What the hell is Gavin Newsom thinking?

Can you tell us more about how he is aligning with them?

@janbb Sorry, I just assumed it was common knowledge. He had Charlie Kirk on for his first podcast. Kirk got Newsom to agree with him about transgender discrimination. In his last podcast he had Bannon on and starts agreeing with Bannon on protectionism and tariffs.

He’s gearing up for a presidential run, and cozying up to the right and courting Trump supporters is part of the Democratic playbook. Distancing oneself from trans issues is especially important. I remain unconvinced that being “Republican lite” is how Democrats win, but many Democrats are convinced it is the way to the White House. I guess we shall see.

@Demosthenes
Because that strategy worked so well for Harris.
Styling yourself as the “lesser evil” is not going to work on people who are not going to settle for the “lesser” of the evils. All you are doing is legitimising evil.

@Demosthenes The irony for me is that I am no firebrand progressive. I’m a conservative anti-populist at heart. But if Democrats keep throwing milquetoast weasels at us the fascists will keep winning. I agree with gorilla and tom in that we need a leftist, or at least a left-leaning populist.

Left-leaning populist. How to get there if there is no left-leaning popular media?

I heard Newsom stated somewhere that he was against transwomen in sports that he said it was about fairness in competition.

I figured he was positioning himself for a presidential run in 2028. I don’t know the stats, but I’m pretty sure most Democrats are against transwomen in female sports for most competitions.

I didn’t know he did a podcast with Bannon?! WTF?! Bannon doesn’t represent Republicans or Independents who might vote for a Democrat, Bannon plays with the far right religious Dominionists and J6er crowd. WTH?

Side note: if you haven’t seen the documentary Arnold on Netflix I highly recommend it. Only mentioning it since you mentioned him in the OP. Three episodes, I think the last was about his time in office. I thought the whole thing was great, but especially the episode about his time in politics.

Harris lost because she was Black and a woman. I don’t disagree with there being other factors in why she lost but let’s call sexism and racism what they are.

As for candidates who are more leftist winning, I just don’t know. I think Dems lose the working class on immigration and culture war issues and I don’t know the solution to that.

Newsom wants to run for president and is trying to move himself to the center. It is that simple.

He figures that the democrats have no one to run in 2028 – he wants to be the one chosen.

Newsome has always been an odd duck. He is probably one of the most progressive democrats around today, but every once in a while he does a complete 180 from his typical platform. This is hardly the first time.

As @Demosthenes said, he is planning a presidential run and starting to court the other side.

Sorry for going off-topic above. I was responding to an earlier post about Harris.

To answer the question, I think we’re seeing a lot of strange bedfellows and agree that Newsom is trying to position himself as the next candidate for President. For my money, I’d take Chris Murphy of Jamie Raskin any day of the week.

I’ll add, I have always said I hope Newsom isn’t the Democratic nominee, because I think he’s too far to the left, too “progressive.” I could name examples, but I don’t want to go too far down that tangent and derail the Q.

As far as Harris, she was perceived as progressive, because of her primary run in 2020. Plus, she was terrible in interviews and townhalls when Biden stepped aside. She wasn’t answering questions well at all. If she had been a white man Democrats still would have had a problem.

Edit: I’ve been on many zoom meetings with Jamie Raskin and I hope he doesn’t wind up being our candidate either. He’s ok, but I’ve seen him speak to the crowd using all sort of party lines that I just find annoying. Plus, I’m not sure a Jewish candidate could win. Maybe.

Harris was never progressive. She just played one on TV.

@Caravanfan Same difference.

I think some people are basically “following the money” and hype. Being republican is hip and cool now, so it’s easy to ride the wave.

Something I’ve personally noticed about some people while traveling is how conservative they are, to a cruel and sociopathic extent.

I understand life is cruel and tough and unforgiving, but having class and grace and empathy is what helps us move on from being cavemen.

It’s sad to see people so quick to say “screw the illegals” or “screw the homeless” so callously.