this post was submitted on 10 Jun 2025
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We see what you're doing Gavin. Sure, it sounds cool, but you know damn well you won't be arrested. Even if you were, you'd be released the next day with less than a slap on the wrist. Nobody would be impressed. This isn't a path to the White House bud, we actually have to physically remove these people from office if any of this is going to get better. You are not navalny, and you damn sure aren't the next president. Just forget about that, it isn't a possibility even with the DNC and it's failures.
Look, I'm not going to say that Gavin isn't generally a dipshit (he is) or that what he's doing now means that we should unequivocally support him (we shouldn't), but like... at least he's resisting. At least he's not rolling over and conceding to Trump's every demand like much of the Dem establishment. I think our anger is better focused elsewhere right now than at a prominent politician who is very publicly and very directly resisting Trump's abuses of power. I'd much rather Newsom be doing this when he could be issuing statements that the protesters should stand down and disperse.
As far as the efficacy of it, no, he probably won't be arrested, but I don't think that really matters. The point is to loudly call attention to the callous evil of what Trump is doing, take the moral high ground on the situation, and call his bluff. Daring Trump to arrest him makes headlines, calling attention to what's happening, and potentially influencing public support. If Trump doesn't arrest him, he looks weak and shows that he has no real justification, and in the event he does arrest Newsom, that's gonna open up a huge can of worms he's almost certainly not ready for.
Defeating fascism is going to require a broad coalition, which means working with a lot of people we don't personally like, at least in the times where our interests align.
I dont think defeating fascism involves platforming the fascists.
I refer you to the first sentence of my comment. Yes, Gavin is an asshole who has done shitty things before, and will probably do shitty things again. We shouldn't forget, much less forgive, any of that, but in this particular instance, Newsom has loudly and publicly opposed Trump, which is the right thing to do for someone in that position regardless of who it is.
He may have done it for cynical reasons, or it may just be a broken clock moment, but right now, Trump is the bigger threat than Newsom. Shitting on Newsom in the one instance where he actually does the right thing is counterproductive. We don't have to sing his praises from the rooftops or anything, but we can at least acknowledge that resisting Trump is better than capitulation.
This is the also same kind of trap that led certain Bernie Bros into supporting Trump because they were so preoccupied with being mad at centrists/"the libs" that they got negatively polarized into supporting an even worse threat.
I can agree that he's doing the bare minimum to say "I don't like this", but I'm not going to let him do PR to make the less informed believe he's somehow on their side. He isn't. If he was, he wouldn't have had Charlie Kirk, Steve Banon and Dr Phil on his podcast. He would have had progressive voices.
If he wanted to stop ICE, theres a lot more he could be doing other than "aw shucks guys, stop it.". He could send out state authorities to defend against ICE. After all, Trump is supposed to be the president of "States rights" right? I don't see a reason to give him credit for anything other than lip service, or for barking without a bite.
Trump is a bigger threat than Newsom. Let's not allow Newsom to become a bigger threat than he already is, let's encourage Newsom to stop platforming fascists on a podcast and start working for his state. Positive reinforcement is not how politicians make policy and important decisions. Public outrage is.
Honestly, fair points. I don't really know how far he could've safely escalated, particularly given that the worst-case scenario was "National Guard opening fire on his state's citizens," but I can at least see the argument that he didn't go far enough. I also don't want him anywhere near the Presidency.
I do think his response is at least somewhat notable in that he is one of the most prominent public figures in a position of power to plainly and openly call Trump's actions out as tyranny. I think one of the biggest obstacles to getting people mobilized against Trump is that a lot of people who aren't particularly online and/or politically engaged just don't get how serious the threat is. Random Lemmy/Bsky posters aren't going to reach many of these people, but the Governor of California talking about the possibility of getting arrested in an effort to protect schoolchildren might stand a stronger chance of getting more people to actually realize what's going on.
I dunno, it's complicated... Newsom sucks, but I think the two main advantages the GOP/Trump have had over everyone to their left in the last couple of decades are that A) they can present a unified front, both in Congress and in messaging, and B) they are extremely effective at propagandizing to low-information voters. Attacking a prominent politician in the middle of speaking out against Trump seems counterproductive to gaining ground in either of those areas, but maybe the consequences in this case aren't worth it. I don't know, I'm not a political strategist.