It Could Happen Here - Newsom’s Posting Through It

Episode Date: August 25, 2025

James and Robert sit down to discuss Gavin Newsom’s tweets and what they tell us about the DNC’s inability to stand up to Trump. Sources: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/20/us/newsom-trump...-social-media.html https://calmatters.org/economy/technology/2025/06/california-police-sharing-license-plate-reader-data/ https://calmatters.org/commentary/2025/03/gavin-newsom-podcast-judgment-problem/  https://x.com/GovPressOffice  https://bsky.app/profile/grahamformaine.bsky.social/post/3lwqwj3rdgk27 https://www.instagram.com/reel/DNl79l0SdMb/?igsh=bXphd3E2N3Y2N20w https://www.youtube.com/shorts/2qJw7xQfqh0 https://www.kpbs.org/news/racial-justice-social-equity/2025/03/11/san-diego-sheriff-says-disputed-ice-transfer-was-legalSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Starting point is 00:00:00 This is an I-Heart podcast. There's a vile sickness in Abbas town. You must excise it. Dig into the deep earth and cut it out. From IHeart podcasts and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Manky, this is Havoc Town, a new fiction podcast set in the Bridgewater Audio Universe, starring Jewel State and Ray Wise. Listen to Havocetown.
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Starting point is 00:01:39 This is for the ones who had to survive and still show up as brilliant, loud, soft, and whole. The unwanted sorority is where black women, fims, and gender expansive survivors of sexual violence rewrite the rules on healing, support, and what happens after. And I'm your host and co-president of this organization, Dr. Leah Trotate. Listen to the unwanted sorority. episodes every Thursday on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. CallZone Media. All right. It's it could happen here. It's me. It's Robert. And we are gathered here today to talk about one of the most
Starting point is 00:02:22 annoying things that can happen on your telephone, which is that you can be sent a tweet from Gavin Newsom. Which is, I just, no one needed that. Yeah, it's already really bad. I see really bad things on my telephone every day. I don't need to see a tweet from Gavin Newsom. If you're not familiar with this, you're living a better life than me, and I'm proud of you. But I'm going to give you some context here. For those of you who are not familiar, Gavin Newsom is the governor of California. He's also kind of been the presumptive 28 Democrat candidate for quite a while. He's term limited at running for California governor again, so he won't be doing that, and his term will end in January of 27. He had for a while tried to dismiss claims that he was interested in
Starting point is 00:03:08 the presidency, but he's been a lot more about it recently. Yeah. I don't believe any claims that he was not interested in this for a long time. He has definitely tried to cast himself this summer as a sort of leader of the resistance type figure. Yeah. He hasn't done that by, for instance, ordering the California National Guard to go home, protecting people from the masked men with guns, snatching them in the street, or even standing up for trans kids. Instead, he has focused on, I guess what you could generously call Twitter trolling. Like, it's, well, we're going to get into it. It's extremely annoying.
Starting point is 00:03:45 So about a week ago now, I think the 11th of August was when he began. Newsom began his social media rebrand. He did this by posting about himself in all caps as America's favorite. governor. His posts since then have mimicked Donald Trump has a pretty distinctive posting style, right? Yeah. Newsombs are written in all caps, which Trump doesn't tend to do. Trump tends to capitalize
Starting point is 00:04:09 sporadically and as far as I can tell entirely randomly. But Newsom's doing it in all caps. He uses, overuses exclamation marks, I should say. This beef between the two of them is not new, right? Trump has called him new scum on truth social. I don't think Trump can claim the intellectual property to New Scum. I've seen that one. Yeah, yeah.
Starting point is 00:04:31 Like, it's up there with like Hairjel Hitler and New Salini. Yeah. Anyway, if you're buying a firearm in California, you will hear someone say one of these things, almost without fail. Yeah. The claim that Newsom's team is making is that he's like holding up a mirror to Trump's bigotry by doing this Trump style posting. But I think in doing so, he's really,
Starting point is 00:04:54 The difference between him is not as profound as you'd think or hope. He, in one example, called Scott Presler, Nancy Mace. It's Scott Presler, gay, conservative right-wing figure. And then he was called out for misgendering Presler by, This Will Shock and Amaze you, Tommy Lauren. Wow. Yeah. Which, yeah, no one knows.
Starting point is 00:05:17 Okay. Yeah. He responded, quote, you sound woke. This really isn't funny. It's just bigotry. Like, comparing gay men to women is an old, worn out, and lazy jab. Yeah. So when you combine this with him having right-wing figures like Charlie Kirk and Steve Bannon on his podcast.
Starting point is 00:05:37 And just for reference, folks, I don't know how much detail we can get into legally here. But this being our business, we are aware of the numbers different podcasts do. And Gavin Newsom's podcast is not like, it does okay. but there's certain podcasts about, for example, bad people in history that lap it several times. So, like, the star power that Gavin Newsom has, I'm not seeing it. We're not talking about a guy who has shown evidence that he is capable of on his own generating, like, a super loyal fan base or continued interest in his personality. Now, I'm not saying that's that on its own isn't a bad thing.
Starting point is 00:06:18 A lot of politicians who are very competent at certain things are not competent at that. And, in fact, most of the worst politicians we have are also the people who are the best at that at building a fan base, so to speak. But what I'm saying is that Gavin Newsom is obsessed with doing something, being this Trumpian populist figure that he has not exhibited faculty for, right? Yes. That's what I'm saying. Yeah. No, and that's what I'm saying, too, is that he's confusing engagement with actual political action. Right.
Starting point is 00:06:52 And he's confusing the kind of engagement that you get on social media when it's someone else's algorithm. And a lot of the engagement is like, not people who are going to vote for you or support you, but people who the algorithm is pushing your content to because it knows they'll get pissed off by it, right? Yes, exactly that. I'm not against, you know, pissing off conservatives, but that doesn't help you necessarily, right?
Starting point is 00:07:13 Like, there's not a clear benefit to us in this. Yeah, like, good things piss off conservatives, but pissing off conservatives are not inherently a good or useful thing. It's just a thing. It's not enough, right? Like, again, it can be, I'm not, sometimes that's necessary just for morale purposes alone. Sure. But again, I don't really think Gavin Newsom is making the right scared.
Starting point is 00:07:36 I don't think he's breaking their morale. I think he's just kind of creating content that people on the left are sharing because it pisses them off. People on the right are sharing because it makes them laugh. I think they think it's sad more than anything. else. And obviously you've got a chunk of like, a decent chunk of like centrist dim types who like
Starting point is 00:07:57 Newsom, and I guess maybe it's working for some of them, but I don't think it's broadening his support. I don't think there's a single voter, especially in a fucking swing state, who was like, I wasn't going to vote for Gavin Newsom until I saw him mimicking Donald Trump's tweets. Yeah,
Starting point is 00:08:14 exactly. Like, he is doing in a sense what Harris did, which is this consistently failed Democrat political strategy that they seem so addicted to that no amount of losing will break them of it, which is moving to the right to try and capture moderate Republicans, right? They've done this, everything's Trump took the Republican Party closer, closer to fascism. Right.
Starting point is 00:08:38 Like, I want to give an example of this. Here's Gavin Newsom talking to Sean Ryan about transgender athletes. I'll be can with you. I looked at that issue and I said, boy, they're just exploiting this. It's a handful of people. What the hell is this? It's being weaponized. It was just another cultural issue.
Starting point is 00:08:56 Until two years ago there was a state track championship. We had a trans athlete that was successful, and there was a video of the girl that lost, and she was devastated. That video went around everywhere. And it was very emotional. It was very real. I remember calling my team in, I said, this is legit. And I did this podcast with Charlie Kirk.
Starting point is 00:09:14 Unsurprisingly, he brought it up. And he said, tell me that's not fair. I said, it's not fair. You're right. My party was pissed. LGBTQ caucus, furious with me because I don't think it's fair. It's not. But because you oppose sports doesn't make you homophobic. And my party needs to stop saying that. Yeah. Again, I know with who he thinks this is going to help. He believes it's a religion effectively
Starting point is 00:09:36 among a lot of establishment dims that there's a whole huge chunk of voters who are just itching to vote for a Democrat if they weren't in favor of all of these icky. cultural issues that are hard to touch, that the right is, you know, spends so much time harping on. And I think part of what they're seeing and where a lot of the logical disconnect comes into effect is that they see how much money, conservatives and time and discourse, conservatives been talking about this and obsessing over it. And they believe, well, oh, if we, if we just kind of fold on these people, then we've taken this great weapon out of their arsenal and they'll be helpless because they're stupid.
Starting point is 00:10:19 And I don't think these are fundamentally very smart people in the political sense of the world. I think they're bad politicians. I think they're bad. I think they were good politicians in terms of a competency sense at a prior age to get to where they were. But the ground has changed and intelligence is largely a product of adaptability and they have not proven adaptable. And I think what's actually going to happen because we've seen this is if they throw trans people under the bus as they're actively talking about doing, the right will grab another chunk of their coalition and start ruthlessly trying to destroy that group of people. And these people's suggestion will once again
Starting point is 00:11:01 be, okay, well, we got to, uh, you know, throw those people under the bus because then we'll deny them that weapon. And eventually, you won't have any Democrats left. Like, yeah, right, they'll come off to same-sex marriage. They'll come off to fucking interracial marriage and Newsom will try and find the middle. Yeah. Like, where he has received praise for this is in the legacy media. I want to quote here from a CalMatters op-ed, which suggests that Newsom was, quote, someone trying to hold space for a hard conversation in his podcast. He's not. You don't have conversations with Charlie Kirk. He's never had a real one in his life. Yeah. The conversation is not hard to have, right? Trans people deserve the same fucking rights as everyone else. It's very easy to have. Also, he's having this
Starting point is 00:11:43 conversation with someone who agrees with him. Like, I would love to see him tell a young trans woman that she can't play on the fucking third string high school volleyball team because then he's going to see a kid cry too. I don't want to go over that like trans people can compete sports. Like, I've made my living as an athlete for much of my life. This is bullshit and it's fundamentally disrespectful to women athletes to continue to suggest that they're biologically inferior. But I do want to talk more about Gavin Newsom's slide into mean politics.
Starting point is 00:12:13 his press office claimed that after the fires in LA, the claim this in New York Times in a piece of our link, he was troubled by the misinformation that came out. Apparently it was his first fucking time in encountering misinformation on the internet. Oh, wow. Yeah. Well, when you think about the ease with which he lies,
Starting point is 00:12:34 the absolute comfort he has, bullshitting, it sort of makes sense. Until it hits him, he doesn't care because he's lying too. So they decided to take the fight to the internet, I guess. They began with Star Wars, memes. And then when the redistricting debate in Texas, we've covered extensively on executive disorder,
Starting point is 00:12:57 was kind of reaching its peak, Newsom sort of begun this sign, I know you are, you said you are, but what am I kind of tendency in his posting? He posted in all block capitals, I'm not going to shout. Donald Trump, if you do not stand down, we will be forced to leave an effort to redraw the maps in CA to offset the rigging of maps
Starting point is 00:13:15 in red states. But if the other states call off their redistricting efforts, we will do the same. Thank you for your attention on this matter. Sorry, it's hard to read because it's entirely unpuncuated, apart from at the end there. These tweets aren't on his personal account or the official, like, Governor of California one. They're on an account called Governor Newsom Press Office, but that account does have the little gray tick mark that you can get in Twitter now for like government accounts. then he moved on to AI-generated images
Starting point is 00:13:43 and signing his post with initials like Trump does claiming Kid Rock had endorsed him which isn't true incidentally they did this exactly a year after Donald Trump posted an AI-generated image of Taylor Swift with a Swifties for Trump montage which shows how much time they spend looking at Trump's post rather than doing anything fucking useful then they moved on to mocking Greg Abbott
Starting point is 00:14:07 for using a wheelchair saying he rolled over for Trump. Again, like, you do not build a political coalition by mocking people with disabilities. There are a million things to fucking hate Greg Abbott for. I could spend an hour talking about the loathsome shit that he has done. But using a wheelchair is not one of those things. If you cannot find anything else that really shows the paucity of democratic politics right now. Let's take a break and we'll come back. Awesome. There's a vile sickness in Abbas town. You must excise it.
Starting point is 00:14:50 Dig into the deep earth and cut it out. The village is ravaged. Entire families have been consumed. You know how waking up from a dream? A familiar place can look completely alien? Get back, everyone's going to be next. And if you see the devil walking around inside of another man, You must cut out the very heart of him.
Starting point is 00:15:14 Burn his body and scatter the ashes in the furthest corner of this town as a warning. From IHeart Podcasts and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Manky, this is Havoc Town. A new fiction podcast sets in the Bridgewater Audio Universe, starring Jewel State and Ray Wise. Listen to Havoc Town on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The devil walks in Aberstown. Hey guys, it's AZ Fudd. You may know me as a gold medalist. You may know me as an NCAA national champion
Starting point is 00:15:49 and recent most outstanding player. You may even know me as a people's princess. But now, you're also going to know me as your favorite host. Every week on my new podcast, Fud around and find out, I'll give you an inside look at everything happening in my crazy life as I try to balance it all. From my travels across the globe to preparing for another run at the Natty with my Yukon Huskies to just try to make it to my midterms on time.
Starting point is 00:16:12 You'll get the inside scoop on everything. I'll be talking to some special guests about pop culture, basketball, and what it's like to be a professional athlete on and off the court. You'll even get to have some fun with the FUD family. So if you follow me on social media or watch me on TV, you may think you know me. But this show is the only place where you can really fud around and find out. Listen to Fud Around and Find Out, a production of IHeart Women's Sports and Partnership with Unanimous Media. on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.
Starting point is 00:16:44 Welcome to Pretty Private with Ebeney, the podcast where silence is broken and stories are set free. I'm Ebeney, and every Tuesday I'll be sharing all new anonymous stories that would challenge your perceptions and give you new insight on the people around you. On Pretty Private, we'll explore the untold experiences of women of color who faced it all. childhood trauma, addiction, abuse, incarceration, grief, mental health struggles, and more, and found the shrimp to make it to the other side. My dad was shot and killed in his house. Yes, he was a drug dealer. Yes, he was a confidential informant, but he wasn't shot on a street corner.
Starting point is 00:17:25 He wasn't shot in the middle of a drug deal. He was shot in his house, unarmed. Pretty private isn't just a podcast. It's your personal guide for turning storylines into life. lines every tuesday make sure you listen to pretty private from the black effect podcast network tune in on the iHeart radio app apple podcast or wherever you listen to your favorite shows hola it's honey german and my podcast grazias come again is back this season we're going even deeper into the world of music and entertainment with raw and honest conversations with some of your
Starting point is 00:18:00 favorite latin artists and celebrities you didn't have to audition no i didn't audition i haven't audition in like over 25 years. Oh wow. That's a real G-talk right there. Oh, yeah. We've got some of the biggest actors, musicians, content creators, and culture shifters sharing their real stories of failure and success. You were destined to be a start. We talk all about what's viral and trending with a little bit of chisement, a lot of laughs,
Starting point is 00:18:28 and those amazing Vibras you've come to expect. And of course, we'll explore deeper topics dealing with identity, struggles, and all the issues affecting our Latin community. You feel like you get a little whitewash because you have to do the code switching? I won't say whitewash because at the end of the day, you know, I'm me. But the whole pretending and coat, you know,
Starting point is 00:18:46 it takes a toll on you. Listen to the new season of Grasasas Come Again as part of My Cultura Podcast Network on the IHartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. All right, we're back. Unfortunately, and probably predictably, Newsom has received praise from all over the legacy media for these posts.
Starting point is 00:19:11 The NYT quoted, it's actually unclear if they quoted. I don't know if this was just a mistake that they haven't corrected, but it was phrased like she said it directly, but it wasn't in quotation mark, so I'm a little unclear. I'm just going to assume they quoted this lady. Sarah Roberts, a director for the Centre of Critical Internet Inquiry at UCLA, said, quote, Mr. Newsom's posts are perhaps grabbing so much attention because they stand out from the rest of Democratic party's ineffective approach of playing it safe and proceedings of its business as usual. And then, just to double down on this useful podcast idiot John Favreau tweeted, quote, I mean, it's pretty clearly a parody of Trump's absolutely insane, all caps,
Starting point is 00:19:47 off to nonsensical posts. Probably why all the people in my life who aren't political junkies keep reaching out to say they don't know much about Newsom but think the tweets are hilarious. Humor and mockery can be quite effective. Neither of them say what they are effective for, right? No one seems concerned that these make no material difference, and he is doing them instead of doing things that make material difference. Right. I'm going to play another clip from Chris Hayes here. California Governor Gavin Newsom and his team have figured out a very entertaining way to deal with Donald Trump at his own rhetorical level. They've got a new social media strategy that is both, I've got to say, pretty damn funny and I think extremely effective, mocking the
Starting point is 00:20:27 president with a spot-on impression of his very weird communication stop. Since Newsom jumped into the ongoing redistricting fight, his official Twitter account has been posting Trump style. Donald is finished. He is no longer hot, first the hand, so tiny. And now me, Gavin C. Newsom, have taken away his step. Many are saying we can't even do the big stairs on Air Force One anymore. Uses the little baby stairs now.
Starting point is 00:20:49 Sad. Has all the Trump trademarks, all capital letters, random quotation marks, little parentheticals, complete unhinged absurdity. I love that's a good one. Hate Kid Rock, G.C.M. Reference to Trump's infamous I hate Taylor Swift. Another drags the vice president into it. Not even J.D. Just Dance Vance can save Trump from the disastrous maps war he has started. Not even his eyeliner lines look as pretty as California map lines. He will fail as he always does sad. And I, the peacetime governor of our nation's favorite
Starting point is 00:21:17 will save America once again. Many are now calling me Gavin Christopher Columbus Newsom because of the maps. Thank you for your attention to this matter. Beyond the mockery of Trump's text post. Newsom has also been posting Trump-style AI-generated images of himself, including this, I think, absolute masterpiece of Newson, deep in a moment of reflection or prayer, flanked by three MAGA icons and the laying of hands, Kid Rock, who he hates, Tucker Carlson, and the angelic spirit of the recently departed Hulk Hogan. Again, a spot-on mockery of Trump, who isn't doing any of this satirically. What has been equally hilarious has been to watch the joke just go soaring over the heads of Trump's sycophants in the media. For the last,
Starting point is 00:21:56 week, Kevin Newsom, and why am I giving him advice? You have to stop it with the Twitter thing. I don't know where his wife is. If I were his wife, I would say, you are making a fool of yourself. Stop it. Do not let your staff tweet. And if you're doing it yourself, put the phone away and start over. And if he's got a big job as governor of California, but if he wants an even bigger job, he has to be a little bit more serious. Yes, right. Be more serious. Stop posting exactly like the President of the United States does. Newsom's account responded to that advice, quote, Dana Ding Dong Perino never heard of her until today is melting down
Starting point is 00:22:31 because of me, Gavin C. Newsom. Fox hate that I am America's most favorite governor, ratings king, saving America. Trump has lost his step, and Fox is losing it because when I'm type, American now wins. Thank you for your attention to this matter. Again, it is just, it is a stark reminder with someone else doing it of how truly, utterly deranged
Starting point is 00:22:51 our current president sounds whenever he communicates. And also how accustomed we've all become to this very, very weird behavior. I know. We wouldn't be talking about this because he was just bad tweets, right? Mm-hmm. We're talking about it because I think it shows a fundamental inability of the DNC to meet the moment right now. Yeah, we're talking about it because people are dying. Yes.
Starting point is 00:23:10 And more people will die as a result of this administration's policies. Other people are being imprisoned and, like, you know, the damage being done, you know, to medical science, to the future of humanity, into the future of this country is tremendous and escalating. And the fact that, like, this is the best, a major, a major contender for the Democratic presidential candidate in 2028 has been able to pull out so far is, like, terrifying. Like, and again, obviously, no one should be reliant upon the dims, but unfortunately also, like, what are you got to do? What am I got to do, right?
Starting point is 00:23:47 I don't have the resources of the Democratic Party. I don't have a bunch of elected leaders listening to me. like because of the status of our situation individual people in small groups and towns and you know we talk about mutual aid on this show we talk about unions all of these increase personal resiliency they increase the ability of groups and of individuals within groups to be resilient but none of that is going to stop the fucking DHS from turning into the SS right yeah and the Democratic Party clearly fucking isn't either but the fact that this is what they're doing instead of effective resistance is, I mean, it's important. I wish there was more to say
Starting point is 00:24:28 than we should know how badly they're failing us, right? Yeah, like a world where a Democrat gets elected in, in 28, it's getting less awful, less quickly, and we should want that, right? Like, I'm not one of these, like, like, accelerationists. No, I just, I don't think that's going to help either. Yeah. No, yeah, right now, it is accelerating and it is bad. There's a vile sickness in Abbas town. You must excise it. Dig into the deep earth and cut it out. The village is ravaged.
Starting point is 00:25:08 Entired families have been consumed. You know how waking up from a dream? A familiar place can look completely alien? Get back, everyone's going to next! And if you see the devil walking around in some, of another man. You must cut out the very heart of him. Burn his body and scatter the ashes in the furthest corner of this town as a warning. From IHeart Podcasts and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Mankey, this is Havoc Town, a new fiction podcast set in the Bridgewater Audio Universe,
Starting point is 00:25:42 starring Jewel State and Ray Wise. Listen to Havoc Town on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The devil walks in Abistown. Hey guys, it's AZ Fud. You may know me as a gold medalist. You may know me as an NCAA national champion and recent most outstanding player. You may even know me as the People's Princess.
Starting point is 00:26:06 But now, you're also going to know me as your favorite host. Every week on my new podcast, Fud around and find out, I'll give you an inside look at everything happening in my crazy light as I try to balance it all. From my travels across the globe to preparing for another run at the Nadi with my Yukon Huskies to just try to make it to my midterms on time. You'll get the inside scoop on everything. I'll be talking to some special guests about pop culture, basketball,
Starting point is 00:26:29 and what it's like to be a professional athlete on and off the court. You'll even get to have some fun with the fud family. So if you follow me on social media or watch me on TV, you may think you know me. But this show is the only place where you can really fud around and find out. Listen to Fud Around and Find Out, a production of IHeart Women's Sports and Partnership with Unanimous Media. on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.
Starting point is 00:26:56 Welcome to Pretty Private with Ebeney, the podcast where silence is broken and stories are set free. I'm Ebeney, and every Tuesday I'll be sharing all new anonymous stories that would challenge your perceptions and give you new insight on the people around you. On Pretty Private, we'll explore the untold experiences of women of color who faced it all. childhood trauma, addiction, abuse, incarceration, grief, mental health struggles, and more, and found the shrimp to make it to the other side. My dad was shot and killed in his house. Yes, he was a drug dealer. Yes, he was a confidential informant, but he wasn't shot on a street corner.
Starting point is 00:27:37 He wasn't shot in the middle of a drug deal. He was shot in his house, unarmed. Pretty private isn't just a podcast. It's your personal guide for turning storylines into life. lines every tuesday make sure you listen to pretty private from the black effect podcast network tune in on the iHeart radio app apple podcast or wherever you listen to your favorite shows what would you do if one bad decision forced you to choose between a maximum security prison or the most brutal boot camp designed to be hell on earth unfortunately for mark lombardo
Starting point is 00:28:13 this was the choice he faced he said you are a number a new york state number And we own you. Shock incarceration, also known as boot camps, are short-term, highly regimented correctional programs that mimic military basic training. These programs aim to provide a shock of prison life, emphasizing strict discipline, physical training, hard labor, and rehabilitation programs. Mark had one chance to complete this program and had no idea of the hell awaiting him the next six months. The first night was so overwhelming, and you don't know who's next to you. And we didn't
Starting point is 00:28:51 know what to expect in the morning. Nobody tells you anything. Listen to shock incarceration on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. There are so many obvious challenges for Democrats can make, and I want to play, Robert, have you seen this Graham Planter for Senate campaign ad? Uh, no. Maynard. All right, I'm going to what played is for you, like, uh, I think it's, uh, it's good as a contrast, right? Uh-huh. But I love most about Maine of the people. I have never met people who are more hard scrabble, even in a place that requires you
Starting point is 00:29:30 to work like two or three different jobs. We have watched this state become essentially unlivable for working class people. And, uh, it makes me deeply angry. My name is Graham Platner, and I'm running for U.S. Senate in Maine to defeat Susan Collins, a decade of military service. going overseas, farming oysters to feed my community, diving to lend a hand to other fishermen, trying to start a family.
Starting point is 00:29:53 But everywhere I've gone, it seems like the fabric of what holds us together is being ripped apart by billionaires and corrupt politicians, profiting off of destroying our environment, driving our families in the poverty, and crushing the middle class. I did four infantry tours in the Marine Corps and the Army.
Starting point is 00:30:10 I'm not afraid to name an enemy, and the enemy is the oligarchy. It's the billionaires who pay for it in the poverty. who pay for it, the politicians who sell us out. And yeah, that means politicians like Susan Collins. I'm not fooled by this fake charade of Collins' deliberations and moderation. The difference between Susan Collins and Ted Cruz is at least Ted Cruz is honest about selling us out and not giving a damn. People know that the system is screwing them. They know it in their bones. Nobody I know around here can afford a house. Healthcare is a disaster. Hospitals are closing. We have watched all
Starting point is 00:30:42 of that get ripped away from us and everyone's just trying to keep it all together. Why can't we have universal health care like every other first world country? Why can't we take care of our veterans when they come home? Why are we funding endless wars and bombing children? Why are CEOs more powerful than unions? We fought three different wars since the last time we raised a minimum wage. I'm not pretending to have all the answers, but I know that I'm asking the right questions. When I tell people around here that I'm running for Senate, sometimes the initial reaction is what But when I tell them why I'm doing it, because I truly do believe that we can build a system that is going to represent working people, the number one response has been, well, thank God somebody's going to do it. You're supposed to fight for the things you love.
Starting point is 00:31:28 This is our home, and I will fight tirelessly for it, for you. It's Mainers first, in Maine, always. I mean, that didn't seem bad. No, it's good. That's a solid ad, yeah. Yeah, like the bar is reasonably low, but like that dude hit it, I think. I mean, yeah, yeah, like I would say that's just outright good. Like, if I were crafting an ad to run from other than the fact that he's lived a different life,
Starting point is 00:32:01 but like how he's talking about the oligarchy, how he's talking about the lack of progress on things like minimum wage and how unacceptable it is and, like, how the difference between Susan Collins and Ted Cruz is that at least Ted Cruz is honest? Like, yeah, I'm on board. This guy, this guy seems like he rips. I would vote for that, dude. Like, uh, yeah, sure. It might turn into a fucking fetterman, but like, uh, I mean, they can all get milkshake ducked, but he's saying the right things at this point. Yeah, it's remarkably straightforward, right? Like, yeah, and yet that seems to evade most Democrats. Yeah, he's got the, he's got the audio of a car ad, but I guess if it works, it works. Now, that's the thing. I don't know. I'm not familiar with the
Starting point is 00:32:40 platinum race, so I'm not sure where the polling is showing. This video is like two days old. Like, he's extremely fresh. So yeah. I will say that visually it hangs together do-duos is the same open-cell wetsuit I do. Like, he didn't just buy all this shit, like didn't buy an axe and chop wood for the first time in this video. Right, right, right. He didn't do the normal weird Democrat trying to reach out to a rural thing of like posing awkwardly with a shotgun. Yeah, yeah. Like, this is a dude. And just like physically he appears to have done some work with his hands. Yeah, he looks like a working class guy.
Starting point is 00:33:12 Yeah. Let's compare this to, like, Newsom has not done the material things that he could be doing instead of tweeting, right? Trump didn't call up the California National Guideline on the Interaction Act. He used Title 10 section 12406 of the U.S. Code. That section states, orders for these purposes should be issued through the governors of the states. It also outlines procedures for D.C., which we don't care about here. I don't see why he could at least try to force the issue in ordering the guard to go home.
Starting point is 00:33:40 He's pursuing a court case, yeah, but leg, force the crisis because we're already in one. He has not taken a single meaningful action to stop ice-snatching people from our communities in California, nor has his attorney general taken a single meaningful action to stop individual sheriff's departments from violating SB 54. FB 54, if you're not familiar, is a California Values Act, which limits which inmates can be transferred to ICE custody and when. It doesn't oblige anyone to transfer them, but it does allow them to transfer them if certain felonies have been committed in the last 15 years. The San Diego Sheriff has been accused of violating this, a link to a KPBS article on that where they transferred someone who, according to the claims in the article, had a 21-year-old conviction, where, as I said before, the cutoff, it's 15 years. Newsom could do something about the surveillance, which is being installed all over California. These license plates readers, like the ones at San Diego, has spent thousands, if not billions of dollars on,
Starting point is 00:34:42 these license plate readers have had their information shared with federal agencies more than 100 times in May alone, according to CalMatters. That is a violation of California law, specifically it's Senate Bill 34, which limits the sharing of license plate data. Rob Bonte issued an advisory. But again, this is resulting in our communities being harassed, right? Californians being snatched. Newsom has done nothing about that. He could stand up for unhoused people, but instead, alongside Todd Glory, he has led the charge against. Todd Glory is seemingly intent on driving our city into debt to pursue castoral approach against the unhoused. Newsom posed for a photo shoot, destroying unhoused people's property. He hasn't done a single thing that puts him at any risk, right? He's presenting himself in this Sean Ryan podcast, the big risk taker because he spoke out about fucking teenage girls running. Right. But he hasn't put his neck on the line once for marginalized people in California
Starting point is 00:35:47 or anywhere else. Absolutely not. I think where I want to end is I don't want you to engage with nuisance tweets. That doesn't help. He's going to mistake that for making a difference, right? Right. Because I think for a lot of people in the legacy media and probably knew some of his friends, the real tragedy of what's happened in the last eight months is that they have to see scary, nasty stuff on their telephones. So seeing something funny on their telephone seems like an antidote because it's not their community. It's not their people. And it's not people they fundamentally give a shit about either. That, I think, is why to them this seems effective. And hopefully to you, as it does to me, it seems completely ineffective.
Starting point is 00:36:27 Yeah, I don't know how much else to say. It's nice to see guys like Platner at least seem to be figuring it out. There's not, I've been looking into it, and there's not much polling. There's not really any polling because of how recently he announced his bid to show how well he's doing. Other than that, the video's got like two and a half million views, something like that, which is good and seems to be spreading well online. But that doesn't translate electorally. What we do have electorally is that polls in Maine show that the Democratic Party is historic. unpopular, including with Democrats. This is from a July survey. There's a good article in PBS that's just titled, they roll right over. Many Democrats think their party is weak. AP and ORC whole fines. Oh, sorry, this is actually, no, sorry, this is overall across U.S. adults. Sorry, the initial article I had seemed to be saying that it was, this was just in Maine. No, this is, this is nationwide, right? So, I mean, I think that what Platner has seen, the opportunity he's seen, is real. that there are a lot of people who are not at all interested in voting for a Republican,
Starting point is 00:37:31 who have not been swayed to the right, who identify as Democrats but hate the party and think it is weak, right? Like about two in ten Democrats, according to this poll, described their party positively. One in ten said it was empathetic and inclusive. That's terrible, right? And that is, I mean, that shows that just what we were saying, kind of based on our gut, which is it's a bad idea to hang people out to dry because you don't think you can, defend them you think that it'll be beneficial politically to make the choice to you know let them die basically yeah and it seems like democrats largely are responding by saying well this party doesn't give a shit about us and they are ineffective they can't do fuck all right yeah and that's definitely
Starting point is 00:38:15 what's happening so yeah i i don't know if platinum's going to win but i'm growing more convinced every day that there is opportunity for people who are actually willing to fight these bastards and I understand that fighting these bastards isn't just like, well, let's give them almost everything they want and hope that somehow lets us win. Yeah, yeah. Talking of not leaving people out to dry, for instance, talking about trans women in sports, he says it's a distraction from the things that impact Americans materially every single day. Then he said, I'm dedicated to equality and justice for all in this country,
Starting point is 00:38:46 and I think the specific topic has become such a touchstone of the media discussion because it pulls away from the conversation that needs to be happening, which is getting every American affordable health care. not the best response. It's not the worst one either. Like, and I think he is right for most of these conservative people. They don't care about women's sports, right? They're not there when women are getting shit prize money when women are getting shit TV time. This for them is just a culture war issue. He also called the genocide and guards are a genocide, which is something that it's like, yeah, I enjoyed the line about where we're just killing kids with bombs.
Starting point is 00:39:19 Yeah, yeah. I like that he, um, he didn't mince his words about it when asked by ABC. He said he's following the lead of Israeli scholars on genocide on this issue. So, yeah, like, it's remarkably easy, right, to build a coalition right now of people who are fucking mad. And a lot of people voted for Donald Trump because they were sick of this same smarmy bullshit. Some of them also voted Donald Trump because they're hateful, terrible fucking people, right? Just to be super clear.
Starting point is 00:39:45 Yeah. But, like, it's so easy. And yet, it seems to be evading, like you say, the presumptive nominee, this guy who for nearly a decade. we have assumed we'll run in 2028. And I guess, I know, fuck Gavin Newsom, I hope that he does not succeed with his presidential campaign ambitions. Yep.
Starting point is 00:40:06 All right. Well, that's, yeah, most of what I got to say about that son of a bit. Yep. Me too. Let's roll out. Bye. Bye. It could happen here is a production of Cool Zone Media.
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