Gavin Newsom's new podcast “This is Gavin Newsom,” Democrats are in trouble. The same goes for Republicans.
It's almost universally relaxed (or celebrated, depending on your political stripes) as he casts responsibility for his far-right guests (Charlie Kirk, Michael Savage and Steve Bannon), which leads Pundits to ask, why did Gavin Newsom hand Steve Bannon to Steve Bannon? Who is Gavin Newsom's podcast?
Let me answer two. Like any politician does, podcasts are for men themselves. To be fair, no one handed Steven Bannon to the microphone because he was already bigger than any Democrat. If anything, Bannon lets Newsom ride his Awakening by appearing on the show – this episode helps to elevate Newsom to the top 10 list of listeners.
Putting these two truths together, no matter how cringe-in or even shocking these first episodes are (oh, and they are shocking), the work is undeniably smart.
Newsom has long been a student of its information and medium. He may be one of the few Democrats who regularly listen to Fox News and even the world's Kirks media. He has also been working for six years, which may be the position he was elected unless he can find a way to make himself possible for the presidential campaign – and it is not an easy task.
He knew there was a new political order, and it was not to rise up in the ranks of partisans or comfort bases. It's about the audience, politics, and Newsom is smart enough to chase it.
If he succeeds, he can be an attractive presidential candidate in a crowded white crowd (Tim Walz, Pete Buttigieg, JB Pritzker and Andy Beshear, everyone else) and everyone else) and everyone else (Gretchen Whitmer, Gretchen Whitmer, Alexandria Ocasio ocasio-Cortez, even Kamala Harris). But even if this media adventure does not open the road to the Oval Office, it could provide the Democrats with a vision of how to win a bunch of selfless and disillusioned voters who handed over Donald Trump’s victory to Donald Trump.
Democrats are in chaos. They have no center, nor have consensus. Of course, there is no obvious road to victory in 2026 or 2028.
Despite the chaos, there is also a gap within the party. The Ocasio-Cortez-Bernie Sanders crowd hopes to gradually reduce the incremental value. There is also a big tent man who runs like rats for the middle ground, which our president’s coking Earth policy has been removed.
Newsom may fake its own path politically and personally, trying to capture an audience that is not really forgotten from right and left, and prefer to refute facts rather than “common sense.”
These voters may be frustrating, but they are also the key to winning.
In the first episode with Kirk, Newsom puts trans athletes under the bus, agreeing that they compete with women “very unfairly.” It's a safe political stance – almost 80% of Americans share that – but the news magazine let Kirk hide the minimum push of Maga's ways of demonizing and weaponizing trans people, leaving a high level of violence already suffering from a more dangerous stance.
In an interview with Bannon, he agreed that “there is a layer of bureaucracy with clay, you’re right, you’re right, irresponsible people make a lot of decisions”, and when Bannon claims that it’s “it’s part of the process that makes you a globalist, making you a nationalist nationalist.
Newsom expressed disdain for the meeting, people recognized their pronouns, but instead, Bannon strongly claimed Trump was stolen from the 2020 election and spent a long time telling Kirk how many fans his teenage son was.
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Of course, with the danger of extremists embracing, their scent is covered. Newsom claims he wants to have a respectful conversation with people who disagree, but Maga doesn't respect Newsom. One-way respect makes you a doormat, and unless Newsom calls guests with greater power, he risks being picky rather than provocative.
Voting data expert Paul Mitchell surveyed California voters before and after Newsom's debut and found his overall benefit rating dropped by 10 points after people watched some of the clips. He also found: “The Democrats feel double crossing, the Republicans are like…I agree with him, but he’s a liar.”
After Mitchell showed three-thirds of the Kirk podcast, he found that 26% of voters said “damaging their perception of the news”, while 37% of self-identified liberals said the clips “damaging their perception of the governor.”
But to some extent, what Democrats think about the news now may not matter. When we all take the poll again, Democrats will still be Democrats.
It is crucial that voters who are separated from voters have the final say in the last election – so-called “low message” voters, who do not follow politics very much and get frequently presented information from non-traditional sources.
Mitchell warned that Democrats will have to figure out a way to bring low-information voters back to them. ”
For young people, we are all anxious now, the world landscape is shaped by Manosphere's voices (such as Bannon and Kirk), who have been abandoning their grievances until it shines like Old's civil rights speech. It was once the Democrats who had talk about workers and their struggles. Now, Bannon is nailed.
“We believe in bringing power back to the grassroots,” he told Newsom. “One of the reasons is that we think the elites of this country, the well-educated elite, the political class, Wall Street, Silicon Valley, Hollywood, all of which really forget the basic principles of the country and the basic principles of the left working class, whether they are race, gender, race, ethnicity, sexual preferences.
That was a tempting and powerful message that a Democrat once had.
Newsom is probably one of the only Democrats who really understand this working-class space. If he could only strip a portion of the audience and give them a democratic view, it could resonate enough to bring into 2026 and beyond, he would bring an impressive feat for himself and his party.
For him, he would build power outside the scope of political traditions—a influence proved to be a new avenue for Republicans. It may not be clear about how to hold the presidency, but it can open up other options.
Need proof?
Conservative former Podcaster Dan Bongino was sworn in on Tuesday as deputy director of the FBI. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth used to work at Fox. Bannon largely brought himself close to the White House because of the popularity of his “war room” performances, even the social media power king Elon Musk. (Bannon calls Musk a “parasitic illegal immigrant.”)
Also Tuesday, Newsom gave up his first interview with Democrat Waltz, and the two mused on how to fight Maga.
“These are bad guys,” Walz warned.
“But they exist,” Newsom retorted. “We cannot continue to defend.”
Even the offense made us all cringe.
