Along with death, taxes, and celebrities starting podcasts, we may now put in the category of absolute certainty this: Gavin Newsom is running for president in 2028. Many of us were pretty sure of this all along, but the signs are now undeniable.
Is it that Gavin is solving the problems that have been driving both businesses and families away from California? Perhaps pushing for the Pacific Palisades rebuilding permits to finally go through? Working on the crime problem?
To Newsom’s credit, while he’s doing nothing on the first two crises, he did deploy teams from the California High Patrol to a few crime hotspots. The problem here, however, is that even if law enforcement makes more arrests, California’s army of left-wing prosecutors are ready to release criminals back onto the street with a slap on the wrist.
Moreover, even that potentially good move displays the problem with Newsom’s political ambitions. Rather than solving problems on his own, he seems content to remain a political copycat rather than a leader in his own right. After all, the only reason Newsom is sending in the Highway Patrol is to fend off President Trump’s threat to deploy the National Guard in failing cities nationwide, including many in his own state.
“Look,” Newsom seems to say, “see how decisive I am! I am doing something similar but not exactly like the thing Trump has done!”
If he’s a copycat in the policy sphere, how much more so in his online presence? Over the last couple weeks, Newsom’s social media team decided that they would gain attention by making the posts from Gavin Newsom’s press office mimic the style of President Trump.
Politico summed up the activity thus: “There’s Newsom on Mount Rushmore. There’s Newsom getting prayed over by Tucker Carlson, Kid Rock and an angelic, winged Hulk Hogan. There’s Newsom posting in all caps, saying his mid-cycle redistricting proposal has led “MANY” people to call him “GAVIN CHRISTOPHER ‘COLUMBUS’ NEWSOM (BECAUSE OF THE MAPS!). THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER.”
The idea is to parody President Trump’s inimitable style, thus getting Democratic voters to perceive Newsom as someone who can do battle in a new political world with the hated Trump. Is the copycat routine working?
It’s been declared a success by most Democratic commentators; then again, these are the same people who told us that us that the Kamala Harris campaign had captivated the nation and that she was going to sweep the swing states. So, it’s probably best to take what they say about it with a large block of salt.
Many of the liberal commentariat class have claimed the Newsom copycat campaign has drawn “outrage” from MAGA and the President, but it’s pretty hard to find evidence of this. Most people on the MAGA/conservative side think a campaign whose primary strategy is imitation, even as a form of parody, has given up the ground already. Even to say this much yields the standard Democratic talking point that the critics are “freakin’ out” or “losing their minds” or some other phrase meant to indicate their opponents are mentally and emotionally unstable rather than merely unimpressed.
Tom Nichols pursues this claim of a glorious victory over Trump supporters at The Atlantic, giving little evidence of the purported outrage he explains. Yet, even he admits at the end, “Newsom has made his point and should move on.”
But if he’s winning, why should he move on? Probably because there is very little evidence that this new strategy is affecting anyone on the right or anyone in the middle – especially those living in California.
Yet, we might consider that Newsom’s new copycat campaign has been successful inside the Democratic Party. Steve Bannon was quoted by Politico to this effect: “He’s no Trump, but if you look at the Democratic Party, he’s at least getting up there, and he’s trying to imitate a Trumpian vision of fighting, right? He looks like the only person in the Democratic Party who is organizing a fight that they feel they can win.”
In a party as dead as the current Democrats, even a lame guy, more notable for hair gel than accomplishments, who’s merely mirroring the political fighting moves of opponents probably does seem like a contender. From fewer than 300,000 followers on X before the Trump imitation to more than 567,000 as of the end of August, the “Governor Newsom Press Office” account has indeed picked up a bigger, though not massive, following.
Democrats are no doubt relieved to think about a possible 2028 candidate other than Kamala Harris, who lost the Democrats ground in all almost every area of the country. But the problem in the end comes down to the reality that there has to be something that a candidate can do other than mimic a President who is not eligible for reelection anyway.
In an article on the strategy in The Hill, Republican strategist Kevin Madden is quoted saying that Democrats right now are focusing on “communications tactics” rather than “messaging,” a mistake that is seen clearly in the Newsom strategy: “He’s got a new podcast and a more aggressive social media presence, but other than more clicks and downloads has that shifted the dynamics or public debate in his favor, or improved the national party brand?”
The answer to Madden’s question seems pretty obvious. Gavin Newsom can create a buzz by doing Trump impressions online. But can he really win over an electorate that can see what has happened under his watch to a part of this nation that used to be a paradise?
Donald Trump’s return to office was predicated in large part on remembering how good it was in his first term and how bad it was during the Joe Biden Politburo era. Americans do not desire to have the rest of the country “Californicated.” If Gavin Newsom really wants to win the highest office, he would do well to focus on making California a place people want to live, and not a place they want to leave.
That would give him something more substantive to communicate beyond simply mimicking Donald Trump. In any case, people might think of Governor Newsom in the terms laid out by Oscar Wilde: “Imitation is the homage mediocrity pays to greatness.”
David P. Deavel teaches at the University of St. Thomas in Houston. A past Lincoln Fellow at the Claremont Institute, he is a Senior Contributor at The Imaginative Conservative. Follow him on X (Twitter) @davidpdeavel.
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