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The Growing Liberal Backlash Against Newsom
As Gavin Newsom works to project inevitability as the Democratic frontrunner, progressives are coalescing behind a single conclusion: He is not their man. (RELATED: Newsom Practically Demands to Be the Democratic Candidate)
Progressive California journalist and political adviser Gil Durán published an op-ed with the Guardian Tuesday harshly titled “Gavin Newsom’s likely presidential bid is built on broken promises.” He makes the case that the California governor has repeatedly failed to deliver on his progressive commitments. (RELATED: Gavin Newsom’s ‘Self-Puffery’ Gets Him in Trouble With David Axelrod)
Newsom, says Durán, “mistakes theatrics for leadership.”
Durán portrays the governor as a man entirely motivated by his own ambitions for power who has lost any regard for working-class Americans. Newsom, says Durán, “mistakes theatrics for leadership.” Durán believes Newsom has been “wishy-washy” on pursuing progressive priorities on a number of issues, including public healthcare, homelessness, the death penalty, COVID control measures, and reparations for descendants of slaves, and has aligned himself too closely with his Big Tech billionaire friends.
“Like Trump, Newsom breaks promises, serves billionaire interests, and mistakes social media theatrics for leadership. Is that really what American voters will want in 2028?” said Durán. “Having watched Newsom for two decades, I don’t see why anyone thinks he’s it. He’s not even ‘strong and wrong’ — just highly ambitious, strategically dishonest, and blatantly opportunistic.” (RELATED: Gavin Newsom, ‘King of Fraud’)
Worryingly for Newsom, Durán is far from alone, as progressives have increasingly spoken out against him. Many progressives now argue that Democrats should rally behind a different candidate, someone who is concerned with their priorities, not self-aggrandizement or appeasing establishment donors and the billionaire class.
In an interview with Current Affairs last month, California Rep. Ro Khanna came out swinging against the governor of his state, calling Newsom a “cookie-cutter Democrat” and a “Clintonite.” He warned that if someone like Gavin Newsom were chosen as the Democratic nominee in 2028, “[W]e basically are going to see an even more ferocious right-wing populism come back in 2030 or 2032.” Khanna argued that what Democrats instead need is “an FDR-like realignment” and someone who, like him, takes on AIPAC, defense contractors, the Epstein class, and billionaires.
California state Sen. Caroline Menjivar recently complained, like Durán, that Newsom’s focus on his national ambitions is causing him to turn away from his past progressive priorities. “You’re clouded by what Arkansas is going to think, or Tennessee is going to think, when what California thinks is something completely different,” she said. “That’s my perspective on what’s happening here.”
Other progressives are distressed by Newsom’s decision to speak with right-wing media figures on his podcast.
Journalist Mehdi Hasan, formerly of MSNBC, recently questioned whether “Newsom is trying to wreck his otherwise very strong chance of winning the 2028 Democratic presidential nomination by doing this self-destructive podcast where he allows right-wing guests to walk all over him and then promote clips online of them walking all over him.”
Progressive political analyst Joe Mayall was quite upset by Newsom’s podcast episode last month with Ben Shapiro. Mayall said, “If you get cooked by Ben Shapiro, you don’t have a chance against Vance.”
Brian Tashman, who works for the ACLU, said Newsom is “not willing to push back against Ben Shapiro but will push back against labor organizers trying to enact a billionaire tax that would affect a few hundred people.”
Newsom faced another political attack article from his party’s progressive wing on Tuesday. In Salon, Norman Solomon wrote an article headlined “Gavin Newsom is much worse than you think.”
Solomon stated that many Democratic voters would be “turned off” to discover that Newsom’s opposition to the proposed tax on California billionaires is “part of an overall political approach that has trended more and more corporate-friendly.”
Newsom, said Solomon, has “pander[ed] to business elites” while at the same time “slash[ing] budgets to assist the poor and near-poor with healthcare, housing and food.” Solomon complained that the national media has focused on Newsom’s future White House bid to the detriment of covering how the governor has backed down from progressive priorities by, for example, expanding oil drilling in California, vetoing legislation banning so-called “forever chemicals” in household products, and cutting Medi-Cal benefits for illegal immigrants.
Solomon warned that what he termed “moderate” politics failed at the ballot box when they were championed by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Vice President Kamala Harris. He said it “might be tempting” to believe Newsom’s perceived electability is more important than his “services to corporatism and the rich,” but that this would inevitably end poorly.
Solomon was particularly peeved that Newsom recently praised former President Bill Clinton’s “ability to reach across the aisle.” Solomon said, “That formula is a throwback to what propelled Clinton into the presidency — a pledge to find common ground, only to toss the working class overboard from the Oval Office.”
Many progressives are dismayed to see that Newsom has blasted to frontrunner status nearly three years ahead of the 2028 presidential election. Even though Newsom has operated as one of the most progressive governors in the nation for the past seven years, it isn’t enough for these ideologues. They feel betrayed by Newsom’s effort in the past couple of years to broaden his appeal from a San Francisco liberal to a viable presidential contender.
The Democratic Party remains beholden to the same divisions that in 2020 split primary voters between Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and more establishment candidates. Newsom will have to play to both sides to win the presidency. For now, it seems that he is losing the progressives — in spite of his extremely progressive record.
READ MORE from Ellie Gardey Holmes:
Newsom Practically Demands to Be the Democratic Candidate
Newsom Confesses His Disturbing Role in the Euthanization of His Mother
Gavin Newsom’s ‘Self-Puffery’ Gets Him in Trouble With David Axelrod
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