Gavin Newsom wants to THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION

Read time: 3 minutes

In brief:

• California Governor Gavin Newsom has ditched his usual respectful communication style for ALL CAPS posts and Trump-like trolling, including nicknaming him 'TACO'
• The posts are designed to provoke Republican outrage, The News Agents say, and are effective in the attention economy as they get pushed into more social media feeds.
• The News Agents question whether Newsom is mocking Trump or genuinely adopting his methods, risking a generation of politicians all sounding like Trump

What’s the story?

If you can’t beat them, join them, the saying goes.

And that’s exactly what Gavin Newsom has decided to do.

The California Governor is taking a leaf out of Donald Trump’s book, dropping his ‘nicey nicey, respectful Democrat’ communication style in favour of typing everything in BLOCK CAPS.

The trolling has seen him emulate the President’s “beautiful” language and give Trump the nickname ‘TACO’ (Trump always chickens out).

“Gavin Newsom is taking on the role of Bulldog in Chief for the Democrats,” Emily Maitlis says on The News Agents USA.

“He's found his canines, and he's not scared of attack”.

Newsom and Trump have never seen eye to eye, but the animosity strengthened after Trump sent heavily-armed federal agents to storm a Los Angeles park in July as part of his ramped-up deportation campaign.

Is Newsom trying to troll Trump, or learn something from his communication strategy?

Why is Newsom doing it?

Newsom hasn’t been afraid to stand up and make some noise in the past, most notably when Roe vs Wade was overturned in 2022.

The difference now, is he’s working smarter, not harder. Newsom’s new approach is prioritising today’s ‘attention economy’.

And that’s not just in terms of providing the shock-factor, it’s also to “game the algorithm”, Jon Sopel says.

He’s binned the usual Democrat strategy of respectfully disagreeing with Trump in favour of outlandish posts designed to provoke rage and fury from the Republicans - and when it works,his social media posts are pushed into more peoples feeds.

“There's a technical lesson there as well: It’s not just about the way you do it, but the way it can then get further coverage.”

How effective is it?

Since losing the election in November the Democrats have not only lacked any direction of their own, they’ve also found no way to effectively counter Trump’s endless controversial policies.

“The Democrats are lying in the road like they've all been run over,” Emily says.

“So anyone doing anything that makes them feel like they've got a pulse, I think is sort of quite heartwarming.”

While having a pulse isn’t the only criteria for a successful politician, Newsom’s new comms strategy - whether you like it or not - might be a necessity to reach the masses.

So much so that Jon believes that future fissures in the Democratic Party might be defined by those who communicate in the old way, and reach a narrow proportion of the population, and those who do what they need to do to engage.

“We're seeing it in British politics as well, to some extent, where people like Robert Jenrick and Nigel Farage are being very, very effective on social media and others are being left behind,” he says.

But Emily is still not convinced that Newsom’s Trump-inspired strategy is entirely thought-out.

“I don't think it's yet clear whether Newsom is parodying him, trolling him, or copying him,” she says.

“I do think that's going to be a problem, because, either you're saying ‘it's very effective, it works, I want to do that too’, or else you're saying, ‘that man sounds like an orange idiot, and I'm going to take him down’.

“And I think Newsom has got a foot in each camp at the moment. He doesn't quite know.”

Either way, if Newsom continues and others follow, the net result is the same - a generation of politicians sounding exactly like Donald Trump.

“There must be an alternative way for future politics, rather than everyone having to sound like Trump”.

Listen to the latest episode of The News Agents.