California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) mocked Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Trump in a post on the social platform X on Sunday amid tension between the governor and the Trump administration over protests against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
In response to a Sunday post on X from Hegseth featuring a screenshot of another post from Trump on his Truth Social platform congratulating the National Guard for doing a “great job” in Los Angeles following “two days of violence, clashes and unrest,” Newsom mocked Hegseth and Trump as “smart guys.”
“Smart guys running the operation. The National Guard wasn’t even deployed on the ground when Trump posted this. Pete Hegseth runs the Pentagon as well as he throws an axe on a Fox News set,” Newsom said in his own X post on Sunday, referencing a 2015 incident in which a man was struck by an axe tossed by Hegseth.
Yes I know this is what brainwormed centrists see when they watch it, the rest of us see someone who is platforming Charlie Kirk, Steven Bannon, and New Gingrich like they are reasonable people to have a conversation with who espouse reasonable positions and don’t threaten violence and bigotry towards vulnerable groups because these people are intellectually braindead and can’t come up with any interesting arguments to hold their audience’s attention hence the stoking of xenophobia in all its horrifying diversity of forms.
No, you treat these people like Sam Seder or Hasan Piker does, you dismantle them mercilessly with your rhetoric and show how little they have thought through their beliefs and yet how much conviction they stick to their vile hatred with even when that is pointed out. The world needs to see that and a politician like Gavin Newsom is specifically well situated to obscure it by having a pleasant conversation with them.
You can disagree with “platforming” all you want, but that still doesn’t make him “not a democrat”. And you can point out a couple areas where he might not agree with many democrats (but not all), but that still doesn’t disqualify him from being a democrat. It just recognizes that the Democratic Party has more variety in beliefs than places like Reddit and Lemmy would want you to believe.
These people that he is talking to don’t need “platforming”. They already have a large enough platform without him. And the fact that democrats lost to Trump this time around should be enough to recognize that their messages are resonating in some way.
And your instinct (as well as mine) is to shut that message down with strong debate and fact checking. The only thing this will accomplish is ending the conversation. Sure, Sam Seder would destroy Steve Bannon, but that’s exactly why they aren’t having that debate. And as a result, we will never hear their message and will never understand what about that message is actually resonating with voters. But the message will continue to resonate nonetheless.
Newsom lets them talk, lightly pushes back or looks for common ground, but does not attempt to invalidate them. As a listener, I gain a better understanding of who these people are and why people are still voting for Trump. I recognize their flaws without needing Newsom to point them out.
I digress… none of this makes me think he is not a democrat. He may disagree with other democrats on some issues, but that’s allowed. That’s why they have debates. You got a list of reasons why Newsom is not a democrat, I’d love to hear it.