this post was submitted on 13 Feb 2026
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[–] SoloCritical@lemmy.world 45 points 1 day ago (10 children)

As compared to what? Is he worse than Trump? I sincerely fucking doubt it.

[–] ThePowerOfGeek@lemmy.world 61 points 1 day ago (2 children)

That's a ridiculously low bar, but it's also an important distinction.

Do I want Gavin Newsom to be the Democrat nominee for 2028? Hell no! He's revealed himself to be a shallow political opportunist and an ideological chameleon. And I think that party can do better.

But regardless, would he be an improvement over Trump? Hell yes!

Another question is: is he - a supposedly populist liberal from California - even electable on a national stage? I don't think so. But then, we live in very 'interesting' times. So who knows.

The third question is: will we have a fair enough election in 2028 (or an election at all)? That remains to be seen.

[–] stylusmobilus@aussie.zone 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Put it this way, us overseas would rather see Newsom in charge of it than Trump.

That’s way better for us.

[–] mcv@lemmy.zip 4 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Anyone would be an improvement over Trump. Even Vance, probably. I'd gladly see Newsom win. But even more than that, I'd like to see Bernie, Warren or AOC win.

[–] Scirocco@lemmy.world 3 points 18 hours ago

Bernie + (anyone else, but preferably AOC) would have won against Trump three (3) times.

[–] stylusmobilus@aussie.zone 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Me too, but anyone who doesn’t threaten the sovereignty of other countries and respects some form of order is good for us.

Edit: Vance would last a month and no, if he could get full influence he might be as bad or worse than Trump.

[–] HubertManne@piefed.social 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

See this I feel. These articles annoy me because it feels like the dem bad thing but yeah if your talking canidate heck I would love waltz. him being put on as vice president was the main thing that jazzed me a bit with harris. Honestly I did not want my own govenor to run because our state has been such a trump show in the past and its nice being on track for awhile but man we need something decent in the role. I really don't know enough about newsom to say for sure but he certiainly does not have much going for him outside of using social media to combat trump which is good idea overall. Still unlike republicans I am going to be voting based on someone who I think can actually do a good job in the role rather than score some points.

[–] AA5B@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago (2 children)

These do annoy me. Of course Newsom is not the best candidate but they are distracting everyone from how much better that would be than the current shitshow

And I have to ask y’all, are we really going to an insists on an ideal candidate regardless whether they are electable?

I have no idea whether Newsom is but he has name recognition, presidential presence, and a successful “populist” strategy. He has successfully positioned himself as a leading foil of Trump. All that stuff that seem necessary for getting elected even if they have no part in whether they would do well for their constituents. …. And they’re building a train!

I do always wonder if this is just republicans trying to astroturf “both sides the same”.

[–] Bustedknuckles@lemmy.world 2 points 6 hours ago

I think there's this assumption that the more centrist a dem is, the more electable they are and that may have been true decades ago. Now though? With how polarized the electorate is, people either vote for their party's candidate or the couch. Trump got roughly the same number of votes in 2024 (77M) as 2020( 74M) maybe he changed some minds; but Harris got 7M fewer votes than biden (81->74). People stayed home. "Not trump" wasn't enough to get excited about for enough folks, and that's about all Newsom has to offer

I genuinely believe Bernie is more electable than Newsom. We should give voters some credit

[–] HubertManne@piefed.social 2 points 1 day ago

I mean when it comes to primaries I do not vote on electability. I think that is how we get the democrats we have now. Come general though im not going to be supporting the republican by voting for them or not voting. Bernie was the supposed unelectable canidate and I voted for him but come the general I voted for clinton.

[–] q181c@sopuli.xyz 29 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Democrats have been playing the "well they suck, but at least they're not Trump!" game for a decade and gotten Trump two out of three times. Maybe we should aim higher.

[–] SoloCritical@lemmy.world 3 points 21 hours ago

100% with you, I don’t love Newsom. Personally I’d be interested in an AOC run but that’s maybe a bit dreamer of me.

[–] Bronzebeard@lemmy.zip 2 points 19 hours ago

They're not the only options, stop framing it that way. That's how the shitty billionaires keep winning, by forcing that narrative

[–] spaduf@slrpnk.net 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Settling for any centrist with a pulse is how we got Trump.

[–] goferking0@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 21 hours ago

And Bush Jr 2nd term. Possibly first term

[–] return2ozma@lemmy.world 12 points 1 day ago (1 children)
[–] ameancow@lemmy.world 11 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

The best pushback for this message is to post the entire interview between Newsom and Ben Shapiro and then tell me again who cares about people.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hrDpBwpSqSc

[–] ClassStruggle@lemmy.ml 10 points 1 day ago

So more of that lesser evil bullshit that's given us trump and helped shift the entire DNC to the right?

[–] stylusmobilus@aussie.zone 4 points 1 day ago

If you want to know what the flat comparison should be, it’s AOC. She is, in reality, a centrist.

Now go again with the comparison.

[–] dhork@lemmy.world 13 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

As compared to some of the other candidates that might have run if the Democratic Primary were an actual primary and not a coronation.

The last time Democrats ran an actual primary ws 2008, when a young, generational candidate beat out the (kinda boring) establishment choice. Democrats learned their lesson to never let something encouraging like that happen again!

Gavin's gonna win the Primary, as his right as the Next One Up, and we're all gonna vote for him, because as awful as he is, he is objectively better than whoever the MAGA party will run.

[–] antifa_ceo@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 day ago

And this is the exact attitude why nothing will ever change in this country. You can't keep voting in people hellbent on maintaining the hegemony capital has over everyone and expect anything to get better for you.

[–] Nalivai@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

In the history of Democratic party, there was exactly one time where the candidate that the DNC chose, actually lost a popular vote. Exactly one.
It was in 2008, when a young, generational candidate actually lost the popular vote by 1% to the (kinda boring) establishment choice, but was chosen anyway.
It's nice to have this simplistic worldview, when "they" control everything anyway so you don't have to do anything and just complain when "they" don't do what you want. It's harder to confront the reality when "they" actually consist of all the people around you, and the only reason you don't get what you want is because you don't do shit.

[–] dhork@lemmy.world 6 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

Nice try, but the popular vote doesn't mean anything in primaries, because the elections are held over a period of time and many candidates drop out mid-way through, so we will never know how many Joe Biden or John Edwards voters would have voted for Obama over Clinton. Clinton did not win a majority of votes, after all.

Obama won a majority of pledged delegates, even before taking the undemocratic Super Delegates into account, and it's delegates that count.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Democratic_Party_presidential_primaries

Democrats don't need to mess with the counting of votes to "fix" primaries. They do it the old fashioned way, by manipulating the primary calendar to make certain candidates inevitable.

Primaries need to be on one fucking day across the nation.

Make it ranked choice or some other system that works properly with more than 2 candidates while we're at it.

[–] Nalivai@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

Popular vote reflects how people who actually vote think. Candidates aren't appearing out of thin air, they're nominated as the result of political campaigns.
You can't shift the blame for candidates to ambiguous "them" if you didn't get your ass to try to affect it in any way. The delegates represent pretty nicely the opinion of people who actually vote in Primaries, with almost perfect track record. They don't represent your opinion because you don't vote therefore don't have an opinion. So you don't get to complain about what party that you're not in is doing. Want it to change? Use the ways to change it. Those ways aren't hidden from you, aren't secret, aren't gatekeeped by a shadow cabal, you just need to do politics about it. People who get their candidates elected do that.

[–] ameancow@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

No, I disagree.

Trump is creating a chaotic shitstorm, but it's almost entirely performance and theater and mindless destruction, all focused around him and his personality.

If you get someone in there with the same agendas and intentions, but who is cunning enough to mask it under populism and pretending to care about people while signing into law bills that will allow capital to have unrestricted access to our lives, allow them to take part in our politics even more and in the open, packing the courts with corporate aligned-judges... well Liberal america will be HAPPY with this, they just don't want to see all the violence in the street, they want stability and the image of peace, which will let someone like Newsom soak up all the adoration for "making America normal again" while signing away all of our futures in a much less openly opposable way.

Trump caused the wound, but someone like Newsom will rub the sewage into it.

he will repeal 20% of Trump's orders and people will celebrate it. He will restore a fraction of what Trump has undone and people will celebrate his name and see him as a hero just because we've become accustomed to total chaos. It almost looks carefully planned. Hmmn.

[–] AA5B@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

There’s an argument that most of the stuff done in trumps name would be “ok” if he did it legally and that’s what people wanted. It’s the abuse of authority, the personal enrichment, violating the constitution, holding people above the law, enforcing personal feelings, violating checks and balances that are the critical issues.

I wouldn’t want to live in such a society but it would at least be “legitimate”

Exactly. I don't think anyone is putting him on a pedestal, he's just better than a lot of alternatives. I'm not saying that's a reason to vote for him, but he's miles better than literally in the current administration.