Wouldn't it be nice to see a Democrat run FOR something other than being anti-Trump? And not like Abigail Spanberger who ran on this magical, mystical thing called affordability that she never defined, but once in office completely abandoned for massive tax increases and electric rate hikes.
Forget about Newsom's talent as a politician. What about Gavin the Governor? CA's list of worsts is nearly endless.
Highest official and unofficial US poverty rate. When the cost of living is considered , 1/3 of Golden Staters, some 14 million people, and change live in poverty, or just slightly better. No other state in US history as ever created such a mass of human misery.
Highest energy costs, which will soon soar even more, because Gavin's Green Gladiators have purposefully limited energy supplies, in a misguided effort to increase prices to lessen consumption. In 1990, CA had twice as many refineries, for 1/2 as many people.
Then Gavin arrived on the scene, preaching Green Energy as the Stairway to Heaven. It was actually the road to ruin. The term "energy poverty" was coined in CA a few decades ago, to describe the 10% of the state that had to choose between energy and eating at the end of each month.
The problem is now so pervasive, CA no longer disconnects most residential customers for nonpayment. This has produced billions of electric bills in arrears. Most will never be paid.
All of the above, before we arrive a the homeless industrial complex, that literally spends tens of billions of dollars each year , to grow the CA homeless population. Of course, the thousands of CA NGOs devoted to the problem, provide a lot a jobs for the children of the STEM upper middle class, that lack their parent's Math skills.
The mass failure is bad enough, marry it with the omnipresent hubris and condescension for non coastal US residents, and Americans truly cannot begin to imagine the horror of a Newsom administration.
For years, Newsom legally forbade official travel by CA state employees to Red States. Gavin feared interaction with ill educated racists, xenophobes, homophobes and the like, would infect his morally and intellectually superior state employees. Newsom only pulled the plug on the law, less than 3 years ago, when he decided to run for President.
The above is just a short list of the destruction, before failing schools, crumbling infrastructure, massive government debt and fraud, and the inability to produce new, well paying jobs, on any scale.
CA is one of the prettiest places on earth, with one of the most mild climates, and plenty of wide open space for growth, yet millions of Americans have fled under Gavin's governance. Americans should ask themselves, where will they will run, after Newsom works his magic on the entire nation.
I will add - the middle of the country, and perhaps the east coast as well, has a dim view of CA as a state and as a Dem Vibe. CA pols seem condescending, scolding, self righteous, tone deaf, anti-faith, prone to calamitous panics, etc. while their state is in shambles and ungovernable. I could go on. All the GOP need do is continually mention CA and Newsome over and over and make sure voters see him as THE california governor — the guy who turned it into a giant land fill.
> "For years, Newsom legally forbade official travel by CA state employees to Red States. Gavin feared interaction with ill educated racists, xenophobes, homophobes and the like, would infect his morally and intellectually superior state employees."
IIRC, it was not red states but states that protected women's rights to single sex spaces--states that didn't let men into women's bathrooms, locker rooms or prisons. Other blue states followed suit, and the main goal was to use the economic power of blue states to coerce red states into getting onboard with (trans) gender ideology.
That's another thing the right will tie around his neck in the general.
> "Finally for realpolitik Democrats, who don’t align with—or even care about—any of these factions but just want to beat Trump by any means necessary, Newsom also wants to be their guy. "
Should we let the Democrats know that Trump isn't running in 2028?
I don't know what I am most angry about - is it the fact that a chameleon like this can actually end up being the Democratic nominee for president or the fact that the American electorate has sunk so far in intelligence to end up voting for someone like this? California voters of course will support him; I've lived here all my life and understand their addiction to shallowness. They love his hair, even though he has destroyed California. But is it the same throughout the country? Aren't there level headed, rational and intelligent people who can think in the mid-west or on the East Coast? I was never a fan of JFK or Bill Clinton but they were certainly more principled than Newsom.
Donald Trump has a gift for reading a crowd and knowing which buttons to press to gin it up. This is true regardless of whether the crowd is with him or not.
Examples include claiming he’s going to run for president a third time and taking Greenland. I think Dems (and others) generally have no idea that he’s baiting them into overwrought, furious reactions like NO KINGS!!!
Newsom is no exception. His tweets aren’t funny, aren’t cute, aren’t anything except crass. The only buttons he’s pushing are the ones of people who are already on board with him. Like the author here says: this is why he could never win a general national election.
Newsom is in part JFK: more than handsome enough to cause some people to swoon over him whatever his political beliefs are. Physical appearance usually helps: think JFK, Reagan, Obama, et al.
But he has major vulnerabilities. Outside the left-wing bubble, California is associated with high taxes, idiotic government decisions (train to nowhere, etc.), wokeism on steroids, middle-class people leaving in droves. When he runs for President, Newsom will have a fawning media on his side, especially if he makes it to the general election. But I don't think he can escape the California tarnish: it is too conspicuous, hard for even a compliant media to totally cover up. Both major parties will likely nominate candidates with little appeal to the independents/moderates who decide general elections for national office. 2028 will be like 2024 again: same candidates, different names.
I have watched Gavin Newsom's rise, from Mayor of San Francisco, upward. I can also quite easily remember Bill Clinton during the 1992 primaries. Bill was without a doubt, from the first debate onward, the smartest one up for the job. Not the most honest, faithful, or a few other things, that people tend to like in a Candidate, but he was engaging. Newson has none of that. He will be brought down by his own narcissism, if not by his hair.
Democrats will have a problem if they nominate someone with a track record in government of a blue state. Newsom, Harris, Pritzker, Walz- all are associated with failure in their states. The Republican commercials practically write themselves.
Legislators would not have the same problem. They have voted in lockstep for years, so are not as vulnerable to individual blame for their votes. They would only have to defend their words, not the results of their governance.
Edit to add:
Based on the above, the nominee could very well be AOC. The DSA takeover of the Democrat party would be complete.
I agree with your basic point. (BTW, that AOC and Harris are #2 and #3 in polls is truly scary!). But while Mr. Clinton was indeed ....flexible in his messaging, according to his perception of political reality, I think you sell him short. Clinton was very interested in policy, knew a lot about it, and worked hard to maintain a positive spin in his messaging.
I hate to say it, but Newsome has a very good chance of winning the Presidency in 28. I don't think he would be any different policy wise than Biden or Harris, and I probably wouldn't vote for him, but he is more of a natural politician than anyone else I've seen.
More Reagan than Clinton, Newsome makes you feel like he is a well intentioned moderate fella that gets along with most people. Newsome is comfortable. Forget what he is saying, it's immaterial, forget his record, that was then. Watch Newsome with the sound off. Reagan raised the retirement age and the amount the working class pays in taxes, I expect Newsome would do similar.
I'd agree if he was the governor of MA or any other relatively functional blue state. CA baggage is significant between the insane wealth gap, homelessness, cost of living, energy poverty, dead last in education, wildfire mismanagement, crippling environmental regulation, etc. That said, I think the GOP realizes he is a threat because of the reasons you outline. Enter JD Vance spearheading the welfare fraud investigation.
Newsom's best response is that he's doing his best to fight against all the bad things in CA, but that's difficult in a world of coalitional politics. Literally all problems in CA can be attributed to client classes of the Democrats.
That's for sure. He's done nothing for this state and he had, what, 8 years to do SoMETHING that might alleviate the state's myriad problems. He turns out to be a handsome poser. It's a shame.
Is Newsom a chameleon? Of course he is. Will Newsom say anything to curry favor with whomever he's in front of? Of course he will. Will Newsom ever stake out actual policy positions rather than poll-tested slogans? Of course he won't. Will the press hold his feet to the fire? Of course not. Will Newsom win the Democratic nomination in 2028? Of course he will. He's the archetypal Democrat. Big on indignant rhetoric. Wafer thin on substance.
I think it's fair to point out that Newsom has been a chameleon, but I thought the Liberal Patriot was focused on balancing liberal policy positions with electability. Newsom is Governor of California. His past positions and the way he continues to blunt the sharp edge of his critiques of highly progressive dogma are a reflection of the political environment he needs to function in. Bill Clinton, like Jimmy Carter, had the huge advantage of being from a state that was (at that time) very conservative along the Democratic spectrum, placing him naturally near the American center. Clinton was extraordinarily gifted, but without Perot in the '92 race and George HW Bush's term-end drop in popularity it's extremely doubtful he would have won -- being the Democratic governor of a smallish state in the post-Reagan era had its downsides too.
I'm not a natural admirer of Newsom, but in terms of electability and electoral strategy, given that his launch comes from the most left-leaning state, his necessarily Left-ish profile and past position record come with the cards he's dealt, and we should judge his skills and promise by how he plays that hand, not by an abstract standard. I think he's playing it exceptionally well.
I also think the tone of this passage is wrong: "And, in reply to Republican attempts to gerrymander congressional seats in Texas and elsewhere, he has happily torn up nonpartisan districting in California to heavily gerrymander the state for the Democrats." There's nothing "happy" about what Newsom did -- it was gutsy to match the utter cynicism of Trump and the Texas GOP with a turn away from Democratic idealism when the chips were down and the party had everything to lose nationally. I think this is precisely the type of response The Liberal Patriot should be cheering. Newsom, a governor, took the fight directly to the President and he won. The entire political system suffered, but far less than it would have otherwise.
I also think Newsom is smart to acknowledge the damage the Biden border policies did. He is going to have the advantage in 2028 of having a border under control, and I think if he's smart he's going to move to an anti-open-border / pro-immigrant position, because by 2028 the news of the country's increasing demographic reliance on immigrants to stop population loss and maintain workforce size is going to be increasingly well known. The deterioration of labor in highly visible markets that impact families everywhere -- construction & home repair, elder care & assisted living/nursing homes -- is going to be close enough that a campaign that puts a magnifying glass on the future implications of that trend is going to have a substantial weapon to combat an increasingly white nationalist GOP.
Serious question between 10-12 million new people walked across the border under Biden. Prices didn't drop, they increased, everywhere.
The increase in housing costs is easy to understand. Biden invited 10-12 million into the US, without a single extra bedroom to house them. Ditto for healthcare, that was suddenly much more scarce and overwhelmed.
But even the cost of services traditionally often performed by migrants such as childcare or construction, soared.
If ever more immigration causes labor pools to expand, prices should fall. Why didn't 10 million people or more, new to the labor pool in a short 48 months, cause US prices to drop ?
The rise in prices is pretty easy to explain, Ms. Ross. High post-pandemic inflation was a worldwide phenomenon, and the US was not hit as hard by it as other developed countries -- while we perceived prices as "soaring" (and it sure felt that way!), comparatively we did very well. I can't claim to be able to show that the increased labor pool was the cause of US inflation being lower than other developed economies, but correlation does exist. (Worth noting: absent immigration, US population would have slightly dropped during the Biden years.)
Appreciate the answer, but CATO has alway been pro open borders. They supported the policy long before Dems arrived at the position, to prop up sagging Blue State populations about to slaughtered under Reapportionment.
As for comparison to other nations, the US is without genuine peers. Our size, natural resources, unique defensibility, and form of government and commerce are not comparable with any other nation on earth.
We should have weathered Covid much better than we did, because we are uniquely situated to thrive under conditions, that would hobble most other nations.
I assume that by "weathered Covid" you mean "weathered the economic aftermath of Covid," since that was the topic. We weathered Covid per se very poorly. We weathered the aftermath well, and I take you to be saying it had nothing to do with immigration because we can account for it due to our size, natural resources, defensibility, and forms of government and commerce.
That's an argument that's really impossible to address because of the breadth of the factors you named. The principal cause of post-pandemic inflation was simple supply/demand economics: with demand returning to pre-pandemic levels and a supply chain that had radically reduced production of goods demand drove up prices for scarce goods for the initial year or so and then inflation abated at those higher levels. One of the advantages you named -- size -- was problematic in this period because, since the Great Recession the growth in the labor force abruptly fell below population growth, we've been on a curve of decreased labor force participation rates, even as population has continued to grow. I speculated above that the post-pandemic influx of immigrants may have helped avoid a more precipitous decline in labor force growth at a point when ratcheting up production was key to bridging the post-pandemic supply chain gap. I don't have data to demonstrate that, but I think it's more cogent than simply saying the US is better equipped that other countries in various ways. (After all, we were also far better equipped when it came to responding to Covid itself, but our mortality rate outpaced those of all developed nations whose figures are trustworthy [and also those whose figures are not, but those figures are worthless].)
"I also think Newsom is smart to acknowledge the damage the Biden border policies did....and I think if he's smart he's going to move to an anti-open-border / pro-immigrant position."
No Democrat who aspires to higher elected office will openly criticize the Biden border policies. The Democratic party - i.e. the faction that now controls the nominating process - opposes all enforcement of immigration laws. If you enter the U.S., you will never be forced to leave, with the (possible) exception of violent criminals. Newsom might use some weasel words like "adjust" the Biden policies, but that will be a distinction without a difference. A simple question will be enough to tongue-tie every Democratic candidate: once they enter the U.S., what people (other than violent criminals) would you NOT allow to stay and receive public assistance?
To generalize your point, Mr. Webster, I think you are claiming that no Democrat can win the nomination in 2028 without bowing to the progressive wing's major positions, immigration being one of them. But that is not the question here. If it were and your answer is correct, then we might as well say that no Democrat can win in 2028, in which case there's no point in even discussing Newsom.
Among those likely to vie for the nomination, I think Newsom's recent record indicates an ability to finesse important issues that involves luring a critical mass of Democratic primary participants on the argument of electability. I think Newsom has shown excellent skill to this point in navigating a path over that bridge. He would not be my own candidate (or President) of choice right now, but as events unfold he may prove to be the best available option. I think Sanders is going to have an opportunity to exercise enormous influence (assuming he's still around) if he decides to endorse on the basis of electability. His imprimatur will provide the bridge a moderate candidate needs, and I think he's more likely to give it to a candidate with some progressive background like Newsom, even if Newsom continues to move towards the Center, than to a true centrist like Shapiro or Beshear (thinking now just of governors). I think a true centrist will have a much better chance to attract a healthy majority of Independents in the general election than Newsom, but Newsom may turn out to have the optimal profile of someone who can get over the finish line first in both the primaries and the general.
We're both looking into our very cloudy crystal balls to try to forecast events 2-3 years from now. Making accurate predictions from those crystal balls is about as easy as accurately predicting who will win the 2029 Super Bowl based on: (1) what we know right now, and (2) our guesses for whom each team drafts between now and then, which free agents they sign or let go, who the head coaches are, who has the best luck regarding injuries, etc. Immense uncertainties.
Newsom may very well be elected President in 2028. The economy could go very bad by then, there could be a military calamity, Trump could go even crazier, etc. It's conceivable that even AOC could be elected if things got bad enough. My speculation is based on where the power in the Democratic nominating process is likely to be in 2028: the already quite far Left wing of 2026 which is likely to be even more powerful by then. That wing will only nominate Newsom if he is regarded to be one of them at heart. They may allow him to pretend to be a centrist during the primaries for lower-information voters, a la the new Governor of Virginia. But once in the Oval Office they will expect him to be AOC in a business suit.
I don't know about 2028, Mr. Webster, but I think you are overestimating the strength of the progressive Left right now. Progressives are vocal and organized, but they have been all that for a decade now and I think the current news is that progressives are encountering increased pushback from within the party because they have no viable strategy for overcoming the defeat the party has suffered (other than counting on reaction against MAGA excesses), and their tactics have clearly cost the party and contributed in a major way to the debacle of the current administration. This is the first time I can recall when progressives have encountered such public resistance.
We will learn a lot about this as 2026 moves on, and if progressive candidates do succeed outside their base districts and states (perhaps because of spreading dismay about Trump) you may be correct about their power in 2028. And of course, the most committed wing of any party has a major advantage in low-turnout primaries. But I think we're more likely to see a 2026 increase in the number of moderates who perform well in purple and GOP districts (as the special election wave indicates) and that this will give far more leverage to moderates as we approach the 2028 primaries. (Plus, I think that after the astonishing conduct of Trump 2.0 there is zero chance that progressives will stay home in 2028 as many in the pro-Palestinian Left did in 2024.)
There is a percentage of progressives who will only double down upon meeting intraparty resistance, but I think the functional party leadership is far less afraid of them than in the past -- the candidates the party has recruited for 2026 clearly reflect this. I believe that overall we're seeing Bernie and AOC themselves looking for ways to moderate without losing their support, which has been wholly progressive to this point. (I think AOC is fundamentally a very talented politician whose national ambitions are going to continue to draw her towards the center, unlike some other members of "the Squad.")
In short, without crystal balling it, I think the party's moderate wing is gaining strength right now -- I wouldn't have even said there was a coherent "moderate wing" a while back. How any elected Democrat might actually lead once in office is beyond my ability to predict, but I do think Biden felt able to adopt significant progressive approaches in part because he believed MAGA had essentially been neutered by Covid, the 2020 election, and January 6, and that future Democratic presidents are unlikely to venture far down any path that resembles the one that led to the return of Trump even if a progressive faction threatens a 2032 primary challenge.
Wouldn't it be nice to see a Democrat run FOR something other than being anti-Trump? And not like Abigail Spanberger who ran on this magical, mystical thing called affordability that she never defined, but once in office completely abandoned for massive tax increases and electric rate hikes.
Forget about Newsom's talent as a politician. What about Gavin the Governor? CA's list of worsts is nearly endless.
Highest official and unofficial US poverty rate. When the cost of living is considered , 1/3 of Golden Staters, some 14 million people, and change live in poverty, or just slightly better. No other state in US history as ever created such a mass of human misery.
Highest energy costs, which will soon soar even more, because Gavin's Green Gladiators have purposefully limited energy supplies, in a misguided effort to increase prices to lessen consumption. In 1990, CA had twice as many refineries, for 1/2 as many people.
Then Gavin arrived on the scene, preaching Green Energy as the Stairway to Heaven. It was actually the road to ruin. The term "energy poverty" was coined in CA a few decades ago, to describe the 10% of the state that had to choose between energy and eating at the end of each month.
The problem is now so pervasive, CA no longer disconnects most residential customers for nonpayment. This has produced billions of electric bills in arrears. Most will never be paid.
All of the above, before we arrive a the homeless industrial complex, that literally spends tens of billions of dollars each year , to grow the CA homeless population. Of course, the thousands of CA NGOs devoted to the problem, provide a lot a jobs for the children of the STEM upper middle class, that lack their parent's Math skills.
The mass failure is bad enough, marry it with the omnipresent hubris and condescension for non coastal US residents, and Americans truly cannot begin to imagine the horror of a Newsom administration.
For years, Newsom legally forbade official travel by CA state employees to Red States. Gavin feared interaction with ill educated racists, xenophobes, homophobes and the like, would infect his morally and intellectually superior state employees. Newsom only pulled the plug on the law, less than 3 years ago, when he decided to run for President.
The above is just a short list of the destruction, before failing schools, crumbling infrastructure, massive government debt and fraud, and the inability to produce new, well paying jobs, on any scale.
CA is one of the prettiest places on earth, with one of the most mild climates, and plenty of wide open space for growth, yet millions of Americans have fled under Gavin's governance. Americans should ask themselves, where will they will run, after Newsom works his magic on the entire nation.
I will add - the middle of the country, and perhaps the east coast as well, has a dim view of CA as a state and as a Dem Vibe. CA pols seem condescending, scolding, self righteous, tone deaf, anti-faith, prone to calamitous panics, etc. while their state is in shambles and ungovernable. I could go on. All the GOP need do is continually mention CA and Newsome over and over and make sure voters see him as THE california governor — the guy who turned it into a giant land fill.
> "For years, Newsom legally forbade official travel by CA state employees to Red States. Gavin feared interaction with ill educated racists, xenophobes, homophobes and the like, would infect his morally and intellectually superior state employees."
IIRC, it was not red states but states that protected women's rights to single sex spaces--states that didn't let men into women's bathrooms, locker rooms or prisons. Other blue states followed suit, and the main goal was to use the economic power of blue states to coerce red states into getting onboard with (trans) gender ideology.
That's another thing the right will tie around his neck in the general.
> "Finally for realpolitik Democrats, who don’t align with—or even care about—any of these factions but just want to beat Trump by any means necessary, Newsom also wants to be their guy. "
Should we let the Democrats know that Trump isn't running in 2028?
"The Liberal Patriot @TheLibPatriot 11h
Democrats could save themselves a lot of headaches in 2028 by just agreeing not to nominate anyone from CA or NY for president."
Yup
I don't know what I am most angry about - is it the fact that a chameleon like this can actually end up being the Democratic nominee for president or the fact that the American electorate has sunk so far in intelligence to end up voting for someone like this? California voters of course will support him; I've lived here all my life and understand their addiction to shallowness. They love his hair, even though he has destroyed California. But is it the same throughout the country? Aren't there level headed, rational and intelligent people who can think in the mid-west or on the East Coast? I was never a fan of JFK or Bill Clinton but they were certainly more principled than Newsom.
Two words: "bullet train."
Donald Trump has a gift for reading a crowd and knowing which buttons to press to gin it up. This is true regardless of whether the crowd is with him or not.
Examples include claiming he’s going to run for president a third time and taking Greenland. I think Dems (and others) generally have no idea that he’s baiting them into overwrought, furious reactions like NO KINGS!!!
Newsom is no exception. His tweets aren’t funny, aren’t cute, aren’t anything except crass. The only buttons he’s pushing are the ones of people who are already on board with him. Like the author here says: this is why he could never win a general national election.
Newsom is in part JFK: more than handsome enough to cause some people to swoon over him whatever his political beliefs are. Physical appearance usually helps: think JFK, Reagan, Obama, et al.
But he has major vulnerabilities. Outside the left-wing bubble, California is associated with high taxes, idiotic government decisions (train to nowhere, etc.), wokeism on steroids, middle-class people leaving in droves. When he runs for President, Newsom will have a fawning media on his side, especially if he makes it to the general election. But I don't think he can escape the California tarnish: it is too conspicuous, hard for even a compliant media to totally cover up. Both major parties will likely nominate candidates with little appeal to the independents/moderates who decide general elections for national office. 2028 will be like 2024 again: same candidates, different names.
I have watched Gavin Newsom's rise, from Mayor of San Francisco, upward. I can also quite easily remember Bill Clinton during the 1992 primaries. Bill was without a doubt, from the first debate onward, the smartest one up for the job. Not the most honest, faithful, or a few other things, that people tend to like in a Candidate, but he was engaging. Newson has none of that. He will be brought down by his own narcissism, if not by his hair.
Democrats will have a problem if they nominate someone with a track record in government of a blue state. Newsom, Harris, Pritzker, Walz- all are associated with failure in their states. The Republican commercials practically write themselves.
Legislators would not have the same problem. They have voted in lockstep for years, so are not as vulnerable to individual blame for their votes. They would only have to defend their words, not the results of their governance.
Edit to add:
Based on the above, the nominee could very well be AOC. The DSA takeover of the Democrat party would be complete.
I agree with your basic point. (BTW, that AOC and Harris are #2 and #3 in polls is truly scary!). But while Mr. Clinton was indeed ....flexible in his messaging, according to his perception of political reality, I think you sell him short. Clinton was very interested in policy, knew a lot about it, and worked hard to maintain a positive spin in his messaging.
I hate to say it, but Newsome has a very good chance of winning the Presidency in 28. I don't think he would be any different policy wise than Biden or Harris, and I probably wouldn't vote for him, but he is more of a natural politician than anyone else I've seen.
More Reagan than Clinton, Newsome makes you feel like he is a well intentioned moderate fella that gets along with most people. Newsome is comfortable. Forget what he is saying, it's immaterial, forget his record, that was then. Watch Newsome with the sound off. Reagan raised the retirement age and the amount the working class pays in taxes, I expect Newsome would do similar.
I'd agree if he was the governor of MA or any other relatively functional blue state. CA baggage is significant between the insane wealth gap, homelessness, cost of living, energy poverty, dead last in education, wildfire mismanagement, crippling environmental regulation, etc. That said, I think the GOP realizes he is a threat because of the reasons you outline. Enter JD Vance spearheading the welfare fraud investigation.
Newsom's best response is that he's doing his best to fight against all the bad things in CA, but that's difficult in a world of coalitional politics. Literally all problems in CA can be attributed to client classes of the Democrats.
It makes me weep.
That's for sure. He's done nothing for this state and he had, what, 8 years to do SoMETHING that might alleviate the state's myriad problems. He turns out to be a handsome poser. It's a shame.
Jan Shaw, California
Homelessness, billion dollar train to nowhere, housing affordability (ha). Looks good to me.
Is Newsom a chameleon? Of course he is. Will Newsom say anything to curry favor with whomever he's in front of? Of course he will. Will Newsom ever stake out actual policy positions rather than poll-tested slogans? Of course he won't. Will the press hold his feet to the fire? Of course not. Will Newsom win the Democratic nomination in 2028? Of course he will. He's the archetypal Democrat. Big on indignant rhetoric. Wafer thin on substance.
I think it's fair to point out that Newsom has been a chameleon, but I thought the Liberal Patriot was focused on balancing liberal policy positions with electability. Newsom is Governor of California. His past positions and the way he continues to blunt the sharp edge of his critiques of highly progressive dogma are a reflection of the political environment he needs to function in. Bill Clinton, like Jimmy Carter, had the huge advantage of being from a state that was (at that time) very conservative along the Democratic spectrum, placing him naturally near the American center. Clinton was extraordinarily gifted, but without Perot in the '92 race and George HW Bush's term-end drop in popularity it's extremely doubtful he would have won -- being the Democratic governor of a smallish state in the post-Reagan era had its downsides too.
I'm not a natural admirer of Newsom, but in terms of electability and electoral strategy, given that his launch comes from the most left-leaning state, his necessarily Left-ish profile and past position record come with the cards he's dealt, and we should judge his skills and promise by how he plays that hand, not by an abstract standard. I think he's playing it exceptionally well.
I also think the tone of this passage is wrong: "And, in reply to Republican attempts to gerrymander congressional seats in Texas and elsewhere, he has happily torn up nonpartisan districting in California to heavily gerrymander the state for the Democrats." There's nothing "happy" about what Newsom did -- it was gutsy to match the utter cynicism of Trump and the Texas GOP with a turn away from Democratic idealism when the chips were down and the party had everything to lose nationally. I think this is precisely the type of response The Liberal Patriot should be cheering. Newsom, a governor, took the fight directly to the President and he won. The entire political system suffered, but far less than it would have otherwise.
I also think Newsom is smart to acknowledge the damage the Biden border policies did. He is going to have the advantage in 2028 of having a border under control, and I think if he's smart he's going to move to an anti-open-border / pro-immigrant position, because by 2028 the news of the country's increasing demographic reliance on immigrants to stop population loss and maintain workforce size is going to be increasingly well known. The deterioration of labor in highly visible markets that impact families everywhere -- construction & home repair, elder care & assisted living/nursing homes -- is going to be close enough that a campaign that puts a magnifying glass on the future implications of that trend is going to have a substantial weapon to combat an increasingly white nationalist GOP.
Serious question between 10-12 million new people walked across the border under Biden. Prices didn't drop, they increased, everywhere.
The increase in housing costs is easy to understand. Biden invited 10-12 million into the US, without a single extra bedroom to house them. Ditto for healthcare, that was suddenly much more scarce and overwhelmed.
But even the cost of services traditionally often performed by migrants such as childcare or construction, soared.
If ever more immigration causes labor pools to expand, prices should fall. Why didn't 10 million people or more, new to the labor pool in a short 48 months, cause US prices to drop ?
The rise in prices is pretty easy to explain, Ms. Ross. High post-pandemic inflation was a worldwide phenomenon, and the US was not hit as hard by it as other developed countries -- while we perceived prices as "soaring" (and it sure felt that way!), comparatively we did very well. I can't claim to be able to show that the increased labor pool was the cause of US inflation being lower than other developed economies, but correlation does exist. (Worth noting: absent immigration, US population would have slightly dropped during the Biden years.)
By the way, there is an interesting argument from the Cato Institute (of all places!) that Biden's policies were not, in fact, the cause of the rise of immigrants at the Southern border: https://www.cato.org/blog/biden-didnt-cause-border-crisis-part-1-summary.
Appreciate the answer, but CATO has alway been pro open borders. They supported the policy long before Dems arrived at the position, to prop up sagging Blue State populations about to slaughtered under Reapportionment.
As for comparison to other nations, the US is without genuine peers. Our size, natural resources, unique defensibility, and form of government and commerce are not comparable with any other nation on earth.
We should have weathered Covid much better than we did, because we are uniquely situated to thrive under conditions, that would hobble most other nations.
I assume that by "weathered Covid" you mean "weathered the economic aftermath of Covid," since that was the topic. We weathered Covid per se very poorly. We weathered the aftermath well, and I take you to be saying it had nothing to do with immigration because we can account for it due to our size, natural resources, defensibility, and forms of government and commerce.
That's an argument that's really impossible to address because of the breadth of the factors you named. The principal cause of post-pandemic inflation was simple supply/demand economics: with demand returning to pre-pandemic levels and a supply chain that had radically reduced production of goods demand drove up prices for scarce goods for the initial year or so and then inflation abated at those higher levels. One of the advantages you named -- size -- was problematic in this period because, since the Great Recession the growth in the labor force abruptly fell below population growth, we've been on a curve of decreased labor force participation rates, even as population has continued to grow. I speculated above that the post-pandemic influx of immigrants may have helped avoid a more precipitous decline in labor force growth at a point when ratcheting up production was key to bridging the post-pandemic supply chain gap. I don't have data to demonstrate that, but I think it's more cogent than simply saying the US is better equipped that other countries in various ways. (After all, we were also far better equipped when it came to responding to Covid itself, but our mortality rate outpaced those of all developed nations whose figures are trustworthy [and also those whose figures are not, but those figures are worthless].)
"I also think Newsom is smart to acknowledge the damage the Biden border policies did....and I think if he's smart he's going to move to an anti-open-border / pro-immigrant position."
No Democrat who aspires to higher elected office will openly criticize the Biden border policies. The Democratic party - i.e. the faction that now controls the nominating process - opposes all enforcement of immigration laws. If you enter the U.S., you will never be forced to leave, with the (possible) exception of violent criminals. Newsom might use some weasel words like "adjust" the Biden policies, but that will be a distinction without a difference. A simple question will be enough to tongue-tie every Democratic candidate: once they enter the U.S., what people (other than violent criminals) would you NOT allow to stay and receive public assistance?
To generalize your point, Mr. Webster, I think you are claiming that no Democrat can win the nomination in 2028 without bowing to the progressive wing's major positions, immigration being one of them. But that is not the question here. If it were and your answer is correct, then we might as well say that no Democrat can win in 2028, in which case there's no point in even discussing Newsom.
Among those likely to vie for the nomination, I think Newsom's recent record indicates an ability to finesse important issues that involves luring a critical mass of Democratic primary participants on the argument of electability. I think Newsom has shown excellent skill to this point in navigating a path over that bridge. He would not be my own candidate (or President) of choice right now, but as events unfold he may prove to be the best available option. I think Sanders is going to have an opportunity to exercise enormous influence (assuming he's still around) if he decides to endorse on the basis of electability. His imprimatur will provide the bridge a moderate candidate needs, and I think he's more likely to give it to a candidate with some progressive background like Newsom, even if Newsom continues to move towards the Center, than to a true centrist like Shapiro or Beshear (thinking now just of governors). I think a true centrist will have a much better chance to attract a healthy majority of Independents in the general election than Newsom, but Newsom may turn out to have the optimal profile of someone who can get over the finish line first in both the primaries and the general.
We're both looking into our very cloudy crystal balls to try to forecast events 2-3 years from now. Making accurate predictions from those crystal balls is about as easy as accurately predicting who will win the 2029 Super Bowl based on: (1) what we know right now, and (2) our guesses for whom each team drafts between now and then, which free agents they sign or let go, who the head coaches are, who has the best luck regarding injuries, etc. Immense uncertainties.
Newsom may very well be elected President in 2028. The economy could go very bad by then, there could be a military calamity, Trump could go even crazier, etc. It's conceivable that even AOC could be elected if things got bad enough. My speculation is based on where the power in the Democratic nominating process is likely to be in 2028: the already quite far Left wing of 2026 which is likely to be even more powerful by then. That wing will only nominate Newsom if he is regarded to be one of them at heart. They may allow him to pretend to be a centrist during the primaries for lower-information voters, a la the new Governor of Virginia. But once in the Oval Office they will expect him to be AOC in a business suit.
I don't know about 2028, Mr. Webster, but I think you are overestimating the strength of the progressive Left right now. Progressives are vocal and organized, but they have been all that for a decade now and I think the current news is that progressives are encountering increased pushback from within the party because they have no viable strategy for overcoming the defeat the party has suffered (other than counting on reaction against MAGA excesses), and their tactics have clearly cost the party and contributed in a major way to the debacle of the current administration. This is the first time I can recall when progressives have encountered such public resistance.
We will learn a lot about this as 2026 moves on, and if progressive candidates do succeed outside their base districts and states (perhaps because of spreading dismay about Trump) you may be correct about their power in 2028. And of course, the most committed wing of any party has a major advantage in low-turnout primaries. But I think we're more likely to see a 2026 increase in the number of moderates who perform well in purple and GOP districts (as the special election wave indicates) and that this will give far more leverage to moderates as we approach the 2028 primaries. (Plus, I think that after the astonishing conduct of Trump 2.0 there is zero chance that progressives will stay home in 2028 as many in the pro-Palestinian Left did in 2024.)
There is a percentage of progressives who will only double down upon meeting intraparty resistance, but I think the functional party leadership is far less afraid of them than in the past -- the candidates the party has recruited for 2026 clearly reflect this. I believe that overall we're seeing Bernie and AOC themselves looking for ways to moderate without losing their support, which has been wholly progressive to this point. (I think AOC is fundamentally a very talented politician whose national ambitions are going to continue to draw her towards the center, unlike some other members of "the Squad.")
In short, without crystal balling it, I think the party's moderate wing is gaining strength right now -- I wouldn't have even said there was a coherent "moderate wing" a while back. How any elected Democrat might actually lead once in office is beyond my ability to predict, but I do think Biden felt able to adopt significant progressive approaches in part because he believed MAGA had essentially been neutered by Covid, the 2020 election, and January 6, and that future Democratic presidents are unlikely to venture far down any path that resembles the one that led to the return of Trump even if a progressive faction threatens a 2032 primary challenge.