For months, Californians weren’t sure what to make of Gov. Gavin Newsom.
There was the new podcast on which he interviewed right-wing influencers and said he felt trans athletes shouldn’t participate in women’s sports. There was the meeting in February with President Trump in the White House. And there were occasional snipes at Republicans, but nothing like those Mr. Newsom had dished out in years past.
Then came a blistering nine-minute speech on Tuesday in which Mr. Newsom warned Americans that Mr. Trump was destroying democracy and acting as an authoritarian who would eventually send the military to states across the country.
Many liberals in California cheered Mr. Newsom, finally seeing in him the leader of the resistance that they had been missing. Those feeling confused and fearful since Mr. Trump started his second term were looking for someone to stick up for them and said they appreciated Mr. Newsom’s forcefulness.
“In a time of rising fear and growing threats to democracy, he spoke not just as a governor, but as a moral leader,” said Representative Lateefah Simon, Democrat of California. “He named the danger plainly.”
But others, while supportive of his message, were not entirely convinced. They said testing the political climate ahead of a potential run for president.
“Even if you’re late to the party, you know, welcome to the fight,” said Hugo Soto-Martinez, a progressive City Council member in Los Angeles, who appreciated what Mr. Newsom said but wished the governor had stood up to the president sooner.
Adrian Tirtanadi, executive director of Open Door Legal, a nonprofit which provides free legal representation for immigrants and others, said he liked all of the words in Mr. Newsom’s speech. But, he said, he wondered why the governor was not backing up the rhetoric with more financial support for immigration lawyers who could fight deportation.
Big talk without much action, Mr. Tirtanadi said, is often the California way.
Still, others appreciated that Mr. Newsom had demanded that Mr. Trump stop workplace raids and filed lawsuits seeking to block the deployment of National Guard troops and Marines in Southern California. That has given some hope to immigrants who have felt powerless.
When David Campos was 14, he and his family traveled by foot and by bus, across deserts and over mountains, to California from their home in Guatemala. They scurried under a border fence and settled in South Central Los Angeles without legal papers.
The family eventually obtained citizenship through his father’s carpentry job. Mr. Campos went on to Stanford University and Harvard Law School, served on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and is now the vice chairman of the California Democratic Party.
Mr. Campos said he was glad that Mr. Newsom, the former San Francisco mayor with whom he sometimes clashed, took a defiant stance toward Mr. Trump.
“I’m glad he’s rising to this moment,” Mr. Campos, 54, said in an interview. “The governor reminded us that if the president can do this in California, he can do it anywhere in this country. That’s how a democracy can die.”
Republicans in California, many of whom have aligned with President Trump, said they were decidedly unimpressed with the governor’s speech.
Senator Brian Jones, the State Senate minority leader, said that the governor seemed to have been filming an early campaign commercial with his speech, from the way the flags were set in his backdrop to the suit he was wearing.
“It doesn’t do anything to lower tensions in L.A.,” Mr. Jones said. “When he says we all need to stand up, is he encouraging more people to show up to the riots and participate?”
James Gallagher, the Republican leader of the California State Assembly, called the governor’s address “self-righteous political posturing.”
Mr. Gallagher said California’s policy of preventing local law enforcement from working with federal immigration officials created the current tension. He said he found it funny that Mr. Newsom was accusing Mr. Trump of being authoritarian when the governor ordered Californians to close their businesses, stay home from church, attend school on Zoom, wear masks and get vaccinated during the Covid-19 pandemic.
“He was a total tyrant, and he has no business talking about authoritarianism because he is exhibit A,” Mr. Gallagher said.
Mr. Newsom’s speech, as well as his sharp-tongued retorts to Republicans on social media this week, won some plaudits from younger influencers.
Dwane Murphy, Jr., a 34-year-old content creator who lives in Downey, Calif., and said he votes Democrat, said he appreciated that the governor “seems to be hyper-focused on standing up for this state at a time like this, and I feel like that’s what people are very encouraged by.”
Inkiad Kabir, 20, a pop culture content creator who lives in the Inland Empire region of California, said that Mr. Newsom was the rare Democrat willing to go on the attack, calling him “basically liberal Trump, in a way.”
Mr. Kabir created a popular TikTok video this week in which he called the governor “Daddy Newsom” and likened the governor to a “toxic ex that you promise you’re not going to go back to, but you always go back to.”
For now, it seems, Mr. Kabir has gone back.
Heather Knight is a reporter in San Francisco, leading The Times’s coverage of the Bay Area and Northern California.
Nicole Stock reports on internet culture and other lifestyle news for the Style section of The Times.
Jill Cowan is a Times reporter based in Los Angeles, covering the forces shaping life in Southern California and throughout the state.
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