312
The Actual Gavin Newsom Is Much Worse Than You Think
(www.commondreams.org)
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 13 Feb 2026
312 points (100.0% liked)
politics
28658 readers
2159 users here now
Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
- Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.
Example:
- Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
- Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
- No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
- Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
- No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
That's all the rules!
Civic Links
• Congressional Awards Program
• Library of Congress Legislative Resources
• U.S. House of Representatives
Partnered Communities:
• News
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
As compared to what? Is he worse than Trump? I sincerely fucking doubt it.
That's a ridiculously low bar, but it's also an important distinction.
Do I want Gavin Newsom to be the Democrat nominee for 2028? Hell no! He's revealed himself to be a shallow political opportunist and an ideological chameleon. And I think that party can do better.
But regardless, would he be an improvement over Trump? Hell yes!
Another question is: is he - a supposedly populist liberal from California - even electable on a national stage? I don't think so. But then, we live in very 'interesting' times. So who knows.
The third question is: will we have a fair enough election in 2028 (or an election at all)? That remains to be seen.
Put it this way, us overseas would rather see Newsom in charge of it than Trump.
That’s way better for us.
Anyone would be an improvement over Trump. Even Vance, probably. I'd gladly see Newsom win. But even more than that, I'd like to see Bernie, Warren or AOC win.
Bernie + (anyone else, but preferably AOC) would have won against Trump three (3) times.
Me too, but anyone who doesn’t threaten the sovereignty of other countries and respects some form of order is good for us.
Edit: Vance would last a month and no, if he could get full influence he might be as bad or worse than Trump.
Well, that would certainly be an interesting new direction to try after 250 years of the opposite.
Yeah that point is hard to argue ay, even with the better leaders.
Democrats have been playing the "well they suck, but at least they're not Trump!" game for a decade and gotten Trump two out of three times. Maybe we should aim higher.
100% with you, I don’t love Newsom. Personally I’d be interested in an AOC run but that’s maybe a bit dreamer of me.
As compared to some of the other candidates that might have run if the Democratic Primary were an actual primary and not a coronation.
The last time Democrats ran an actual primary ws 2008, when a young, generational candidate beat out the (kinda boring) establishment choice. Democrats learned their lesson to never let something encouraging like that happen again!
Gavin's gonna win the Primary, as his right as the Next One Up, and we're all gonna vote for him, because as awful as he is, he is objectively better than whoever the MAGA party will run.
And this is the exact attitude why nothing will ever change in this country. You can't keep voting in people hellbent on maintaining the hegemony capital has over everyone and expect anything to get better for you.
In the history of Democratic party, there was exactly one time where the candidate that the DNC chose, actually lost a popular vote. Exactly one.
It was in 2008, when a young, generational candidate actually lost the popular vote by 1% to the (kinda boring) establishment choice, but was chosen anyway.
It's nice to have this simplistic worldview, when "they" control everything anyway so you don't have to do anything and just complain when "they" don't do what you want. It's harder to confront the reality when "they" actually consist of all the people around you, and the only reason you don't get what you want is because you don't do shit.
Nice try, but the popular vote doesn't mean anything in primaries, because the elections are held over a period of time and many candidates drop out mid-way through, so we will never know how many Joe Biden or John Edwards voters would have voted for Obama over Clinton. Clinton did not win a majority of votes, after all.
Obama won a majority of pledged delegates, even before taking the undemocratic Super Delegates into account, and it's delegates that count.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Democratic_Party_presidential_primaries
Democrats don't need to mess with the counting of votes to "fix" primaries. They do it the old fashioned way, by manipulating the primary calendar to make certain candidates inevitable.
Popular vote reflects how people who actually vote think. Candidates aren't appearing out of thin air, they're nominated as the result of political campaigns.
You can't shift the blame for candidates to ambiguous "them" if you didn't get your ass to try to affect it in any way. The delegates represent pretty nicely the opinion of people who actually vote in Primaries, with almost perfect track record. They don't represent your opinion because you don't vote therefore don't have an opinion. So you don't get to complain about what party that you're not in is doing. Want it to change? Use the ways to change it. Those ways aren't hidden from you, aren't secret, aren't gatekeeped by a shadow cabal, you just need to do politics about it. People who get their candidates elected do that.
Primaries need to be on one fucking day across the nation.
Make it ranked choice or some other system that works properly with more than 2 candidates while we're at it.
The best pushback for this message is to post the entire interview between Newsom and Ben Shapiro and then tell me again who cares about people.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hrDpBwpSqSc
So more of that lesser evil bullshit that's given us trump and helped shift the entire DNC to the right?
Settling for any centrist with a pulse is how we got Trump.
And Bush Jr 2nd term. Possibly first term
If you want to know what the flat comparison should be, it’s AOC. She is, in reality, a centrist.
Now go again with the comparison.
I’d def take AOC over probably anyone else tbh. I don’t like Newsom but I do enjoy the way he trolls Trump all the time.
They're not the only options, stop framing it that way. That's how the shitty billionaires keep winning, by forcing that narrative
Okay? So what just don’t vote? Ignore the system? Become a politician myself and run for president? Seriously, what are my many options you speak of?
Primaries haven't happened yet. He hasn't even officially announced.
Your options are: to stop talking like it's going to be PEDOnald/Couchfucker vs Newsom.
This isn't that conplicated. Holy shit.
I don’t see how I’ve talked like that but okay.
This. Right here. Is you creating a false dichotomy, as if this comparison is all that matters. It's really very obvious, I'm not sure why this is so hard to understand
Bro I could say a dead raccoon is not worse than Trump. Does that also seem to paint the picture that the only options from here on are a dead raccoon and Trump? Buddy get a grip.
When you're the one who, unbidden, decided to make the comparison when someone says this other unrelated person is bad, then yes. You are actively restricting the narrative that these are the only choices.
Nah you’re wrong.
That median adult reading comprehension level of 6th grade strikes again.
No, I disagree.
Trump is creating a chaotic shitstorm, but it's almost entirely performance and theater and mindless destruction, all focused around him and his personality.
If you get someone in there with the same agendas and intentions, but who is cunning enough to mask it under populism and pretending to care about people while signing into law bills that will allow capital to have unrestricted access to our lives, allow them to take part in our politics even more and in the open, packing the courts with corporate aligned-judges... well Liberal america will be HAPPY with this, they just don't want to see all the violence in the street, they want stability and the image of peace, which will let someone like Newsom soak up all the adoration for "making America normal again" while signing away all of our futures in a much less openly opposable way.
Trump caused the wound, but someone like Newsom will rub the sewage into it.
he will repeal 20% of Trump's orders and people will celebrate it. He will restore a fraction of what Trump has undone and people will celebrate his name and see him as a hero just because we've become accustomed to total chaos. It almost looks carefully planned. Hmmn.
There’s an argument that most of the stuff done in trumps name would be “ok” if he did it legally and that’s what people wanted. It’s the abuse of authority, the personal enrichment, violating the constitution, holding people above the law, enforcing personal feelings, violating checks and balances that are the critical issues.
I wouldn’t want to live in such a society but it would at least be “legitimate”
You never learn.