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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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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.
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.
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.