Mimicking Donald Trump will only get Gavin Newsom so far

The Democratic Party brand is in the gutter and at least one of its aspiring standard bearers is settling for chasing his own ambitions instead of trying to effectively pump life into the flailing party.

Recent polling shows the Democratic Party’s approval rating is at the lowest it’s been in decades. Fewer than one quarter of registered voters have a favorable view of the party, while 56 percent hold a negative view, according to a CNBC poll from a few weeks ago.

It turns out that Joe Biden’s ‘Weekend at Bernie’s” presidency and the Democratic coverup did considerable damage to the party’s brand. And instead of pushing forward with real solutions to the real problems voters face, Democrats have focused almost exclusively on opposing Trump, who is like a catnip to them.

The constant focus on attacking Trump with little solution-based messaging means they are constantly being defined by Trump, proving that simply being someone who is not someone else is not an inspiring strategy.

Many Democrats have deluded themselves into thinking they lost to Trump twice because they didn’t fight or fight hard enough, especially since they have fought him constantly over the past decade.

Liberal data guy Nate Silver wrote gleefully that the abhorrent national gerrymandering fight, which California Democrats are proudly diving into, signals the end of a decade-plus of a “when they go low, we go high” attitude among Democratic leaders.

“Democrats are fighting mad about Trump-led Republican efforts to conduct mid-decade redistricting in Texas and other states in advance of next year’s midterms — and, perhaps for a change, they’re in a mood to fight back,” he wrote.

Silver’s comments mirror those of many others, including Democratic voters and Gov. Gavin Newsom, who are all clearly misremembering the recent past. I’m not sure at what point Democrats went high in their interactions with Trump: They impeached him twice, prided themselves on how often Democratic states sued the Trump administration, passed laws to try to block his access to the ballot and pursued criminal charges against him, just to name a few things.

This is all on top of the late-night TV and social media posts mocking him, countless Democrats campaigning against him, and endless news and opinion articles calling him everything from a felon to a rapist to a threat to democracy to Hitler.

In other words, it’s absurd to think Democrats’ problem was they didn’t fight enough. They might not have fought effectively, but there wasn’t a lack of effort.

Watching the campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination shape up suggests change is not coming soon for Democrats. Former Vice President Kamala Harris can’t decide what she wants to do but she apparently saddled the Democratic National Committee with millions of dollars of debt, which has left a large opening for Newsom, who is trying every gimmick to get attention except actually doing a good job governing.

For the past few months, Newsom tapped his social media team to impersonate Trump online, typing in all caps, making self-aggrandizing claims (more than normal, that is), and being generally combative. Apparently, it’s working a little.

Newsom has enjoyed a 13-point bump year over year in the latest Emerson College poll, which shows him outperforming former Vice President Kamala Harris.

Newsom has every incentive to keep the ruse going, but it’s going to be a lot of work to pretend to be someone else for the next few years, especially someone Newsom has called a grifter and compared to Hitler.

Newsom and his catty social media team often boast about how well California performs compared to all other states. But the claims are only true in ways that have nothing to do with Newsom. Does anyone actually think California’s economic wealth has much to do with Newsom’s decision-making? Where Newsom is involved (or completely absent, as the case may be) the state is bad and getting worse.

Working against Newsom is the fact that he’ll have to keep coming up with gimmicks because his record in California is one of failure. This is the same Newsom who just a few years ago helped inspire progressive thought leader Ezra Klein to write damningly in the New York Times: “If progressivism can’t work there, why should the country believe it can work anywhere else?”

That was in 2021. Newsom has done nothing to change that perception, though he’ll tweet a bunch of lies and half truths that say otherwise.

This is also the same Newsom who a few months ago was pretending to be moderate, even somewhat conservative, pro-gun and manly. This was after years of decrying what he called toxic masculinity.

In fact, there have been so many Newsom’s over the past few years, so many desperate pleas for attention, that something had to work eventually.

But it probably won’t last. Newsom is having a moment now, but sooner or later impersonating Trump won’t be enough.

If Democratic leaders are interested in expanding their appeal, they should start by showing they can solve a problem. Any problem. Pick one. There are plenty of things voters need help with.

And voters should hold them accountable. Don’t reward Newsom for being obnoxious; reward him for being effective – if he can figure out how.

Matt Fleming is a columnist for the Southern California News Group. Follow him on X @FlemingWords and write to him at flemingwords@gmail.com