My trajectory of learning about this Newsom fellow was amazing.
- First heard of him existing when some Very Serious People were floating him as a replacement for Biden like two months ago
- Infer from that that he’s progressive maybe?
- Like right after that a big story how he forcefully cleared homeless encampments like a fucking cartoon villain
- So he’s actually a weird little conservative in disguise?
- Now this fucking nonsense.
How do you keep producing people like this, America?
Yeah… He’s very much a corpo neolib. He’s actively sabotaged attempts to hold PG&E accountable for killing people and render the earned corporate death sentence. He’s also vehemently against any wealth tax and keeps pulling the pied-piper strategy during elections to limit the influence of left-of-center politicians.
Is he better than the guys whose campaigns he aids? Yes. Is he a dumpster fire of a politician who is unable and unwilling to take on major issues and address root causes of problems facing his constituents? Also yes.
So why on earth was anyone calling him a good candidate to replace Biden? Sounds like one of the worst people you’d want in charge of anything, much less a country?
I think it is a combination of:
- Governor of major state.
- Has nice hair. Real generic politician look.
- Polls showing “generic democrat” beating Trump.
- Not super old.
- Have I mentioned the hair?
It may help to know about Californian neoliberalism. Newsom is running on a faulty ontology; the world is built out of different building blocks for him than for us. We often contrast it with the more dominant flavor of neoliberalism on the other coast:
“Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard. Live in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft.” ~ Mary Schmich, Wear Sunscreen
According to my former left-libertarian roommate: also the scumbag scion of a political dynasty I think? I didn’t look into it because I had no reason to doubt