Over the past two weeks, California Governor Gavin Newsom has been busy launching his new podcast, “This is Gavin Newsom,” to voice his enthusiastic agreement as his increasingly far-right guests attacked immigrants, homeless people, trans people, and so called “abusers of state assistance.” Governor Newsom’s endorsement of far-right attacks on the working class are a clear demonstration that solutions to the most pressing issues facing the working class are not found with the Democratic party, but require building an independent socialist party.
Newsom’s own history includes the many times during the past seven years when he has vetoed popular pro-worker legislation in the interests of the wealthy. He himself is a wealthy man, who has not hesitated to slow or veto legislation that would affect his own family’s and close colleagues’ fortunes. He is the very model of a “pro-business” (that is, corrupt) Democrat.
While many subjects are discussed in the initial four episodes, the topic of transgender Americans and their place in sports and society as a whole is a recurring topic. Newsom gives his guests a platform to make unchallenged hateful statements against trans people. For example, Charlie Kirk (founder of the far-right, white nationalist group Turning Point USA), who crusades against trans people’s participation in sports, stated, “these young men that are in these sports, they’re throwing around girls, and it is an issue of fairness.” Beyond giving Kirk a platform to spew this hateful bigotry, Newsom enthusiastically responded, “I completely agree with you on that. It is an issue of fairness.”
Newsom’s question of fairness concerns a confirmed number of five transgender athletes competing in K-12 sports, with an estimated total of less than one hundred trans athletes competing in all sports nationwide. We have to ask: Why is the governor of a $3.9 trillion economy, the world’s fifth largest, attacking five child athletes?
Another favorite topic of the podcast is the crisis of unhoused people in California. Far-right political radio show host Michael Savage advocated for a violent solution to the homeless population, stating, “There is a solution to the homeless problem, which is to end it. You build camps for them in places outside cities, and you give them the care that they need against their will.” Newsom was all too eager to agree, stating, “I one hundred percent agree broadly with that sentiment. And in terms of coercion, just so you know, we just did two major reforms. We’ve had all these old conservatorship laws that are weak. We finally have strengthened the conservatorship law, so we can begin to get people off the streets.” Instead of using the vast resources of California to actually put unhoused people into dignified homes, he advocates for ramping up policies to criminalize poverty.
The Democrats collapsed in the 2024 elections because their subservience to billionaires keeps them from solving working people’s actual problems. Newsom continues to attack working people through hyping far-right hysteria on his podcast. Closing out the episodes, it is revealing that Newsom has asked for guidance from his so-called political opponents on how they would build a winning strategy for the Democrats to avoid another embarrassing loss like 2024. He pontificated on whether he and other Democrats have simply become too “woke,” vigorously nodding his head as his increasingly far-right guests (most recently Steve Bannon) peddled lies that Democrats’ support for transgender Americans and other progressive causes has alienated the typical American voter, and that, in order to win, Democrats must abandon progressive causes and increasingly marginalized voters to appeal to the mythical “anti-woke voter.”
However, we know this to be false framing. The Democratic Party lost the Presidential election because they failed to keep Biden’s campaign promise to pass popular relief measures like Build Back Better, while spending billions of dollars funding Netanyahu’s genocide of Palestinians. All of this reflects Democrats’ refusal to separate from their ultra-rich donors, many of whom also donate to Republicans.
Gavin Newsom, a core leader of the Democratic party, is setting the tone for the platform of his party going forward—a platform that does not focus on the popular struggles of the working class, but rather a platform that chases the tail of right-wing culture wars. The only solution for working people is to join an independent socialist party like Peace and Freedom, that represents working-class issues, not the right-wing culture wars of Democrats and Republicans and their rich donors.
- Kevin Akin, California State Chair, Peace and Freedom Party.
