Gavin Newsom's hot troll summer

San Francisco Chronicle​

4 days ago

SACRAMENTO — A parody of early 2000s rock band Nickelback's 'Photograph' music video, altered to feature President Donald Trump with his arm around child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. A TikTok in which a narrator reads a quote from Trump in the voice of a 'Star Wars' villain. Calling White House aide Stephen Miller a 'fascist cuck' and telling him to 'cry harder.'
These are not the social media antics of a teenage boy. They are real posts from the accounts of Gavin Newsom, the governor of the country's most populous state.
They mimic a style of juvenile mockery that Trump and his allies have embraced. On the campaign trail in 2016, Democrats excoriated Trump for his crass language. He coined childish nicknames for his opponents (like 'Little Marco' for his now Secretary of State Marco Rubio) and dismissed his of lewd descriptions of groping women as 'locker-room banter.' Trump has consistently referred to Newsom as 'Newscum,' even in moments of grave tragedy.
More recently, federal agencies have embraced the style in the form of memes posted on their official social media channels, including one from Department of Homeland Security targeting a popular poster on the social media website X with a ' Spy Kids' meme and a White House post depicting a crying woman arrested by immigration officials in the style of a Hayao Miyazaki animation.
Newsom has argued for years that Democrats must challenge Trump more directly. This summer, he's adopted the right's social media tactics and attempted to turn them against his political foes. He and his staff have posted a barrage of memes, sued Fox News and gone on a podcasting tear, all in the style of the right-wing provocateurs Democrats have long criticized.
In the courts, over the airwaves and on the internet, Newsom has gone full troll.
'Sometimes the best way to challenge a bully is to punch them in the metaphorical face,' Newsom spokesperson Bob Salladay wrote in a statement. 'These tactics may seem extreme to some and they are, but there's a significant difference here: We're targeting powerful forces that are ripping apart this country, using their own words and tactics. Trump and Stephen Miller are attacking the powerless like every fascist bully before them.'
It started in June. Trump's efforts to defund California over the state's liberal politics and his move to send troops into Los Angeles to quell protests angered Newsom and convinced the governor he needed to change his tactics. In the aftermath of the Los Angeles wildfires, Newsom had tried playing nice with the president because he needed to secure federal disaster assistance, but no more.
Some of his early summer trolling was a bit high-brow, referencing college-level classes and 19th century French literature. He said Trump needed an Econ 101 lesson and posted a video explaining that Californians pay more in federal taxes than the state gets back in federal grants. He posted about Trump attending a performance of 'Les Misérables,' the musical based on the 1863 novel by Victor Hugo detailing a rebellion against the French monarchy.
'Someone explain the plot to him,' Newsom wrote.
Some more recent posts have been simpler.
'Nickelback said it best,' Newsom wrote on the post with the 'Photograph' parody.
In a post quoting right-wing commenter Charlie Kirk calling for an investigation into Epstein's sex trafficking, Newsom wrote simply: 'Retweet.'
Newsom drew widespread outrage when he launched his 'This is Gavin Newsom' podcast this year with an interview with Kirk, during which the governor agreed with some of Kirk's anti-transgender views.
Newsom described his admiration for Kirk, especially his ability to win over the hearts and minds of young men and teenage boys, including his own son.
'I've just, I've got to admire what you've been able to do, not to weaponize, but to organize on these college campuses,' Newsom told Kirk. 'I love watching your TikTok, which is next level.'
Kirk's TikTok account, where he has 7.3 million followers, in the past few days has promoted a recent interview where he blames young men's economic frustrations on American jobs becoming too feminine. Like many right-wing podcasters, Kirk is fixated on problems facing young men, a focus Newsom has also adopted for his own show. Of the 31 episodes of Newsom's podcast, just three have featured interviews with women.
Katie Merrill, a Bay Area-based Democratic strategist, said she thinks the governor's approach to winning over young men is misguided.
'There is no Democratic official right now who young male voters see as a role model,' she said.
The trolling posts could also carry some political risk for Newsom, she said.
'Democratic voters are looking for more leadership than trolling and playing by the rules of the MAGA clan,' she said. 'While I appreciate that the governor is taking Trump and Fox News and the whole MAGA gang to task, the truth is the Democratic Party still, since the election, has not given voters a reason to vote for us.'
Melissa Michelson, a political science professor at Menlo College, said she thinks focusing on social media platforms like TikTok and X, where data shows many young people are getting their news, is savvy.
'I think it shows that Newsom understands our current media environment,' she said. 'It's where the eyeballs are, so smart politics, smart political communication says go where the eyeballs are.'
The lighter tone of the posts could also be politically advantageous to Newsom, Michelson said. Establishing a positive reputation in voters' minds could help him in future political contests, she said.
Newsom's aides say the posts have been popular. His press office's X account has added 35,000 followers since the start of the summer, and in June saw its engagement double, according to data from the office.
Sometimes Newsom's trolling has transitioned into policy. He's floated the idea of gerrymandering California's congressional districts to favor Democrats if Texas does the same in favor of Republicans.
He's also formalized his trolling in legal filings. Last month, he filed a defamation lawsuit against Fox News for $787 million in damages — the amount Fox agreed to pay Dominion Voting Systems in 2023 to settle a defamation case over the network's inaccurate coverage of the 2020 election.
Trolling on main has caused some tonal dissonance in his social feeds. Last week, he posted on his personal X account a video of the now-infamous Coldplay kisscam, which inadvertently ensnared a cheating couple, with Trump and Epstein's faces superimposed. Less than an hour later, he sent a somber post from the same account about three Los Angeles sheriff's deputies who died at a training facility.
'Governor Newsom is really, by the way, if you've read his Twitter account as of late, you could tell he's taken a page right out of the Trump playbook on engaging people,' Assembly Member Joe Patterson, R-Rocklin, said during a debate on a resolution condemning Trump in the state Legislature earlier this month. He pointed out that his Democratic colleagues 'despise how our President talks on social media and our governor's taking a page right out of that. And actually that office is engaged in some disgusting social media.'
Newsom has defended his posts, arguing he's simply responding in kind to Republicans. At a press conference last week, a reporter asked him directly about the tweet from his press office calling Miller, the White House aide, a cuck — a derogatory term embraced by conservatives for a man who has been cheated on. Newsom said Trump White House staff used the term first.
'I don't think they understand any other kind of language,' Newsom said. 'I have no apologies for standing tall and firm and pushing back against their cruelty.'