He agreed that on an extreme case, there was a fairness issue. Not ideal, but his follow up was a poorly executed argument that competitive fairness is not the only consideration.

The real reason he can't be President is that 1. he had so much hubris that he thought he could go on Charlie Kirk and win, and 2. he got absolutely rolled by Charlie fucking Kirk.

Exactly, he jumped the shark, so why are we even talking about him. We need to be working on taking back both houses in 2026.

Because people are trying to meme him into being the foremost candidate (bc people who aggressively follow politics have known Newsom was angling for a Presidential run for years.)

This is not a thing that's happening.

And people who aggressively follow politics also know he's a sleeze ball and they will make it their mission to knock him out of the race. I'm more worried about the leftist fucking us over again in 2026 and 2028 than him.

Even "agreeing on an extreme case" is disqualifying because *the other side argues every case is the extreme case*.

Even granting this "if you squint real hard" principle, this is not nearly the same as "he's going to roll back trans rights"

I think it's possible for both of these things to be true, and that one doesn't invalidate the other.

I think both of these statements can be true: 1) Newsom would be worse on trans issues than any other major D 2) Newsom would not be as bad on trans issues than any R Like he sucks here - a lot - but he has also signed pro-trans legislation as recently as last summer www.kcra.com/article/gov-...

Sure, but we're not really concerned with 2 are we? It's this desperate push people are making right now to convince people "it's Newsom or nothing! If you object you're actually saying you want the GOP to win!" I'm condemning here. Dude is a bad pick with few principles exploiting people's fears.

Dude IS a bad pick. But we are at the death camps & military occupation of cities stage of fascism, bruh. They are building MORE. They are occupying MORE. Imperfect allies are better than death. Its why dems keep asking leftists to get on board but they would still rather criticize power than fight

How about you shut the hell up and vote for whoever is running against repubs for once in your life

Making a real big assumption, Simon.

no, it's an expectation that "The Left" will find some flaw with every potential candidate and tear every one of them down, like they did with Kamala. We're stuck fighting them one by one.

I do not think this is accurate.

just keep watching.

Then why aren't people talking more about Pritzker running? If they want to manifest something into being, wouldn't that be a good use of time?

People absolutely have been, it's literally a meme. Which comes back to my actual point, which was "this is people attempting to astroturf Newsom. Into the candidacy because either they want to show Them, or because Newsom made them feel good by dangling a forlorn hope of ending Trump early."

same reason people are slagging on Pritzker, he did one thing that's maybe questionable and they want to get the best candidates eliminated early.

Newsom is not even remotely a "best candidate," I do not know how much more firmly I can say this.

then why are they also slagging Pritzker and Mhitmer.

It's not the same people, what are you talking about?

*Whitmer

They're already accusing Pritzker of abandoning trans kids as well, just so we're clear.

What?

my leftist sources tell me he's totally sold out Trans healthcare.

🎯

"It's this desperate push people are making right now to convince people "it's Newsom or nothing!"" What major accounts are saying this?

Just offhand I saw one with 50k followers (tales-typos)

That account's been deactivated.

That account appears to no longer exist, but the screenshots I see everyone raging about do not in fact say what you claim they say. Can you please cite an example of that account saying what you're claiming they said?

For the record, this appears to be the commentary people are enraged about. I disagree with it; I don't htink it was constructive or particularly well put together; but it very notably is not in any way saying "NEWSOM OR NOTHING"

Hell, what non-major accounts are saying this?

This entire argument is a strawman about some kind of consensus for Newsom as the Dem nominee in 2028. I can enjoy his taunting/trolling of Trump without EVER having made some kind of concrete choice about my 2028 primary pick, because that's 3 years away. JFC the entire landscape could change

"If Newsom is the nominee everyone left of center, including trans people, should vote for him, because he will be so much better than the ones currently occupying the office; he does suck on this issue so we should try to make sure he does not become the nominee" This is a coherent stance!

I don't know that I've seen anybody saying "it's newsom or nothing"?

I know multiple people who have been absolutely swarmed by it, often with a sneering disdain for the very idea that anyone's objections to Newsom could have merit. It's a real thing being pushed HARD on here.

The people I've seen swarmed have said things like "under no circumstances whatsoever will I ever vote Newsom" and that's kinda how we ended up here, in a way.

I don't think "under no circumstances will I vote for this guy who publicly has carried water for my tormentors" is an unreasonable position before the primary has even happened, because it's there to tell the reckless consultants and centrists "this guy is not your winning play, do not go with him"

I think it failed when pro-Gaza folks did it for Biden/Harris...

I think it's a bit different given that Biden/Harris was "This or Trump" but the primary is open and there are many other candidates that have the same liabilities as Newsom.

It’s a somewhat unreasonable position to hold about a man who actively refused calls to run for president in 2020 because that would require him to terminate his gubernatorial term halfway through, and who thus far has not announced any plans to run in 2028.

If you don't think Newsom is positioning himself for a Presidential run right now, idk what to tell you.

Presumptively positioning and actually announcing are two different things. He’s still got over a tear of his current term yet. No sense wasting energy litigating something that may not even happen, especially when you have no ability to actually stop it from happening in the first place.

This is not doing the apparently very easy task of finding someone who is more popular, bro.

Hey, were you going to bother telling anyone who these alleged major accounts saying NEWSOM OR NOTHING are, or just nah?

I mean, I personally think "under no circumstances will I vote for [any Dem]" is an unreasonable position to hold, as a starting point If Harris came to my house and murdered my family it would still be the right thing to do to vote for her because the world is bigger than me and my own needs

You take the position of "vote for harm mitigation" when the primary is over, before then it's just trying to preemptively win.

I don't entirely disagree but I also think that there needs to be "okay we're all going to do this, right?" before that happens because otherwise you wind up with 3 months to cure the toxicity rather than 3 years to prevent it from setting in the D establishment isn't helping, admittedly

Many of our current candidates are... deeply imperfect, to put it gently I think the overall good of the nation and humanity that comes with defeating Rs and Trumpism is simply more important, and anyone putting themselves over the greater good is selfish doesn't mean I don't understand it

Except it's a false dichotomy! It's not a thing! Newsom is not the guaranteed victory! He is not the path to a Blue win, and is in fact deeply unpopular! He's just trying to convince everyone he is a surefire win if you just make a compromise because *he wants you to vote for him*!

that said, anyone dogpiling someone or attacking them for that position is still being a douchebag

there's a significant difference between self-induced psychosis people had over biden, and the actual statements that this guy has said about my rights

Do you think there's a measurable difference between his views and Trump's?

The time to compare him to Trump as opposed to other Democrats is if and when he's the nominee which as we all know isn't likely to happen. This is Newsom's partisans starting conflict over panic & the principle of the thing, hoping they can leverage Trump to boost their dude

Okay. Well anyone doing that is a dipshit and shouldn't be doing that

There is a lot of daylight between "bad" and "maximally bad" and I think it is important to recognize that I think that if a monkey's paw to "immediately replace Trump with a Dem" put Newsom in the office the lives of trans people around the country would, generally, get better he still sucks!

Newsom is the same type of weathervane politician as UK's Keir Starmer, coming from the same ideological background and the same social stratum, with the same vies on trans people. Look into how trans people are fairing under Starmer's leadership; it is presently worse than here in the USA.

Labour has been marinating in anti trans hate in a way the Dems just aren't

But Newsom has, and big donors have (Third Way), and a donor-backed Newsom administration voted in on an anti-Trump-fueled mandate would have enormous pull to bend a Democratic Congress and state governments to their anti-trans position.

I do not think that this is true. Even the most spineless milquetoast Third Way squishes are far from the Labour nonsense.

As I said: he is worse than most major Ds, but not nearly as bad as all Rs or Labour. And the base doesn't support it like they do in the UK