As the self-appointed head of the “resistance” to Donald Trump, Gavin Newsom has never been shy with his criticism of the US president. But over the past fortnight California’s governor has taken his attacks on Trump to a new level by co-opting the president’s all-caps, idiosyncratic style and using it to troll him on social media.
With posts declaring “DONALD IS FINISHED — HE IS NO LONGER ‘HOT’”, and artificial intelligence-generated muscle-bound images of himself carrying an American flag, Newsom is racking up page views and generating buzz. He is also drawing plenty of critical commentary from Fox News presenters and prominent conservatives — surely a desired outcome for the governor and his allies.
The aggressive social media campaign, along with Newsom’s frequent warnings to “wake up” to what he says is a move towards authoritarianism under Trump, appears to be energising some distraught Democrats concerned about the party’s failure to mount an effective pushback against the president.
“He’s fighting fire with fire and I think he’s had a big impact,” said Bob Shrum, a veteran Democratic strategist. “It’s born out of frustration with the president and a determination to see Democrats find new ways to fight back.”
Newsom reaches the end of his second and final term as California’s governor in 2026, and he is widely expected to run for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2028. His in-your-face stance against Trump, along with the fact that he runs the most-populous state in the US, almost guarantees Newsom will have a louder megaphone than some other Democrats in the early running. Already, Newsom’s new social media strategy may have Democratic primary voters in its sights, Shrum said.
A case in point came after Trump met Russia’s President Vladimir Putin in Alaska last week, when Newsom issued a lengthy all-caps missive that used some of the president’s most famous put-downs against him. “TRUMP JUST FLED THE PODIUM WITH PUTIN . . . TOTAL LOW ENERGY,” it said, before reeling off insults about the size of Trump’s hands and suggesting Trump Tower “smells weird”. He signed off using his initials, GCN, echoing the president’s use of his own initials, DJT. (Newsom’s middle name is Christopher.)
If it seems juvenile and beneath the office of California’s top elected official, this is part of the strategy, which one aide described as “holding up a mirror to Maga”. After all, Trump refers to Newsom in social media posts as “Gavin Newscum”.
“I think it’s pretty sophisticated,” Shrum said of the governor’s social media strategy. “He’s reacting in real time to some of the stuff the president does that he doesn’t like. Trump will tweet, and then you’ll get a Newsom tweet 20 minutes later.”
The strategy marks a sea change from earlier this year, when Trump savaged Newsom and Los Angeles mayor Karen Bass over their handling of the LA fires.
“The response from Newsom and Bass at the time was to set up a website to fact-check and try to dispel misinformation, and they got completely bowled over,” said Mike Madrid, former political director of the California Republican party and a co-founder of the Lincoln Project, an anti-Trump group. “And what they realised is that if they’re not dominating the social media space, then they’re getting drowned by it.”
Newsom began to adopt a much more aggressive stance during the LA protests against Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids in June, when Trump sent in the National Guard and Marines.
The governor has a small group of people supporting him on his social media posts, but he is also using skills acquired as a longtime consumer of conservative media to shape the strategy. Newsom is one of a handful of Democrats who seem to relish appearing on Fox News, sitting for interviews with Sean Hannity and taking part in a raucous live debate on the network with his Republican counterpart in Florida, Ron DeSantis.
Hannity, who admits he finds Newsom to be “a likeable guy,” said on Fox that the governor is “embarrassing himself” with the social media campaign. “It’s a huge political miscalculation.”
The president has been uncharacteristically restrained in the face of Newsom’s trolling, dedicating just one Truth Social post to the California governor this week claiming “Gavin Newscum is way down in the polls”.
At an event at the White House on Friday, Trump said: “I know Gavin very well. He’s an incompetent guy with a good line of bullshit. And he doesn’t get the job done.”
Judging by the numbers, Newsom’s strategy has been working. Since August 1, the governor’s press office account has gained an increase of more than 325,000 followers and received well over 300mn impressions.
A video of a nine-minute speech Newsom gave at the height of June’s protests received more than 40mn views.
Fuelling many of Newsom’s posts this week has been an effort to redraw California’s electoral map to create new congressional seats for Democrats. The move is a response to a similar effort in Texas, requested by Trump, that could give Republicans five new seats.
Newsom has again co-opted Trump’s playbook as he has tried to sell the idea of bypassing California’s independent panel to reallocate seats. “[Trump is] trying to rig the election, he’s trying to set up the conditions where he can claim that the elections were not won fair and square,” the governor said this week.
And on social media, that boiled down to a Trumpian turn of phrase. “TODAY WE WILL MAKE THE MAPS GREAT AGAIN!” he posted on X.
It is the kind of fiery language that many Democrats and so-called Never Trumpers have been wanting to hear.
Madrid said: “The reorientation of his team, his staff, and his tone has been all of the difference. He is winning the war, I would argue, on social media, on Trump’s own battleground.”
He added: “He’s the tip of the spear of the resistance for sure.”
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