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Civitas Outlook
Topic
Politics
Published on
Mar 26, 2025
Contributors
Joel Kotkin
Photo from Office of the California Governor via Wikimedia Commons

Does Gavin Newsom Believe in Anything?

Contributors
Joel Kotkin
Joel Kotkin
Senior Research Fellow
Joel Kotkin
Summary
Tech elites are his one lodestar.
Summary
Tech elites are his one lodestar.

Gavin Newsom’s new podcast reveals not only a media-savvy politico seeking more exposure to a bigger audience. It also reflects a concerted drive by the onetime self-anointed leader of the #Resistance to reinvent himself as the unique progressive breaking through to MAGA World, as evidenced by his decision to invite Right-wing firebrands like Charlie Kirk, Michael Savage, and Steve Bannon as his initial guests.

This shift away from liberal orthodoxy has shocked Newsom’s long-time progressive allies, who see it as an act of treachery. Yet if they had been paying attention to Newsom’s career — above all, his willingness to morph into whatever identity best serves his quest for power — this wouldn’t be so surprising.

Conservatives, too, will discover that Newsom isn’t a tool of the progressive Left, or a typical California progressives with “communistic” policies, as one conservative outlet described them. On the contrary, Newsom, unlike his predecessor, Jerry Brown, has been a committed, shameless sniffer of political winds throughout his career.

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