I mean, from what I've seen, not supporting Newsom to be the candidate is the overwhelming sentiment.

inshallah

Does that remain even if tomorrow he makes a pro trans EO from Sacramento and does a new one every single day between now and January 2027?

If he decided to stop doing things I hate, yes, I would stop hating him.

Then theoretically he COULD earn your vote.

Sure, but Actually Existing Newsom sure won't

“He has to do X Y and Z to earn my vote”, is fair. “He won’t earn my vote no way no how” means he could sign a million pro trans bills in the next year and a half and you still refuse to vote for him. That’s not on.

Actually existing Newsom presides over one of the most pro-trans states in the US.

and it's noteworthy how uncomfortable he is about that fact

Maybe it’s the inability to link up statements on a topic with the reality of the topic that is why the US just did all this

This is like obsessing about Obama being against gay marriage.

Unfortunately this is a situation where the majority viewpoint hasn’t been established as “it’s fine, who cares?” and as long as the media isn’t changing that, statements are going to be the image in the minds of voters. Meanwhile actions in CA and common sense says Dems are the only choice on this

Scott wiener, Matt Haney, Matt Dorsey, Robert Garcia, Alex Padilla, Adam Schiff, and others can be vocal on trans rights to nudge Newsom in that direction. PRESSURE is a better game than cancellation when we’re three years out is all I’m saying.

The failure to understand why politicians say things is more concerning. Well not even that they don’t understand, it’s that they’re willing to use it as an excuse and then pretend that “well the Dem said it, so they must be the same as repubs on this” means they can sit out with a clear conscience

Did that work for Biden? Harris? Clinton? Has that ever worked before?

No it's not. It isn't any more persuasive for voters than it is for politicians due to the exact same problem: You're asking us all to believe that you WOULD vote under certain circumstances, and the only thing you're telling us about yourself is that you put purity first.

We're asked to believe there's a realistic candidate that you WOULDN'T find so distasteful as to sit out. As our only data point about you is you'd rather raze America than vote for somebody who wasn't better ENOUGH than the GOP, you can see why voter and politician alike might be skeptical, right?

when would you guess was the most recent election where I did not vote Democratic?

So you've never executed your own strategy successfully? How odd.

you'd also be dunking on me if I had.

It seems you have finally realized why yours is a bad strategy that has never worked.

wasn't asking you for advice, thanks

So you recognize it's a strategy that's never worked but are doubling down on it because the internet has primed you to be contrarian. That's neat.

Well for starters, spending this much time in the weeds defending an electoral strategy that you yourself do no practice is a pretty firm demonstration that your neither speaking from lived experience, nor in good faith. And that's pretty dunk-worthy.

*not

*and you're Put a couple of victory points in the Don't Skeet Before Coffee column

as opposed to defending a candidate who will *probably* be able to hold New Jersey

Bud, telling you your strategy sucks does not mean we're defending Newsom.

This strategy notably sucked *and failed* LAST YEAR! It notably failed to accomplish a single objective goal! And demonstrably made life worse for the vulnerable ethnic & racial minorities who desperately pleading with people not to try it!

???

He thinks we're defending Gavin Newsom

Even if that were the case, that's still a very silly, nonsense statement. Newsom is the governor of the third-largest and one of the most densely-populated states in the country, and he didn't win that office, or any of his prior ones, by accident. Never mind successfully fighting off a recall.

No idea! I'm not guessing! You see why your strategy is pretty bad, right?

is "you wouldn't have voted anyway" a bluff you want to call?

Has this strategy ever worked in the past?

There are millions of people who are known to vote. The question you should be asking is "does it seem easier to get my vote plus the vote of someone just like me than a single Republican's?"

Hmm millions? Source on this?

do you know any Republicans at all

Yes.

do you believe there is any Democrat they would vote for at this point

I know some of them have in the most recent electoral cycles, and this is the point for your benefit that I'm going to link to my response to what Max wrote, at the same level as your initial reply:

dude, just vote to nominate Pritzker, you don't have to pick the walking embodiment of as many negative Dem stereotypes as possible just because you've somehow brainwormed your way into believing he has moderate bona fides. He doesn't.

I do not care about the 2028 primary right now. Like, lol, not even on my radar. It's 2025 and we don't even have midterms heating up yet. I care about the claim that "I won't ever vote for [JOHN DOE]" is an effective way to persuade either politicians or voters. It's just not.

People desperate for any excuse to bash Shitlibs have decided Shitlibs (like me) fucking love Newsom It's so stupid As usual, Shitlibs (again, like me) are making a narrow argument about tactics and it's taken in bad faith by people who helped fuck over the whole fucking country

2028 is not nearly my biggest concern in 2025, but my message to the party in general is they need a platform that's unflinchingly supportive of individual rights for healthcare, bodily autonomy & gender identity. Declaring "I will not vote for (blank)" is not a good way to persuade, imo.

Sure, but you can also understand why those people would be frustrated with you, so if you use that technique, don't be surprised when people get frustrated with you.

I do understand that, and it's definitely not a way to win friends and influence people. But there is some strategy there.

What's the strategy if it doesn't influence the people you want to influence?

"if you plan to win by sacrificing us, we will take you down with us". So, spite. But it's getting harder to say spite is unwarranted.

Congrats on Trump then

It's wild that you actively want to be political arsonists and hostage-takers. Seems like spite is a bad way to run a democracy.

I'm not trans, although I know plenty of them. And yeah, they're not doing great.

Maybe don't speak for us, fucko.

It's a shame Harris didn't win; Republican elections have shitty consequences, that's why so many of us want to prevent them.

I agree. Harris was also massively better than Newsom. But this is all moot because the most Californian politician alive cannot win a general election.

I mean if Ronald Reagan could do it...

50 years ago is not today, and Republicans are not Democrats

So let's do things to make sure it's as bad as it possibly can be for trans people. That'll show "those" Democrats.

I say this from the bottom of my heart as a trans person who is married to another trans person: Fuck. You.

What about the other 300,000,000 of us living in the United States?

the impulse to say "all of us or none of us" is completely understandable to me

And I'd prefer helping anyone to hurting everyone. There are three hundred and thirty million people living in the United States, their lives matter, too. You may hate them, but their lives matter, too. Meanwhile even Newsom would be better than Trump on trans issues, the differences matter.

for an extreme counter-example, I'd push an "everyone suffers" button if the only other button was "everyone except billionaires suffers". I can't ask the group being sacrificed to be fine with that.

We're DOING the "everyone except billionares suffer" button RIGHT NOW, UNDER TRUMP. He gave them MASSIVE tax breaks! Meanwhile any Democrat will help more people than Trump would on his best day, more people like us, normal people.

I'm aware. Would "everyone suffers, including billionaires" be morally worse, if it reduces harm to some people? I think harm reduction by cutting the coalition isn't as universalizable as you present it.

You're just saying you're happy to burn everything down if you don't get everything you want. Fuck the entire world because Newsom's stance on trans issues isn't ENOUGH better than Trump's. Trump is literally working to erase trans people from the world. Newsom sucks but not nearly that hard.

At least you admit you're doing it out of spite. You're literally punishing the people you claim to care about in order to "punish"... who exactly?

In a primary, *maybe*. In a general, not at all.

sure, and this is about the primary ultimately.