Donald Trump & Gavin Newsom: More Alike Than You Think

Gov. Gavin Newsom & President Donald Trump

One of the weirder quirks about American politics in the last 50 years has been that America is bizarrely indecisive and frequently has no consistency when it comes to choosing their leaders.  This is true if you look at midterms (with the exception of the aftermath of 9/11 in 2002, every midterm in the 21st Century the party in the Oval Office has had a net loss of House seats), but it's also true when you look at presidents.  Presidents are oftentimes the answer to what the public didn't want in their predecessors.  The Nixon years were greeted by Jimmy Carter, an intensely honest & decent man who could wipe away the scandals of the previous administration.  Carter, reserved & humble, was replaced by a glamorous movie star couple.  The patrician George HW Bush was backfilled by a young man who grew up in rural Arkansas, while Bush's successor Clinton was followed by a devoted family man (the younger Bush), who was then succeeded by a literal professor after eight years of Bush's frequent verbal gaffes.  Obama, the first Black president, was succeeded by an openly racist billionaire who was surrounded by scandal, who was then succeeded by a morally upright & decent man who (like Jimmy Carter) didn't remotely excite the press, and therefore was once again succeeded by a celebrity.

If patterns serve, if a Democrat wins in 2028, it will likely be someone who is in reaction to President Trump in some capacity.  Trump's second term has been marked by growing authoritarianism, mass corruption, allegations of infidelities & worse (through the ongoing push to release the Epstein List), and Trump's noted cognitive decline.  It's also been punctuated by Trump's shocking cruelty, his blasé attitude toward the American public (literally showing videos of identifiable American citizens being covered in excrement at his bidding), and his lack of professionalism, with not just Trump but members of his administration like JD Vance, Pam Bondi, Kash Patel, & Karoline Leavitt being shockingly undignified about the jobs they hold, taunting members of the public & press without any sense of shame.

If the pattern were to continue, this would mean the next president would be a strong, intelligent public speaker, likely a devoted spouse and parent, someone noted for their professionalism, and someone who is quite dignified in their approach.  There are definitely Democrats that are looking at the nomination that would fit this bill.  Jon Ossoff went to the London School of Economics, Chris van Hollen & Pete Buttigieg both went to Harvard (Buttigieg doubles down by also going to Oxford), & Andy Beshear went to Vanderbilt.  All of them are on their first marriage, all of them have children, and all of them have a sense of honor in what they do and how they conduct themselves in public.  But none of these men is emerging as the Democratic frontrunner.  Instead, the guy who you could arguably say is the leader in this (very early out) race for the nomination is a guy who, let's be honest...sounds an awful lot like Donald Trump.

Gov. Gavin Newsom is a cocky, ambitious politician, one whose professional life is far more consistently successful than Trump's failed bankruptcy-checkered business career, but one who grew up the son of a wealthy attorney for the Getty family (at one point J. Paul Getty was the wealthiest man in the country), and relied on those connections with the Gettys to start his business career (i.e. the same exact path as Trump, leaning in on his father's connections).  Newsom is a potent public speaker (which, to be fair, so was Trump at one point), but not one who is famous for academia like Obama (he didn't go to an Ivy League school, which is technically a difference from Trump, though one would hardly point to Trump as a prototype of the Ivy League academic).  Newsom, like Trump, has a personal life more attuned to Page Six than Ladies' Home Journal, with a divorce from future Fox News host (and girlfriend of Donald Trump, Jr....and US Ambassador to Greece somehow) Kimberly Guilfoyle, as well as notably scandalous romantic relationships, including dating a 19-year-old waitress when he was 38, and having an affair with the wife of his chief of staff.

Newsom's biggest connection to Trump, though, has been his approach in recent months to mirroring the president's rhetoric, using his social media accounts to echo the vain and bombastic ways that Trump's Truth Social posts frequently attack other people.  Newsom lies on these (admittedly as parody, but it still has his name on them), using random capitalization (like Trump) and insulting Republican figures, sometimes on a personal level.

That Democrats are eating this up, and rewarding him with much stronger poll numbers than virtually any other figure in the party save for Kamala Harris & Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (and even then, he sometimes bests them), shows how much the Democrats have hated the "when they go low, you go high" approach that Michelle Obama once espoused.  Democrats are tired of turning the other cheek, and love that Newsom not only fights back with the same cruelty toward Trump they've had to endure, but also that Newsom is walking the walk.  While other governors (and potential presidential hopefuls) like Wes Moore & JB Pritzker have just sat on their hands during the redistricting wars, Newsom actually did something about it, and passed a gerrymander that will win Democrats an additional four seats next year.  Democrats like that (I'm not even a fan of Newsom's as a whole, but I was damn impressed & he scored points in my books while Pritzker & Moore just sat there and watched, losing my vote in any Democratic Primary in the process), and Newsom is standing out in a way that is getting him noticed in the shadow primary before the midterms.

But I do wonder how long it can last.  Newsom's past scandals are going to hurt him if used correctly, and history would teach us that the Democrats will pick a nominee that feels different than the president in charge.  The country as a whole, if they reject a Republican successor to Trump, will be doing so because they don't want more Trump (otherwise they'll just give the party another term in office), but running as a guy who is basically the Democratic version of Trump is a risky proposition.  Newsom's schtick works now because Trump can't be replaced, and this is the best way to feel some catharsis.  But when it's clear you can just rid yourself entirely of Trump, will Democrats really want a guy whose best attribute is that he provides a counter to a guy who is no longer in office, or (like most of the past 50 years) will they instead pick someone who is Trump's true opposite to try a new chapter?