The Origin Story of Gavin Newsom’s Salty Online Trolling

California was on fire. It was January 2025, and Gavin Newsom was battling the spread of misinformation online. Some of the hottest flames were being stoked by our troller in chief, Donald Trump, who wrote on Truth Social, “Governor Gavin Newscum refused to sign the water restoration declaration put before him that would have allowed millions of gallons of water, from excess rain and snow melt from the North, to flow daily into many parts of California, including the areas that are currently burning in a virtually apocalyptic way.” None of that was exactly true.

As the fires raged, the governor’s office struggled to reach citizens with accurate information, as their feeds were clogged, per The New York Times, with “social media posts [that] falsely claimed the Hollywood sign was on fire and that the inferno was started by a satanic ritual.”

This crisis turned Newsom and his office into de facto internet trolls: Instead of ignoring misinformation or taking the ever diminishing high road, Newsom’s office did everything—TV interviews, social media, podcasts. The pushback was hard and fast and relentless. Newsom’s office wrote on X: “There is no such document as the water restoration declaration – that is pure fiction. The Governor is focused on protecting people, not playing politics, and making sure firefighters have all the resources they need.” Newsom accused Republicans of “politicizing this tragic moment,” and his office did not wait for Republicans to shape the narrative. It wasn’t just the aggressiveness of the pushback that made it effective; it was also the immediacy. There was no time for focus groups, no time for consultants to diminish or second-guess the messaging the way they did with Governor Tim Walz’s viral “weird as hell” moment.

Since that baptism by fire, Newsom has regularly served this trolling energy whenever the president has attacked him by name.

“I know Gavin very well. He’s an incompetent guy with a good line of bullshit,” Trump told a gaggle of reporters last Friday. He was ostensibly meant to be talking about plans for the 2026 World Cup, but he got on the topic of Newsom. Trump wore his usual red hat, but this time the message wasn’t “Make America Great Again”—the hat read: “Trump Was Right About Everything!” That same afternoon, Newsom tweeted that he would soon start selling a hat that said: “Newsom Was Right About Everything!” Newsom’s response, his bullying of the bully, marked one of the very few times when pushback against Trump has been able to break through the noise in the president’s second term. Newsom’s trolling—like South Park’s merciless mocking—has now been implanted in the culture.

There is a subtle difference between what Newsom is doing and just making fun of Trump. Making fun of Trump is the headline; trolling is what gets the attention. Flooding the zone with pushback is where the traction happens. The trolling gets mixed marks. When I asked George Conway, the conservative lawyer and internet warrior, about Newsom’s media strategy, he wrote to me: “This is basically what the Democrats should have been doing to Trump for the past nine years. Don’t get me wrong, I love it. But it’s a little late.”

But there’s some pushback to it, as a smart Democratic consultant told me the opposite: “I think it makes some people very excited, but it’s not the answer. The answer is candidates who can connect to voters and who can overcome Dem brand in toilet.” Another trolling skeptic is Democratic strategist Lis Smith, who texted me, “It’s unquestionably been effective trolling, but Democrats can’t just be the anti-Trump party. Voters know what we’re against—the challenge is showing them what we’re for.”

Trying to be Trumpier than Trump hasn’t really been done, perhaps because Democrats haven’t had the stomach for it. David Axelrod texted me, “As you know, a lot of Democrats have been deeply frustrated by what they see as a weak and feckless response to Trump’s bellicosity and audacious power grabs. The redistricting battle has given Newsom a tangible platform—a way to do something—and he believes that the gleeful trolling will give some primal satisfaction to a base tired of Trump’s unremitting nastiness. But the question is, come ’28, will people be looking for an alternative to that or a guy who can match Trump cheeky post for cheeky post?” But perhaps it should be done; perhaps being Trumpier than Trump is the only way forward.

Whether these tactics will ultimately sway voters is anyone’s guess. In July, a Wall Street Journal poll found Democrats getting their lowest rating from voters in 35 years. Ken Martin’s Democratic National Committee is falling way behind the Republican National Committee when it comes to fundraising numbers. “The DNC is weaker than I have ever seen it…. They have shown zero ability to chart a post-’24 vision for Democrats,” a Democratic strategist told Politico. Democrats are very much members of a party in the wilderness. Voters are enraged at Democratic leadership for failures real and imagined. Newsom has emerged as a powerful messenger willing to “punch [Trump] back” and “fight fire with fire,” as he told me last week when I interviewed him for Fast Politics. Fighting fire with fire may not appeal to most high-minded Democrats, but it might be the only choice they have.