President Newsom Thread

[macdoc]

Svarty your blackwash of all politicians and officers is tiresome.

[pErvinalia]

Capitalist lickspittle.

[Svartalf]

Svarty your blackwash of all politicians and officers is tiresome.

well, I happen to be more than convinced it's true, so it's not going to stop

[L'Emmerdeur]

Having pointed out for years that Newsom is uninspiring (and regularly dismaying) for anybody left of center who's paid attention to his antics, the article below isn't telling me anything new. He impressed me as a slimy corporate bootlicker when he first got onto the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, and he's done nothing since to improve my opinion of him. Good to see an honest evaluation of his positions on a site that reaches people outside of California though.

'Gavin Newsom is much worse than you think'

Gavin Newsom made headlines this winter by vowing to defeat a proposal for a one-time 5% tax on billionaires in the state. The move was a notable one for the California governor, whom many national polls now rank as the frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2028; aligning with the ultra-wealthy is not auspicious for wooing the party’s voters. Last year, a Reuters-Ipsos poll reported that a whopping 86% of Democrats said “changing the federal tax code so wealthy Americans and large corporations pay more in taxes should be a priority.”

Newsom has drawn widespread praise for waging an aggressive war of words against Donald Trump. Since at least June 2025, when the president deployed National Guard troops and Marines to quell protests in Los Angeles against his mass deportation campaign, Newsom and his team have successfully tapped into the need that many rank-and-file Democrats have for adopting a confrontational approach to Trump and his policies. But few people outside of California know much about the governor’s actual record — and many Democratic voters will be turned off to learn that his fervent opposition to a billionaire tax is part of an overall political approach that has trended more and more corporate-friendly.

A year ago, Newsom sent about 100 leaders of California-based companies a prepaid cell phone “programmed with Newsom’s digits and accompanied by notes from the governor himself,” POLITICO reported. One note to the CEO of a big tech corporation said, “If you ever need anything, I’m a phone call away.” While pandering to business elites, Newsom has slashed budgets to assist the poor and near-poor with healthcare, housing and food – in a state where seven million live under the official poverty line and child poverty rates are the highest in the nation.

The latest Newsom budget, released in January, continues his trajectory away from social compassion. “The governor’s 2026-27 spending plan balances the budget by dodging the harsh realities of the Republican megabill, H.R. 1, and maintains state cuts to vital public supports, like Medi-Cal, enacted as part of the current-year budget,” the California Budget & Policy Center pointed out. “Governor Newsom’s reluctance to propose meaningful revenue solutions to help blunt the harm of federal cuts undermines his posture to counter the Trump administration.” The statement said that the proposed budget “will leave many Californians without food assistance and healthcare coverage.”

So far, key facts about Newsom’s policy priorities have scarcely gone beyond California’s borders. “National media have focused on Newsom as a personality and potential White House candidate and have almost completely ignored what he has and has not done as a governor,” said columnist Dan Walters, whose five decades covering California politics included 33 years at the Sacramento Bee. “It’s a perpetual failing of national political media to be more interested in image and gamesmanship rather than actual actions, the sizzle rather than the steak, and Newsom is very adept at exploiting that tendency.”