Libbing Out At Gavin Newsom’s Early Victory Lap

A few minutes before Gavin Newsom’s “sold-out” book tour stop in New York City, a group of young women with lanyards started ushering people from the back of Temple Emanu-El’s auditorium to the front. For about an hour staff had been holding seats, refusing to let the general public sit close to the stage. They appeared to have a surprising number of VIP no-shows. Behind me, women gossiped about the age of Newsom’s conversation partner, the 23-year-old TikToker Harry Sisson. “He’s the Charlie Kirk of the left,” one woman behind me whispered. Since we had to show our IDs to get in, many wives were telling their husbands to put their driver’s licenses away lest they lose them. They joked about driving in from Connecticut, struggled to take off their massive jackets, and squabbled over seats. “Do you watch The Pitt?” one woman asked. “Love him,” the other replied. “Love him.” 

Just before the talk began, an advertisement for a talk in defense of Zionism went up on screen. The Executive Director of the Streicker Center, Dr. Grady Levy, introduced Newsom and champion his work for universal health coverage, gay marriage, and excluding trans girls from sports. The fact that one of these things is not like the other did not seem to occur to him. Sisson walked on stage to warm up the crowd, making hackneyed jokes about Gen Z and politics. He sat down in front of a marble table piled high with copies of Newsom’s new book Young Man in a Hurry. Newsom glided to his seat to tumultuous applause before starting his spiel, speaking with the typical cadence of a politician — not unlike Chris Noth in The Good Wife. “It’s not a politician’s book,” he chirped. “It’s a love letter to my mom and dad.” He started tapping the books next to him with a smile, calling the memoir “reflective.” Sisson echoed everything Newsom said — whenever he could get a word in. 

“My mom said it was okay to be average,” Newsom continued. “I hated her for that.” The book, he insisted, was an attempt to decipher his resume values from his eulogy values — to take stock of his career up until he was elected governor of California in 2018. During the nearly hour-long discussion, Newsom discussed his love of Remington Steele, his mother’s death via assisted suicide, and his “West Coast Offense.” When he pointed out that he had hired the former head of the CDC after Trump’s scuttling of the agency, the crowd broke out into applause. It was a common refrain, a victory lap for a man who would seem to easily pass the presidential test. Would I have a beer with him? Recently, controversial model and looksmaxxer Clavicular said he would vote for Newsom over J.D. Vance in 2028 because Newsom is more attractive. While neither has officially announced their candidacy, it only seems like a matter of time. (“You can’t quote a twinkle,” one editor told Rory Gilmore. “No, but you can describe it,” she replied. Gilmore Girls, like The West Wing, is fundamentally about the fantasy and limitations of libbing out.)

Newsom’s aggressive presence on X also brought the house down. It seemed hard for Newsom not to bring his crowd to rapture. Perhaps I’ve been to too few political rallies. “We have to fight fire with fire,” Newsom said, clearly relishing the chance to speak his mind to a Democratic crowd. “Otherwise we’ll lose the Republic.” We can’t just write op-eds anymore, Newsom says. It’s time to go dark woke — although he has his limits. Yes, he fought for gay marriage before Obama. No, he doesn’t like trans kids. 

He admitted, of course, to his proximity to wealth. But he tried to distance himself from growing up alongside the Gettys. Despite wearing suits, starting businesses, and marrying a socialite, he was merely playing “into the stereotype,” he argued. After all, he went to college on a partial baseball scholarship and struggled with dyslexia. Cue his multiple gestures to former New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio, whose universal literacy plan was criticized for neglecting dyslexic students, sitting in the crowd.

Newsom insists there’s a difference between moral and formal authority. That’s why he believes in the people of Minneapolis fighting back against the Trump regime — an authoritarianism that Newsom believes is in retreat. His sermon-cum-drash seemed to confirm his strategy: stick to the basics. Don’t try anything too new. Whether or not this business-as-usual approach will be enough to stand out in a potentially crowded Democratic primary remains to be seen, but Newsom doesn’t seem worried about possible challengers like Kamala Harris or Andy Beshear. “I’m blessed,” he said, standing up to leave. —Grace Byron