As California Governor Gavin Newsom tries (and fails) to rebrand himself as the anti-Trump troll king, it's important to remember he's doing that for one reason: he cannot run on his own record and needs to do anything and everything to pivot the conversation away from his many failures.
Under his so-called leadership, the city of San Francisco became a crime-ridden nightmare where residents had to navigate the streets with the help of an app that locates human feces on the public sidewalks. The state of California has fared no better under his governance, with high crime rates, wildfires, and a massive budget deficit.
California voters were so fed up with the Democratic supermajority's unwillingness to address crime that they got together to put Prop. 36 on the ballot last fall. They amassed a coalition and got 900,000 signatures in support of the measure, and it was approved overwhelmingly by voters in the November election.
Gavin Newsom made his disapproval known, claiming he didn't know what state he was living in where voters could demand criminals be arrested for, you know, committing crimes.
But instead of accepting the will of the voters, Newsom and his fellow Democrats have simply decided to neuter Prop. 36 by refusing to fund the measure.
Newsom cited the 'budget deficit' as the reason why.
Strangely enough, Newsom miraculously found the same funding for his gerrymandering scheme, though:
Californians overwhelmingly voted for Prop 36, but Gavin Newsom opposed it and has refused to allocate any funding to it, citing the state’s budget deficit.
— Laura Powell (@LauraPowellEsq) August 20, 2025
Interestingly, the amount needed for Prop 36 is identical to the estimate cost of his gerrymandering scheme. pic.twitter.com/qolNipwO2f
That gerrymandering effort, by the way, is also falling flat with voters: 64% of them oppose Newsom's plan to 'end the Trump presidency' via gerrymandering the already heavily gerrymandered state. It's not surprising. Newsom only has a 44% approval rating in the state and just 23% want him to run for the presidency.
What's also painfully clear is that in the 'free state' of California, the will of the voters does not matter when Gavin Newsom disagrees with them. Time and again, Newsom looks down his nose at voters who demand tougher penalties for criminals and ignores their wishes not to further gerrymander his state. He'll tell us President Trump is a threat to democracy while actively working against democratically passed ballot measures in the state of California.
In short, Gavin Newsom only believes in democracy if his party wins.
When it doesn't, all bets are off.
So while he tries to paint himself as the anti-Trump candidate for 2028, voters need to be reminded of how little Gavin Newsom actually cares about democracy: not at all.
