Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom of California tells lies with more shamelessness and ease than perhaps anyone in modern politics.
That, of course, requires us to assume that most of what Newsom says or does qualifies as performance. And that makes the true Newsom impossible to discover, for most people do not think or behave as he does.
For instance, in a review of Newsom’s forthcoming memoir, “Young Man in a Hurry,” Melanie Mason of Politico revealed that the future governor once bristled when his mother tried to reassure him about his learning disability and dismal academic performance.
“It’s okay to be average, Gavin,” she told him.
The future California governor was crushed at the comment, which was meant to be a consolation, Mason wrote. “I don’t recall crueler words ever said about me,” he wrote.
One can scarcely imagine a more revealing line, though not for the reason Newsom might think.
According to Mason, the governor “spends more time unpacking his personal history than laying out a governing manifesto.”
Yet that personal history, at least by Mason’s account, includes nothing that would suggest ambition in the best sense. The reviewer provided no hint of any great achievements and no evidence that Newsom ever sought them. Instead, one senses that he just always wanted to be elite. Hence, his objection to the word “average.”
Status, power, and pleasure aside, Newsom comes across as a man who never really pursued anything. Indeed, he merely plays the role of a man driven to do great things.
And that brings us back to the performative nature of everything he says and does in public.
Recall, for instance, last month in Davos, where Newsom harangued Europeans over their diplomacy with President Donald Trump. Confused reporters pressed the governor for alternatives, but he had none. Like a Trump-hating automaton, he merely bashed the president before a puzzled foreign audience.
In other words, he delivered a performance for the people back home.
Newsom knows, of course, that his Trump Derangement Syndrome will make him a 2028 Democratic presidential front-runner. After all, the modern Democratic Party has abandoned merit in favor of identity-based quotas and truth in favor of lies. That makes Newsom their ideal standard-bearer.
Speaking of lies, the governor has shown — on camera — that he feels no shame while engaged in obvious dishonesty.
Who, for instance, can forget that moment in January 2025 when, during the California wildfires, Newsom, caught off guard by one of his constituents, lied about having then-President Joe Biden on the phone with him that very moment? If Newsom does secure the 2028 Democratic nomination, then the Republican nominee should run that video as a campaign ad.
And that brings us back to the problem of evaluating anything Newsom says or does.
“Readers are advised to remember that the devil is a liar,” legendary Christian author C.S. Lewis wrote in the preface to his satirical classic, “The Screwtape Letters,” which features an imaginary correspondence between Screwtape, a senior devil with an administrative position in hell, and his nephew Wormwood, a novice tempter.
“Not everything that Screwtape says should be assumed to be true even from his own angle,” Lewis added.
Therein lies the precise problem with Newsom.
Of course, we cannot and would not equate the California governor with a demon. But the demonic spirit lives inside everyone who lies with such skill and ease.
Did Newsom sincerely object to his mother calling him “average”? Or does he simply now believe that people with real ambitions and achievements outside of politics would react that way, and so he should, too?
Either way, much like the party he represents, everything about Newsom feels like a lie.
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