Hat tip to a battered combatant; time for new champions

Gavin Newsom has never been one of my favorite politicians. I've mostly thought that he's just a pretty face.

That old San Francisco crook Willie Brown implanted Gavin on the city; he pranced, preened and touted flimsy progressive bonafides while afflicting the poor and homeless. His mayoral tenure included plenty of flash, but no sign of judgement. After all, in those days he was married to the woman who is now Trump Jr.'s main squeeze, Kimberly Guilfoyle; no kidding ...

When he decamped to Sacramento to spend eight years as Jerry Brown's lieutenant governor/understudy, we didn't have to hear so much from him; that's not a high profile office.  I am willing to admit he hasn't been a disastrous governor once he moved up the ladder. Maybe he learned something from watching Jerry.

But now that he's completed that ascent, he's running around the country tweaking the MAGAs on their Confederate turf, once more the flashy huckster we first knew him as. As a San Franciscan, it's kind of fun to watch -- and hard to take seriously.

But I think pundit Mike Madrid may be on to something in a Los Angeles Times commentary. Newsom is making himself useful in the struggle to preserve progressive democracy.

Newsom’s new tactical offensive — most recently an appearance last week in Sarasota, Fla., to highlight conservative efforts to limit education — marks the end of the “When they go low, we go high” brand of politics popularized by former First Lady Michelle Obama during the early days of the Trump era. Democrats believed that the vulgarization of the public square was beneath them, and that mindset was a losing tactic. The political reality is that the high-minded ideal doesn’t work if you allow your opposition to choose the battleground.

... Newsom’s unapologetic embrace of such broadly popular social issues as same-sex marriage and the legalization of marijuana and the nation’s most progressive positions on gun control and reproductive rights gives the country’s largest blue state governor the bully pulpit to drive Democrats in a new direction.

While Biden is wisely focused on inflation and the war in Ukraine, Newsom has picked up the issues that animate the necessary coalitions to win elections. ...

... For decades, Republicans have looked to Democratic cultural excess for success at the ballot box, but considerable demographic, social and technological change has transformed the traditional terms of political engagement. Simply put, American culture today is not what it was 30 years ago.

I doubt very much that  Gavin Newsom is going to lead Democrats to a promised land of renewed government that works for justice, equity, and kindness. He's been around too long and his brand is too complex.

That fight will be led by a new generation of champions. Greg Sargent and Paul Waldman catalogue some of them; you can find more in Jessica Valenti's invaluable Abortion, Every Day. Obviously this includes the two Tennessee Justins who didn't know they were supposed to shut up around their white elders; parents and other adult supporters of trans kids like Nebraska State Senator Megan Hunt and Michigan State Senator Mallory McMorrow; brave advocates for reproductive rights such as Idaho Rep. Lauren Necochea. 

The road ahead is hard for these emerging leaders, but let's honor their fight for all our lives in a terrible moment of profound promise.