Gavin Newsom threw a rhetorical bomb into the 2028 shadow primary last week in an interview with famed Trump supporter Charlie Kirk. In the course of the interview, he basically set the stage for a move towards the center that ascendant Democrats have been calling for ever since November. Newsom argued that the party had gone too far to the left on numerous social and cultural issues. He criticized liberals who state their pronouns before meetings and denigrated the use of “Latinx” among activists. Most notably, he argued that it was “deeply unfair” for transgender women and girls to compete in female sports leagues.
The interview was greeted with howls of derision. Trans rights activists castigated Newsom for his parroting of conservative talking points. Other observers critiqued his obsequious attitude towards a figure who has made hateful and offensive comments since first stepping into the public conscience. Few people were fully supportive of Newsom’s move, since many moderate Democrats believe that other candidates would be better carriers of their general message.
Newsom as a messenger
Gavin Newsom is certainly not the best spokesman for becoming a party of moderation. He appears too chameleon-like and opportunistic to reflect an authentic change in party opinion. But it is important that the governor of one of the nation’s most liberal states felt the need to make such an important public shift. Newsom’s change shows that the party has decided it needs
Newsom needed to make this shift and change his general reputation as a feckless liberal. But in reality, his change is not what the Democratic Party needs to succeed. Fighting on cultural issues will never get the party where it needs to go. Instead, liberals need to come up with a clear economic message for a time of inflation, one that they still have not learned four years after the beginning of the Biden presidency,
Gavin Newsom likely sees his comments to Charlie Kirk as one of a long line of Democratic presidential hopefuls moving away from their party’s unpopular left flank. Bill Clinton and Barack Obama took similar steps in the 1990s and 2000s. But in both instances, they were stepping away from incendiary anti-American rhetoric. They were not wading deep into the waters of abortion, gender politics, or mainstream racial issues. They were not fighting the culture war of the day, but instead supporting an anodyne pro-American position against extremist critics. Clinton and Obama (and Joe Biden to a lesser degree) saw their denunciation of their party’s far left flank as a one-off, a distraction they could use before getting around to their favorite topic of the economy.
The inflation impact
But both Clinton and Obama had the benefit of running in a low inflation environment. They could package the traditional set of Democratic policies derived from the New Deal and send that package to voters. While Clinton later governed as a moderate, he started out proposing vast additions to the social safety net. Obama did the same in the deflationary environment of the Great Recession. These candidates did not have to fight inflation because it was not a problem at the time, no matter the howling protests of Tea Party Republicans.
Democrats today, on the other hand, are still dealing with inflation. They are currently adrift as a party because they cannot unite on a clear set of policies and programs like they could in 1992, 2008, or 2020. Many of their favored solutions to the nation’s problems would likely make eggs more expensive. The moderate wing will not consent to tax-and-spend proposals by leftists in such an environment. With the party at odds over this issue, leaders are more tempted to fight culture war issues like Newsom did recently, putting them on Republican rhetorical turf.
Democrats have thousands of college professors, economists, think tankers, and political veterans in their ranks. They need to bring all of these people together and come up with a plan to fight inflation, one untainted by personal grievances or group interests. This plan should be debated and discussed, but ultimately it needs to comprise the party’s actions in a time of higher prices. If not, Democrats are likely to fall into the same traps that Newsom has found himself in.
