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The Actual Gavin Newsom Is Much Worse Than You Think
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this post was submitted on 05 Feb 2026
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politics
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There is a spectrum. Trump/Maga/Conservatives are the worst and are actively marching us towards fascism. Corporate Democrats are the second worst. They're not making the change we need and are prioritizing the wrong people. Progressives would be the best.
We have a 2 party system. If you spend cycles looking at #2 and saying why you shouldn't vote for them, you hurt everyone. If the choice in this 2-party system is #1 or #2, you vote for #2, you swallow the medicine and take the pill, you tell yourself it's a vote against #1.
Newsom wouldn't be the best candidate, but all this psy-op crap about demonizing a Democrat front-runner is how you get the progressives to stay home and hand Trump (or his ilk) a third term. Low voter turnout for the left has to be fought. Sitting back and smugly criticizing why Democrats should do better literally killed Ukrainians, Palestinians, and American protesters. Getting people out to vote down-ballot is how we make the change we want and actually push to get a voting system that allows minority candidates to have a shot.
Running corporate centrists is why we got two terms of Trump.
With thinking like that, we may get a 3rd term! Yay!
Running corporate centrists set the board up for a loss, demonizing them and getting people to stay home is how we executed the loss. It wasn't a sure bet, and the fantasy that Harris would be as bad as Trump only exists in the minds of people NOT victimized by the gestapo and people who make money keeping progressives glued to their streams giving tips.
I see that you buy into the idea that progressives are why the Democrats keep losing to fascists and not the fact that their platform has like 80% overlap.
No, I think progressives need to push the party to the left, we need to get more progressive leadership into the DNC, and progressive results will grow the base to keep it sustainable.
But the language and outrage at this stage poisons the view of candidates, and in a general election, having people say "why would I vote Newsom when I just spent 3 years thinking what an awful corporate shill he is" makes people stay home, which hands the victory to the fascists. And there's a lot of people out there whose entire living is outrage farming for superchats, and it moves the needle.
If it's Ivanka vs. Newsom, you vote Newsom. This isn't a game.
If it's Ivanka vs the Democrats the solution is to run someone that isn't Newsom and this is the right time to point that out.
Acting like this clown is a viable candidate two years before the election is exactly how we repeat this shit. You aren't helping anyone by helping to create that situation.
Politics in America is basically team sports, and language matters. "Newsom is bad" and "Khanna is better" are 2 different ways of speaking that have 2 different outcomes at the ballot box. It's time to not let outrage stack the deck against us.
A decade to learn from mistakes and you're still preaching a failed gospel.
It only failed because the likes of you made it fail. Congratulations on trump btw.
Millions of people so disillusioned with a 2 party system that refuses to put working people before the wealthy that they have completely checked out of paying attention to politics. But yeah totally my personal fault. Got me.
You say this as if it’s imagined and Newsom doesn’t already have a terrible record of fucking over Californians in favor of corporate hegemony. Consider the imminent threat AI companies pose to our resource infrastructure, and then what that would mean if Newsom were in charge.
It would mean he does crappy AI things and doesn't upend all our international climate agreements, gleefully enable hostile foreign powers to oppress their people while gloating with AI generated videos, send the gestapo into American neighborhoods, profiteer from hostile foreign powers, pardon crimes from his friends in exchange for cash, and lots of other things. You are letting perfect get in the way of "less bad".
“Trump Bad” has been an absolute, objectively failed strategy for over 10 years now. It’s not good enough, and if Dems want to win they will have to do significantly better than that tired old refrain (they won’t, because they are paid not to by their donors, just like Newsom).
There's a flow here.
If you spend all of part 1 poisoning the well on how terrible Newsom is, a lot of people will simply stay home if he's the nominee when it gets to 2. I hope 1 happens. If it doesn't, I hope all this rhetoric doesn't make 2 fail. This dangerous purity testing is what leads people to stay home instead of voting for "less bad." Even the suggestion of "be ready to vote for Newsom as a last resort" is too much for a lot of people, and THAT is how we get more Trump. This absurd copium fantasy that Harris/Newsom wouldn't be better than Trump is just a way for angry people to sustain the outrage that warms them at night, but real people across the planet are hurting.
People are hurting because centrism prevents us from selecting better candidates in what is already essentially a uniparty, far-right authoritarian system. You strike me as someone young so I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt here that you aren’t just trolling or blue maga.
Look into what happens when actual progressive challengers arise and attempt to unseat incumbent corporate dems. All of the sudden, Dems become quite competent and effective in going to war politically, and will dump millions or even 10s of millions in the primary to ensure the progressive is defeated. This results in people like Henry Cuellar getting elected thanks to backers like Pelosi, and Cuellar votes with Trump 95% of the time. The obvious conclusion to draw here is that Dems are not in fact opposed to fascism, rather they partake in kabuki theatre to give the appearance of opposition while in reality they facilitate the corporate and oligarch takeover.
You yourself claim we need to push for progressives in the primaries. Part of that push must be making it absolutely clear that corporate dems do not represent the people, and are not welcome to run for office. One of the worst aspects of dems and part of what makes them so unlikeable is their smug attitude that we will be forced to vote for them with no alternative. Well, the authoritarian rule of the Trump regime is the alternative. Some of us have lived through almost 40 years of Dems reneging on “day 1 promises,” constantly finding reasons not to deliver for the people (senate parliamentarian won’t let us, Repugs will be mad and yell at us, etc). Enough is enough. If Dems refuse to deliver, then it is well within the people’s rights to refuse to vote for them. If there is one key learning from this era of the grifter, it’s that consequences matter, and without them we will be trampled. What should be the consequences for Dems continual betrayal of their voters interests?
This isn't theory, this is real experience. Already digging "your" (not you, just the general opposition to this thought) heels in and declaring that if a progressive doesn't win we can't support the winning democrat is so self-defeating it makes me wonder if much of the online progressive left are Russian ops. All I'm saying is "this may be the guy, why turn him into the microblog-headline enemy" now when we NEED people to get out and go to the polls when the chips are down if he's the guy.
Or not, whatever, there comes a point where it gets too depressing watching progressives angrily take the high road to dystopia. I'm so tired of arguing with people whose side I'm on. I never get yelled at by conservatives, even those I disagree with to their face. A progressive will accuse me of being a fascist within the first 10 minutes of meeting me. The progressive cause is self-defeating, and it's sad to watch.
More than one thing can be true. The DNC could have prevented our current mess by actually running primaries, not abandoning their base, not trying to court republicans and the millions of other things they do to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Progressive voters could have prevented this current mess by actually fucking voting for the tepid weak sauce DNC candidates once it was clear that we’re only getting that or literal Nazis in that election cycle. There’s plenty of blame to go around and a tragic shortage of mirrors.
corporate centrists are winning again now people realise the horrific truth of trump and liars like yourself
which side are you really on?
the kremlin's?
No, having Newsom win the primary instead of a progressive is how you hand the fascists a third term. It's the liberals' turn to hold their noses and vote for a candidate who can actually win; if they refuse, the consequences are entirely their fault.
If you want to win, you have to support the progressive in the primary. That's reality, and reality doesn't give a shit if you like it or not.
That's what I'm saying, I support a progressive in the primary. But I'm not willing to start painting Newsom as the devil, because if he's the nominee, I'm not gonna want to go to people I talk to and say "Well, I know I said he's the devil, but now you have to support him." This isn't hard. I don't know why there's so much arguing about telling people to not burn a bridge in case you're backed into a corner to vote for the lesser of two evils.
The answer to "why" is because, as 2024 proved, a neoliberal can't win. If we're backed into that corner, we're already screwed and your contingency doesn't matter.
Think of leftists like a crazy person holding a gun to America's head (the gun being fascism). If liberals don't capitulate to their demands, they will shoot. It doesn't matter if it's irrational. It doesn't matter if it's stupid. They already proved that they'll do it.
As a liberal, you are not in control of the situation anymore, and your choice is to capitulate to the left's demands (less profit for abusive plutocrats -- the horror!) or eventually find yourself being marched by ICE goons to the gas chambers.
If you want to do something useful, your only job is to get other liberals to come to terms with this new political reality. Pearl-clutching about some imagined fantasy where Newsom wins the primary and isn't fucking steamrolled in the general is absolutely delusional, counterproductive, wishful thinking wankery.
"We progressives will hold the free world hostage analogous to a gun unless you give us what we want." Cool strategy, giving in to terroristic threats is deep in the American ethos and I am sure won't alienate anyone and quickly bring us to a progressive utopia.
I didn't say it was a strategy. I said it was reality, and that you delude yourself at your peril.
I don't control how leftists vote. Neither do you. The difference is that I'm willing to accept that truth and you apparently are not.
You move left, or you finish off democracy and probably eventually die in an ICE camp. I'm not even exaggerating; those are literally your choices.
Don't say I didn't warn you.
Or, and hear me out, the democrats actually run a candidate that doesn't think it's "bad policy" to help people.
Democrats trying to guilt us into voting for them when they do everything within their power to perpetuate American imperialism. Personally, I'm done with it. I'm not going to compromise my own beliefs again for a bunch of liberal Zionist capitalists that profit off the misery of others. If they run actual leftists, I will vote for those individual leftists. But I'm not voting for some anti-trans asshole just because the dems keep pushing him
Biden could have made Israel stop committing genocide with our taxes and our weapons. Biden and Obama could have reeled in the abuses happening in ICE detention. They could have worked with Congress to pass some legislation to limit executive power, tax wealth, get Roe v Wade made law. Biden could have pushed through pending immigration cases, he pardons his own ppl but not our ppl?
Btw I voted for Harris, basically straight ticket Dem, just to keep the other assholes out. But the further we get into this regime the clearer it becomes that is no a strategy that leads to meaningful change. You do what you want, but don't tell me that I've gotta swallow the shitty pill they are offering
To add, if Obama's FBI had done more when they interviewed one of Epstein's victims back in 2011, then Trump would've never been president. Feds knew about all that shit since W in the oughts, and they let it keep happening. Not saying it's entirely Obama's fault, by why didn't his FBI or DOJ do something?
No one likes the 2 party system, it sucks. But in the 2 party system, that's the deal, you vote for the Dem or it's a +1 to the R. I don't like it either, but demonizing the Dems at this point to get people to stay home hands it to the R's. This rhetoric becomes dangerous. Saying you don't like the game doesn't mean you can sit it out without consequences.
Dems are the definition of controlled opposition:
I'm done voting for that. Dems want my vote, they can earn it by running socialists
How about we just hold a fair primary and let the people decide. We don’t need to continue anointing corporate trash like Newsom.
Alright, if they run Newson I'm actually going to vote for trump. If America is so intent on dying a slow, painful, corporate death, I want to do my small part in hastening that.