Gavin Newsom Will Not Save You

Demanding more from our leaders

6 min read

Just now

In the last several months, there has been a considerable buzz online about the prospect of Gavin Newsom running for President in 2028. To be fair, it’s not hard to see why people would be rallying behind Gavin as a potential saviour from Trumpism. After all, he’s charismatic, a good speaker, capable of holding his own when under pressure during discussions with people on the right, and he’s capable of responding to them in ways people find compelling. Whether you like Newsom or not, it certainly seems like he would be a good candidate to run as a Democrat against a complete charisma vacuum like J.D. Vance in 2028.

Unfortunately, the story does not end here. While it may certainly be true that Newsom is a good speaker and is good at putting forth a kind of neoliberal opposition to the fascist tendencies we are seeing from Trump, that’s kind of all he’s good for. Newsom isn’t a friend of progressive or certainly not radical politics, and this is the sort of thing we need when we’re seeing a quasi-fascist movement like MAGA gain so much ground.

Newsom recently hosted an episode of his podcast in which his guest was right-wing commentator Ben Shapiro. As you can imagine, there were considerable back-and-forths between them, given that they ostensibly disagree on a number of issues. There…