Gavin Newsom is attempting to redefine himself in preparation for his bid for the presidency. He is trying to thread the needle–progressive enough for Democratic primary voters, but moderate enough for moderates that he can appeal to them in the general election.
You can see this dual strategy play out online. On his social media, he is positioning himself as a Trump antagonist–hurling insults at the president and conservative governors, making wild claims about how California is a liberal paradise with no crime, immigration, or homeless problem, while his podcast appearances are all about how the leftward lurch of his party is a mistake.
If you only listen to what he says, it’s hard to say to what extent Newsom is a genuine radical–is he the man we see online and during his entire tenure as a politician in California, or is he a moderate who rejects defunding the police and questions alphabet ideology?
It’s really not complicated–as long as you look at what he has done and ignore what he says. Newsom, the flim flam man, may appear to have values not so different from most Americans, but Newsom, the governor, has been a radical lefty who has been ruining his state with radical policies that have created an exodus from the state.
MUST READ: “California governor Gavin Newsom (D.) personally secured $500,000 in 2023 for a nonprofit group that supports defunding police and recently launched a bond fund for illegal immigrants in ICE custody…” https://t.co/T8O5HPXTzk pic.twitter.com/h1NoMiQqM8
— Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) July 21, 2025
Ideologically, Newsom is more Chesa Boudin than Olympia Snowe. When given the opportunity to do something insane, he jumps on it like a cat on a mouse.
Andrew Kerr of The Washington Free Beacon provides an example of just how liberal Newsom has governed.
In California, when public officials ask a nonprofit to direct funds to a cause they want funded–I didn’t even know that this was a thing–the law requires that nonprofit to record the request. This makes a lot of sense for obvious reasons–it’s a way for politicians to use others’ money to bribe constituencies for their support–without being as obvious as passing a bill using tax dollars.
Newsom has used his influence to funnel money to leftist groups promoting causes that might not get funded by the already very liberal legislature or that are explicitly political and ineligible for public funding.
Newsom in July 2023 asked the James Irvine Foundation, a private foundation that supports low-income workers in California, to donate $500,000 to the Immigrant Defenders Law Center (ImmDef), a group that supports defunding the police. Though the funds didn’t come from Newsom’s own pocket, the James Irvine Foundation cut its check specifically at Newsom’s request, according to California’s “behested payments” database, which discloses whenever state elected officials solicit donations to a third party.
The Democratic governor “behested” the $500,000 contribution to ImmDef to support its efforts to “expand critical services offered to migrants crossing the US border,” according to the California database. Those services include ImmDef’s Detained Immigrant Bond Fund, which helps illegal immigrants get out of federal custody. The group launched the bond fund on June 7, just one day after anti-ICE riots broke out in Los Angeles, the Free Beacon reported.
Newsom’s efforts to bankroll ImmDef in 2023 could come back to bite him as he works to distance himself from the Democratic Party’s progressive flank.
In March, for example, Newsom denounced the “defund the police” movement as “lunacy” during an interview with conservative host Charlie Kirk. It is the same sort of “lunacy” that Newsom bankrolled when he “behested” $500,000 to ImmDef, which in June 2020 publicly committed to “joining the calls to dismantle the police state by defunding and decreasing police budgets.” The group also said it’s “high time we abolish the immigration prison system and abolish ICE.”
Don’t listen to what a politician says–watch what they do. Newsom may want you to believe that he thinks the “defund the police” movement is lunacy, but the reality is that he has been funneling money to it.
What’s striking is not that a politician would say one thing while doing another–it’s a day ending in “y”–but that so many people still pay attention to what politicians say at all. Much of that is because the Pravda Media still reports what politicians say with absolute credulity–at least if they have the correct letter after their name. Throw a “D” after a politician’s name, and what they say is gospel.
You saw this in action with PolitiFact’s “fact check” of Trump’s accusation that Zohran Mamdani is a communist, which they rated as “false.”
Their reasoning? Despite Mamdani’s desire to seize the means of production, create government-run businesses, socialize housing, and eliminate private property, his written platform on his website does not explicitly call for communism and is characterized by neighborly soft socialism, rather than hard communism.
Mamdani does not call for getting rid of private ownership. One of the goals included on his website is to “make it faster, easier, and cheaper to start and run a business.”
Well then, that’s settled.
It’s the Newsom shuffle in action–tell your hard-core supporters one thing while selling yourself as something else. And the Pravda Media dutifully reports it as reality.
Mamdani will not be able to turn New York into a communist state–it’s too heavy a lift in a city where capitalism still has deep roots–but that doesn’t mean that he cannot do enormous damage. Look at what Bill de Blasio did, or what Brandon Johnson has done to Chicago. Lefty mayors have practically destroyed once-vibrant cities, one insane policy at a time.
Newsom is trying to reinvent his image, making it appealing to people who see California as a cautionary tale. And I fear that it will work to some extent. After all, he doesn’t have to convince 50% or 75% of people that he would be an acceptable president–if he is the nominee, Democrats will vote for him no matter what.
All he needs is a few percentage points in the middle of the ideological spectrum, so it’s not as heavy a lift as you might think. If enough people are unhappy with Trump after four years, Newsom or some other Democrat could win by pretending not to be radical.
It worked for Joe Biden–he ran as a safe moderate and was the most liberal president in American history. And he wasn’t even sentient or as pretty as Newsom.
Newsom has three years to burnish his image. We need to use those years to show America who he is.
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Editor’s Note: The mainstream media continues to deflect, gaslight, spin, and lie about President Trump, his administration, and conservatives.
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