The joke nickname for California Gov. Gavin Newsom for some time now has been Patrick Bateman — the psychotic yuppie serial murderer from Brett Easton Ellis’ novel “American Psycho.”
Part of this is because of the fact that Newsom does indeed resemble Christian Bale’s portrayal of the character in the movie adaptation — particularly that otterine hairstyle, which went out with Pat Riley — but the name has stuck because his persona resembles that of the character: sociopathic, devoid of any emotion aside from the drive for status and wealth, self-obsessed, vile, vain, mercurial, facile, amoral, entitled, cruel, and a man who spends an inordinate amount of his time trying to hide all of this behind a façade of something that might plausibly pass as a human being.
Granted, there are some differences. For instance, he’s never killed a co-worker in his apartment with an axe after explaining the finer points of why “Hip to Be Square” is a much deeper song than we all appreciate.
At least that we know of, anyway.
All I’m saying is, if you’re ever in his presence and he asks, “You like Huey Lewis and the News?”, leave.
Now, maybe there was a way for Gavin have fun with this moniker, even if “American Psycho” isn’t really the image you want to project when you want to be the American president. However, this is Gavin Newsom we’re talking about here — and, more importantly, we’re talking about Gavin Newsom’s terminally online, terminally oblivious social media team.
For a while, they tried to make the wannabe Donald Trump posts happen, which somehow caught the liberal imagination. I guess when all your ideas are warmed-over Marxism or New Deal pap, unoriginality can indeed have its appeal.
However, eventually even caps-lock impersonations of Trump lose their luster, and people are tuning out junk like this:
NOW THAT I, GAVIN C. NEWSOM, AM OFFICIALLY PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES (THANK YOU DONALD!), I HAVE MANY BIG ANNOUNCEMENTS TO MAKE! FIRST, EVERY TRUMP EXECUTIVE ORDER IS NULL AND VOID, STEPHEN MILLER AND EVERY TRUMP GOON IS FIRED, AND THE TRUMP CORRUPTION PROBE IS OFFICIALLY…
— Governor Newsom Press Office (@GovPressOffice) March 17, 2026
So, they needed a solution to get back on top of the attention economy. I, uh, don’t think this was it, unless you’re a believer in the dictum that all press is good press:
For so many years people have been saying that Patrick Bateman and I look alike. Now this pic has been going all over the place. What do you think? pic.twitter.com/K5j4vKNzUL
— Gavin Newsom (@GavinNewsom) March 24, 2026
Just in case you haven’t seen the movie or read the book, Bateman isn’t just any sadistic yuppie, but a cannibalistic cokehead who rapes, tortures, murders, and dismembers women (and men in a pinch, but mostly women) for fun. Sometimes, he doesn’t even do those things in that order, either, which is about as far as I’ll go into that.
Suffice it to say, of all the ways to make hay off of the Patrick Bateman nickname, the worst possible one was: “Boy, don’t I look like that guy? Let’s see what kind of engagement this gets!”
As if you needed to ask, here it was:
Us at the thought of you getting elected president. pic.twitter.com/cC0UxwZWoo
— Jay Caruso (@JayCaruso) March 24, 2026
Your psychiatrist misses you
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) March 24, 2026
Not sure if your comms guy read who Patrick Bateman is… but I don’t think comparing yourself to Patrick Bateman is the flex you think it is pic.twitter.com/Frewe3dFMM
— Nick shirley (@nickshirleyy) March 24, 2026
The problem is that his comms people know exactly who Patrick Bateman is — and they wanted this because they thought they could own the right by then turning around and going “boy those MAGAts are some snowflakes, amirite?”
MAGA is spiraling because of this post! Nothing triggers these snowflakes more than a Democrat who is funny and has a backbone! pic.twitter.com/lm5SSPGiAa
— Governor Newsom Press Office (@GovPressOffice) March 24, 2026
Yeah, remember those days when the media kept hand-wringing over those Trumpian mean tweets? I don’t remember him ever pointing out that people compared him to a fictional serial-killing cannibal and viewing it in a favorable light. Maybe that’s just me, but probably not.
But let it never be said that Gov. Newsom is a man who isn’t telling voters precisely what he plans to do to the country before he even announces his run. I can see the bumper stickers now. “Gavin 2028: You Like Huey Lewis and the News, America?”
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