Fake Gavin

Fake Gavin Newsom is leading the “resistance,” and he’s making dramatic speeches about it.

Newsom, the real-life Ken doll governor of California, has presided over a great exodus from his state. I’m one of the people who left. I’m a lifelong Angeleno, lived in LA for virtually my entire life, but then I took myself, my family, my parents, and my company, and we all moved out of LA thanks to the governance of people like Gavin Newsom.

But now, Gavin Newsom believes that he has his road to 2028 paved for him. He is using President Trump’s unleashing of federal forces to protect ICE agents in doing their job as an excuse to claim that he is now standing up to authoritarianism in the United States of America.

Thus, on Tuesday night, Newsom delivered another one of his very overwrought, ridiculous speeches. I think he thought it was the end of the film “Independence Day” and he was Bill Pullman shouting, “We will not go quietly into the night! We will not vanish without a fight! We’re going to live on! We’re going to survive!”

It didn’t go well.

It started with massive audio issues right at the top. You could see he was talking, but nothing came out, which was an improvement because when he talks and sound does come out, it’s usually stupid.

He finally got to his point, which was: We must resist! We must resist federal encroachments!

What are Newsom’s “federal encroachments”? ICE agents were sent to Los Angeles to execute federal immigration raids, to pick up illegal immigrants, and to deport them. That is what federal law says you are supposed to do. It is certainly within the purview of ICE to nab illegal immigrants and then process them for deportation. That is all well within the remit of the federal government.

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And then riots began, and President Trump was not willing to wait for Gavin Newsom to allow them to continue to fester. Instead, he activated the National Guard and sent them there in a support role for ICE; he also activated some Marines in a support role for the National Guard.

But according to Gavin Newsom, all of this amounts to an extra-constitutional coup, the beginning of a monarchic America in which Donald Trump is unleashing federal forces in order to take full control of the American body politic.

Newsom almost teared up as he spoke, but one thing is clear: this guy is not Laurence Olivier. He’s not a good actor.

And so the moment came off as incredibly vague. He wept:

This moment we all need to stand up and be held to account, a higher level of accountability. If you exercise your First Amendment rights, please, please do it peacefully. I know many of you are feeling deep anxiety, stress, and fear, but I want you to know that you are the antidote to that fear and that anxiety. What Donald Trump wants most is your fealty, your silence to be complicit in this moment. Do not give in to him. 

“What he wants most is your fealty and your silence?” I think what President Trump would like is for you leftists to stop burning Waymos.

On Tuesday, a judge did rule against Newsom — who had attempted to stop via an injunctive relief lawsuit what President Trump is trying to do in Los Angeles — saying Trump had the legal capacity to act as he has and Newsom could not block him.

But what Gavin Newsom wants most of all is to run for president in 2028, and the media are helping him out. The Washington Post had an entire piece titled “Newsom in interview: Trump’s actions echo authoritarian regimes.”

The Post quoted Newsom saying, “That’s an American president in 2025, threatening a political opponent who happens to be a sitting governor. That’s not with precedent in modern times. That’s what we see around the globe in authoritarian regimes.”

That’s because President Trump joked about arresting Newsom, because Tom Homan, Trump’s border czar, had said that if Newsom violates federal law, then he will be subject to federal law just as any other citizen would be.

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Democrats tried to imprison President Trump multiple times over the course of the last two years. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander: if you’re violating the law, then the law should apply to you.

But there is no ongoing effort to jail Gavin Newsom, despite the fact that he is, in fact, a horrible governor. He has every right to be a horrible governor; he just can’t violate federal law.

The Post continued:

Newsom’s comments reflected a broader frustration for Democratic leaders, who have been unable to counter what they see as an escalation of Trump’s antidemocratic actions in his emboldened second term. Newsom has tried all methods: He was a face of the resistance in the first term and a welcoming greeter during Trump’s initial visit to California in his second term. All the while, he continued suing Trump, while keeping up a cordial back-channel relationship. On Monday, he sounded like he was at his end with Trump, calling him “unrestrained” and “unhinged.”

Newsom said on Monday, “Trump is a very different president than his first foray in office. You’ve seen that as it relates to how he has completely obliterated any oversight from Congress; how he seeks to obliterate oversight from the judicial branch by threatening impeachment of judges and running up to the edge as it relates to court orders.”

This is all about Gavin Newsom running for president in 2028.

He is hoping that if he becomes the face of resistance to Trump, it will propel him to victory in the Democratic primaries.

What’s disturbing is what’s behind the face.