The Pentagon on Monday confirmed plans to pull 700 Marines out of Los Angeles, following the withdrawl of 2,000 National Guard troops last week—a quiet but meaningful retreat after their deployment in response to unrest tied to protests against immigration raids. California Governor Gavin Newsom fought the deployment legally and publicly. And won. While most national Democrats still struggle to counter the Trump administration’s authoritarian edicts and escalating rhetoric, Newsom is meme-ing his way through MAGA threats with zero-f–ks energy. He’s not just governing, he’s trolling with purpose.
Last week, he lit up Trump’s weird Truth Social post about Coke with a perfect burn: “Oh thank God! We’ve forgotten about the Epstein files now!” He forced Fox News’ Jesse Watters into delivering a rare on-air apology for following incorrect reporting on his and Trump’s contact amid those protests. And instead of accepting it and moving on, Newsom doubled down—reposting the clip, mocking Watters and calling out Fox for its pattern of lies. It was classic Newsom: zero deference and absolutely no letting it slide.
That’s what makes Newsom different from your average social media warrior: he’s got the juice to back up the jokes. As governor of the world’s fourth-largest economy, Newsom is wielding California’s $4.1 trillion GDP like a policy sledgehammer. When he threatened to withhold state contracts from companies that had cooperated with the immigration raids (as he did with tech firms supplying data to ICE) or when California’s aggressive emissions standards push automakers to rewrite national manufacturing plans, that’s not posturing. That’s power.
When Trump tried to weaponize federal highway funding against sanctuary cities, Newsom doubled down rhetorically, defending California’s existing protections for undocumented immigrants and daring the feds to follow through. They didn’t. (Federal courts subsequently blocked the funding threats as unconstitutional.)
What’s striking about Newsom’s approach is that he understands something many Democrats miss: Trump doesn’t respond to policy arguments. He responds to public humiliation. He’s endlessly fragile, easily baited and obsessed with appearances. While others issue careful statements about “concerns,” Newsom goes straight for the ego. It’s strategic pettiness that creates narrative control, forcing Republicans to respond to his framing instead of the other way around.
Newsom isn’t without his missteps, like his reach-across-the-aisle podcast which featured interviews with MAGA figures including Steve Bannon and Charlie Kirk. Many on the left felt betrayed by the idea of platforming such voices, and many on the right mocked him for it anyway. But he hasn’t walked it back. If anything, he’s leaned in, more recently bringing on guests like Newt Gingrich, Dr. Phil and Frank Luntz alongside more familiar names like Ezra Klein or Dr. Sanjay Gupta. It’s a high-risk strategy that frustrates both sides, but maybe that’s exactly what makes Newsom hard to categorize, and hard to take down: He’ll go where other Democrats won’t, even if it gets him scorched in the process.
The broader implications are impossible to ignore. As Democrats look toward 2028, Newsom represents a post-Obama approach. It’s less “when they go low, we go high,” and more “when they go low, we go lower but smarter.” Newsom knows he’s got the higher ground either way, and let’s be honest: Trump can’t limbo with those cankles.
The risk is that his tactics might not translate nationally. But that assumes Democrats’ biggest problem is being too aggressive, rather than too passive. After years of bringing fact-checkers to culture wars, maybe the party needs someone willing to fight fire with napalm.
We don’t need saints right now. We need skilled, petty, law-literate chaos agents with good hair and a killer social media team. Newsom isn’t perfect—he’ll flirt with cringe now and then—but he doesn’t flinch when it’s time to fight. He may not be president (yet), but he’s giving America something it sorely needs: a Democrat who actually hits back, and enjoys it.
The post Opinion: Is Gavin Newsom the Petty King Democrats Need Right Now? appeared first on The Daily Beast.
