But - while Newsom's actual admin is better on trans rights than Newsom the Dipshit Wannabe Podcast Bro - we should not just fall over ourselves early to coronate an unlikely candidate because he was savvy enough to promise us our most desperate forlorn hope. And trends suggest he won't be the nom.
His ONLY path to success would be in... convincing a bunch of people desperate for a savior from Trump & feeling deep parasocial investment bc of a decently charismatic speech to move heaven & earth treating his nomination like a fait accompli 3 years too early. And it still likely won't work.
Instead what it's mostly doing so far is redirecting people's combative energies into fighting OTHER DEM VOTERS, bc to them Republicans are the weather, & to refight old grudges that have fermented until they're wine at this point. That sort of thing is, if anything, disqualifying to me!
So in conclusion: Newsom's redistricting plan? Quite likely to work, probably a concerted plan by Democratics, very heartening. Newsom the presidential candidate? Imo DOA, unless he can convince you his rise is inevitable, which a lot of folks are unwittingly falling for. Use him & discard him.
I think you are underrating how quickly things may come to a head; there are scenarios where a de facto leader of the dem party needs to emerge way sooner than 2027. I don’t like him either, but he’s essentially the only dem right now who’s both doing and performing in that role.
I do not believe this is correct.
Well, at the moment, the sooner one does appear the sooner we can avoid the scenario of memeing Newsom into the candidacy. At the moment that looks to be Pritzker, as you've said, so I agree people should focus on boosting him over dunking on Newsom.
Do we need leadership now? Yes. Do the leaders of the party today have to be the Presidential candidate in 2028? of course not. in what other non-incumbent Democratic primary was the winner "chosen" a year into the previous term? Biden? How did that work out?
The more folks work themselves into "the Dems will shove Newsom down our throats!" the more likely they meme themselves into Newsom having a serious chance (but not a good one) in the primary. He is not a popular figure. Most Californians dislike him whenever he's not aimed at a Republican!
If you hate him, don't meme him into being a serious candidate. People's affections are going to waver anyways. We are really, really early in anything like a primary process & it's rare for the supposedly strong early candidate to actually make it all the way through of late.
I think he’d be fine. The biggest thing he championed in CA I can think of (actually funding universal TK when the state got the Covid budget surplus) has made my life much better. I like Pritzker too. I’ll be happy with either of them.
You didn't have Newsom agreeing with someone who said that your rights were fake and you should be prevented from medical transition until 26.
He’s signed a bunch of legislation protecting trans rights that, imo, far outweighs the podcast, which I wasn’t thrilled about. Eg Sb 107, ab 1955. I think the blowback was warranted but “he’s written off forever” is not
He also vetoed AB 2442, which would have provided significantly more accessible gender affirming care.
He did veto it; I’m not sure how much difference it would have made to access to care
not really sure why people feel a need to think that far ahead. Nobody knew who Obama was in 2005. Who knows, there could be another charismatic nonwhite person with a funny sounding name just hiding in a state senate or city council as we speak. Too early to treat Newsome as only choice.
OMG yes. Thanks.
"bc to them Republicans are the weather" describes one of the great divides on here. Because like two-thirds of the user base is on the other side of that divide and it's EXASPERATING to the rest of us lol. Life is short.
This describes Newsom's new fandom just as well, though. They'd rather fight leftists than Republicans.
Leftists forgot that politics is war by other means and war is politics by other means. The point of both is to coerce others into doing the things you want them to. Leftists don’t think that way. We mostly think my being a leftist means I get to imagine I ain’t complicit while everyone else is.
This is painting a broad brush of course. There are certainly people like that, yeah. And you WILL hear from them. I'm just not super-interested in factional wars in general.
Oh yeah, they're an odd bunch. And not really a cohort I have to interact with much. That whole world of intense technicolor hashtag-heavy Resist accounts and so on.
It happened a little bit yesterday with the eye-rolling "Third Way Memo" kerfuffle. I suddenly had strident leftists and strident resisters whom I didn't know yelling at each other in my replies. I was like "I think you're all insane but I think I've made it!"
Right, yeah. And it's so overwhelmingly LIKELY not to work that it's just not a super-interesting topic right at the moment given all the [GESTURES WILDLY] going on, etc. But here we are. But I guess everybody on BlueSky knows the deal and that this is what people do, so SHRUG.
People are in the depths of despair and think world affairs and political institutions make decisions to torment them personally.
I try to explain that the cure for that feeling is "living a few more decades" because it'll eventually dawn on you that shit just kinda keeps happening and you are not that important. But nobody wants to hear that, heh.
I don't think that's necessarily a convincing cure if you don't expect to live those few more decades or if the government is determined to make you check out early.
Heh, there is that aspect but you can't talk people out of THAT either. Just gotta try to stiffen spines where you can.