of writing wins Nobel prizes and Academy Awards and yours puts people to sleep.
Thanks to David for the shot block.
go Niners !!
h.
Newsom’s juvenile response to all the threats Trump poses illustrates how the entire political establishment is taking Trump’s lead and moving to the right.
Public infrastructure, social programs, public health, and democratic rights are all on the chopping block to satiate Wall Street’s hunger for profit.
That means preparing for a world war.
That war has already begun with flags having been flown at half-staff in honor of Charlie Kirk, a fascist who promoted violence.
Scapegoating immigrants for “unmanageable crime” was the spearhead of the Trump’ administration’s extralegal plans to occupy American cities and enforce order. Making a martyr of Kirk is a prelude to cracking down on anyone who might stand in the way the establishment’s plans for war.
Anticipating this, democratic leaders around the country have grudgingly cooperated with the Trump administration and busy themselves manufacturing a toothless public relations resistance.
The majority of Americans are appalled, but should not look for leadership from either of the capitalist parties. (or from phony leftists like Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, or Zohran Mamdani whose SOP is to chloroform idealistic but politically inexperienced people into believing that the Democratic Party can be reformed).
If the stakes we face were not so high, Newsom’s Max Headroom incantation might be laughable.
Calling Bernie a “phony leftist” is where your “analysis” becomes phoney. He’s one of the very few who actually walk the walk.
The progressive to watch in the national level is three-term Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy. He used to be a Hillary supporter. Now he calls himself an economic populist. He also votes against arms for Israel. He’s my candidate for president in 2028 if there is an election.
Robert Livingston,
Naturally the Democratic Party can be reformed.
Look what Trump did to the Republicans in short order.
Main thing is who Bernie chooses as VP running mate and I’d say to go in their face with Buttigieg.
go Niners !!
h.
Good choices but isn’t Bernie independent now? It’s obvious the rank and file Dems that run the power structure don’t want his reforms and common sense, and Buttigieg has a while yet to cut his teeth before he’d be ready for the big show IMO. Buttigieg also doesn’t strike me as someone Bernie would pick, except to broaden his own political base – would it, though? Most people who would support Pete probably already are with Bernie. Same with Warren.
Q,
OK, be still my heart but … how about a ticket of …
Bernie Sanders for President
and
AOC for VP
???
This new Niner Dynasty is shades of the sequence in ‘Days of Thunder’ where Robert DuVall rebuilds the entire race car every week and Shanahan is Duvall.
fascinating Simulation
go Niners !!
h.
AOC needs some time in the oven, she’s not ready.
Her fire is there, but she needs to temper it.
We can’t have another Kamala, we can’t afford it.
I’d say Bernie and Warren TBH. They’ve earned it.
The Dude abides.
“But this is not governance.’ Did Newsom claim or even suggest it was?
Personally, I think it’s not fair or even worth conflating his (young staffer managed) social media presence with his (long) list of failings.
A bit late to this article but just watched Newsom on the tonight show with Colbert and it seems like the plan was for him to get the word out about prop 50 and how we’re trying to fight back against trumps redistricting in Texas but he spent so much time on practicing his stump speech talking points that he never mentioned prop 50. If this isn’t a great reflection of his inability to follow through and focus on himself, I don’t know what is. Do we really want to have another narcissistic president in office just to have a Democrat in there? For some reason I don’t see him fighting for the working class or for strengthening the constitution.
Hey Joe: welcome to the 21st Century! I, too, would love it if Gavin Newsom would concentrate on substantive matters and not performative social media. However, I wholeheartedly agree with his approach for one reason: today’s voters respond to nonsense, not substance. To that end, Newsom is doing what he needs to do to get into office, which is the only way can he can affect real change. A candidate espousing intelligent, rational, logical thought will not connect with many of today’s voters — not Democrat and certainly not Republican — and the only “office” he or she will ever hold is “smartest candidate in the field who never got elected.” That person can accomplish nothing. More important than anything else, we need someone savvy enough to sneak past our increasingly ignorant electorate to get into office. Only then can real change occur. Unfortunately, we must take the voters as they are, not as we wish they were.
Only a Republican like Reagan can be elected President from California. If Kamala Harris had been from Illinois she would have beaten Trump in 2024.
Arnold could have…
Joe,
Brilliant piece and spot on for the time.
I know something of this guy.
My sources say that he has always been a fill-in for Billy Getty whom the Getty family wanted to make President with their wealth.
Gavin was Billy’s best friend and when the family wanted Billy to start Locution lessons he refused unless Gavin could take them with him and he hated them and Gavin loved em and the idea of being President.
When I say, ‘President’ you understand that I assume that you know that I mean, of the United States of America.
They were building one from the ground up and it was Billy and is now, Gavin tho I’m not current on his current funding sources.
They fattened his resume’ when he came out of Santa Clara where I’m told he was a pretty good college ball first baseman by giving him small shares of stock in the boutique high end liquor branch of their used to be (under J. Paul) the largest fortune in the World.
Thataway, he could say that he was an owner and developer of properties where he was more of a concierge.
Gavin’s been in the Public arena since Willie first appointed him to some committee or study group or something to to do with cabs, then on to Supervisor of D-2 in 2000 was it ?
That’s when he came into my political radar screen (which goes back 70 years to Jimmy Hoffa and Adlai Stevenson if you can believe it) in 2000 when he made the move to the BOS where he was completely outmatched by most of that wonderful in my memory, Class of 2000.
I covered them like massage oil and partied often with Gonzalez and Peskin and chose Gonzo as my own candidate for President within 10 years to match Teddy Roosevelt for youngest to ascend to the Office.
So, I was bound to clash with the Getty/Newsom people and that first happened in 2002 when Gavin moved to make his spot on the BOS more legitimate by running for the D-2 seat in an actual election and not an ordination.
Everyone in the room except you in 2002 knew that Gavin was gonna run for Mayor the next year when Willie was termed out and I determined that I was gonna get in that race amongst the candidates running for the seat just to see if I could weaken Gavin going into the mayoral campaign in 2003 tho I hadn’t yet to talk Matt into running.
Don’t believe me ?
Hey, they made a movie about it.
Followed me around for a couple of months I think.
I was pretty stoned and drunk at the time and enjoying huge cigars and a procession of SF’s most brightest ladies but that’s another story.
So, the movie is called, ‘Cheap Rent’ from Bukowski:
“The best friend of art is cheap rent.”
It has been suppressed for 23 years and will have its first Public showing at Manny’s and I’ll let you know when.
If that falls through we’ll rent a theatre which was the original plan back when.
Remember when Gavin’s aides got him to wash the feet of a very confused Homeless guy at Tourk’s, monthly Homeless thing at the auditorium ?
How about when he used to stop his Limo to pick up trash and put it in the trunk ?
Hey, whatever it takes.
go Niners !!
(this is the weakest 2-0 start in Niner history)
h.
Sorry, this is nonsense. Newsom has been an order of magnitude more effective than any other elected Democrat. First, by not being a coward (hi Cuck Schumer). Second, and more importantly: we have a redistricting election in November. That is far far more than any other Democrat has done. An actual strategy to counter Texas’ corrupt redistricting.
If other Democrats don’t like that, maybe they should step up with actions instead of stupid impotent whining.
Yeup, effective for billionaires! Billionaires for Newsom!
He should be the next vice president . We need to run Hilary Clinton . She won the popular vote in 2016 and without Russian interference , she would be president . Good to have a female president to lead the next generation .
Russian interference, Hillary, lol. Yeah, Hillary lost because of a couple hundred thousand dollars worth of facebook ads that ran after the election and that no swing voter ever saw, let alone pay attention to. Unless and until the Dems come to grips with why they lost (hint: they abandoned the mildly populist economic policies of FDR that gave the party its five decade dominance in Congress), they will continue to get pummeled.
Keep bleating “We’re not Trump!” and “Russia!Russia!Russia!”, and your fake-left, neo-liberal, neocon, Wall St/Big Pharma/Big Tech billionaire-coddling party will continue to wither, as it continues to bleed working class and low income voters waking up to the sheep pen of the Clintonite-ocrat Party. It would great to see an actual left-of-center party form in its place, but the system is rigged to make that extremely unlikely.
Hillary, Newsom, Kamala, et al? All the Democrat “leaders” make Nixon look like a socialist by comparison.
Love your writing clarity, two beers,
You left out Bernie.
And, to a lesser much I care, Buttigieg.
I’m 81 and Bernie is 84 and I watched a clip of him giving a speech in West Virginia recently and he’s solid and would be the best prepared President of all time.
You’re not an Aegist are you, two beers ?
lol
go Niners !!
h.
So true! As some comrades say, Richard Nixon was our last Liberal president!
Newsom and Kamala have not been elected outside of California.
Like Hillary they have baggage aplenty, Newsom perhaps greater than.
Meanwhile nobody particularly called for either of them.
It’s like there’s some secret votes going on that don’t reflect what the populous actually wants, hmm.
“It’s like there’s some secret votes going on that don’t reflect what the populous actually wants, hmm.”
In Wilding, et. al. v. DNC Services in Florida in 2017, Democrat lawyers literally argued that the party was a private organization that was entitled to change, interpret, and apply its rules at will. The Court sided with the Democrat Party, and said the party was under no obligation to be democratic. Hence, “Democrat” Party, sans “-ic”.
Yeah that’s the 2 party system, working for us by working against us…
She’s unpopular, so no. We don’t need a former President’s spouse to make it dynastic, that’s as bad as one of the Trump babies taking over.
The one remarkable feat that Trump accomplished was extinguishing the houses of Clinton and Bush. Let’s keep it that way.