Gavin Newsom knows the popular image of him is of a smooth talker with slicked-back hair, the wealthy liberal who co-owns a vineyard.
He knows, regarding the presidential ambitions he’s hardly hiding, that the biggest question he would face out of the gate is whether he could sell Americans on wanting California to represent their future rather than seeing it as the place where the wackiest liberal dreams go to run wild.
The redistricting fight that Newsom and the state legislature are launching Monday could, he and his inner circle believe, give him all the rebuttals he needs.
His rhetoric isn’t just bad, it’s disastrous because it will likely encourage more people to follow suit in being willing to throw my people away. More violence and murders like what happened with Nex Benedict will become the norm. He won’t pull fascists away from the fascist party, he will lose vote from trans people though. You can’t expect us to support him if he is saying the exact same things as the full on fascists.
Sadly this isn’t just a problem with boomers and other older generations, it’s taking root in the younger ones too. Which makes it all the harder for us just to live normal lives. Myself and all of my trans friends are terrified, we have to rely on deeply unhealthy coping mechanisms just to survive. It is leading to more self harm and suicides in the trans community. Newsom and other democrats embracing this hateful ideology will, and is, lead to more suicides because it isolates us.
It will be decades of horrors for my people, ones that many of us will not live through. That’s why it’s so important to call out his bullshit now, before we see how awful it will reach.