Gavin Newsom has repeatedly shifted positions to match perceived political winds, adopting reactionary stances after events like the 2024 election. He appeared on a podcast with Charlie Kirk and labeled trans athletes' participation in women's sports 'deeply unfair.' He has performed public pivots on homelessness policy and previously drew criticism for dining at the French Laundry during COVID. His social media messaging has taken on a Trumpian diction — all caps, pejorative nicknames, and performative punctuation — signaling a consciously theatrical persona. These maneuvers have eroded public trust and reinforced perceptions of moral flexibility.
Every story about Gavin Newsom must be prefaced by the acknowledgment that the California governor is a bloodless political chameleon whose moral code seems to be permanently up for negotiation. This is a man whose knee-jerk reaction to Donald Trump's victory in 2024 was to jump in a podcast studio with the unhinged right-wing ideologue Charlie Kirk and characterize the participation of trans athletes in women's sports as "deeply unfair."
That pivot, like so many others in the Newsom doctrine, seemed to be the result of a man guesstimating the current orientation of the vibe shift and quickly closing ranks around his newly triangulated opinion. (It is also precisely why the governor is in the midst of a reactionary flip-flop on homelessness policy.) Add to that his other cartoonishly two-faced foibles-like the time he ate dinner at the French Laundry during the height of COVID-and you can understand why nobody ever seems to trust him.
Collection
[
|
...
]