Gavin Newsom, the rakish, carefully coiffed and impeccably tailored governor of California, has reinvented himself as a troll.
No, the 6’3” (1.9m) Newsom has not shrunken himself under a bridge. He has instead turned into a much more modern kind of hobbit: an internet goblin, antagonising US President Donald Trump primarily by imitating him. Team Newsom’s recent social media posts? They include LOTS of capital letters. His punctuation? You might call it “HECTIC???”. Lines are directly lifted from some of Trump’s greatest posting hits (“LOW ENERGY,” “MANY SAY,” “THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER”). AI-generated fan images have also proliferated, echoing demented pro-Trump art and showing Newsom with Jesus over his shoulder, Newsom riding a dinosaur, Newsom as Captain America, an insanely ripped Newsom wearing a speedo in a boxing ring with a kneeling Trump, an insanely ripped Newsom rescuing a Lady Liberty who looks suspiciously like Melania Trump.
The posts seem to have had their intended effect. Liberals are thrilled to see someone finally stand up to Trump. The Maga right has fumed, and thoroughly beclowned themselves by fretting about the unseriousness and foolishness of this behaviour – concerns they don’t seem to have about the actual sitting president’s identical actions. Now, many Maga proponents are simply accusing Newsom of being “cringe,” “weird,” and a copycat, insults that don’t land because they miss the point.
Newsom’s actions are unserious, weird, attention-getting, very in-joke funny to his supporters, and profoundly annoying to his opponents. That’s the point. And it’s hard to argue with what’s working to get under conservatives’ skin, fight back against Trumpism, and emphasise just how clownish the president is. Far too many Democrats have approached the second Trump term with a tepidness so shameful it should be career-ending. Newsom was initially among them: his first post-election metamorphosis was into a Maga-curious moderate who invited far-right conservatives including Steve Bannon and Charlie Kirk onto his podcast to tell them they had some good ideas. That didn’t play particularly well among Democratic voters. Now, unlike so many other Democrats who have capitulated to this president in ways large and small, Newsom has shapeshifted into a satirist troll, and the likes and retweets are rolling in.
This is, as is the case with so much in American politics today, good given the circumstances – but also revealing of some particularly bad circumstances. It’s good that Newsom is successfully fighting back using Trump’s own deranged tactics. It’s bad that the country has devolved into this kind of total derangement. A meme war is not the kind any serious politician should be proud of winning. It’s also not what Democrats should want or expect from a president.
Newsom’s penchant for shapeshifting is well-documented. He was married to Kimberly Guilfoyle, who went on to become Don Jr’s fiancé until he met someone else and she was shipped off to Greece and handed a post-breakup ambassadorship. He was a moderate in the Bush era; much more liberal throughout Obama’s term, the #resistance of the first Trump presidency, and during Joe Biden’s time in office; now he’s a moderate again. He is widely perceived as a little too slick, and judging by social media – the arena in which he is battling Trump – he is widely suspected of being a sociopath. American Psycho memes about him proliferate. And yet a growing number of Democrats seem to have decided that, instead of going high like Michelle Obama told us to, we should take a cue from Maga and enjoy the psycho vs psycho cage fight. As the journalist Jordan Weissmann characterised it, the growing ethos seems to be, “Yeah, he’s Patrick Bateman, but he’s our Patrick Bateman”.
Democratic voters who are uncomfortable with this – as well as those who love it – would be wise to remember that presidential races are not only about the candidates themselves. The candidates live in a broader political ecosystem, and actors in that system can have varying degrees of utility without being the right person to sit in the Oval Office. Democrats can, in other words, see that Newsom’s current schtick is an entertaining rejoinder to Trump’s unhinged behaviour and a powerful reminder of just how profoundly not normal the president’s actions are – all without concluding that Newsom is our Great Resistance Hope. We can despair over the fact that our political discourse has gotten this down in the mud while also recognising that sometimes, you actually do need someone to wrestle the proverbial pig.
This is not so unlike the current redistricting drama, with red state Republicans heeding Trump’s call to redraw congressional districts to steal seats from Democrats in the 2026 midterm elections and keep the GOP in power. Is this dastardly behaviour the work of cheaters who know they cannot win fair and square? Yes. Should blue state Democrats respond in kind? It’s an awful position to be in, but yes: if your opponent insists on tipping the playing board in their direction, you’d be foolish not to press your thumb down on your own side. None of this is good for democracy. It is absolutely a race to the bottom. But letting Republicans cheat without consequence is worse, and gets us all to the bottom faster.
It’s hard to overstate just how corrosive social media has been to American politics. As online norms have grown crasser, online cruelty more pervasive, and online behavior literally less human, our politics have followed suit. The chief aim among a great many conservatives these days, including elected Republicans, isn’t governing but “owning the libs”. Politics aren’t just about what you stand for, but who you want to hurt. Opponents don’t just disagree; they must be abused, humiliated, and vanquished.
We can leave this ugly era behind, but doing so will require a candidate with integrity and a public that actually wants integrity back in the White House, not to mention decency as a public norm. Gavin Newsom isn’t exactly a symbol of decency and integrity. But he can very well be part of the effort to get the current guy not just out of the White House, but out of any position of influence, which certainly seems like a necessary condition to draw the Maga era to a close. We don’t have to elect Newsom to the country’s highest office to appreciate that, sometimes a guy has to go low so someone else can climb high.
[See also: The millennial parent trap]
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