Newsom just another attention-seeking political blowhard

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There’s all the time been a performative side to American politics. Politicians say or do issues to hunt consideration, somewhat than contribute to governance. Nevertheless it has turn out to be pervasive in recent times.

Former President Donald Trump personifies the bombastic strategy, saying something to get his supporters riled up — even to the purpose of violence – and draw media consideration, irrespective of how indifferent from actuality.

Sadly, nonetheless, Trump is just not alone. Politicians of all ideological stripes now see attention-grabbing verbiage as an finish unto itself, making declarations and issuing guarantees with little or no grounding in actuality — however that may idiot the unwary.

California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, is a very lively performer, scarcely letting a day move with out uttering — or tweeting — one thing that attracts the eye that he apparently craves, significantly from nationwide political media.
Newsom repeatedly exchanges incendiary rhetoric and tacky stunts with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and says he would debate his partisan rival. Verbal battle serves their equal craving for nationwide prominence.

“California gained’t be doing enterprise with @Walgreens – or some other firm that cowers to the extremists and places ladies’s lives in danger. We’re performed,” Newsom tweeted in March.

California reporters took him critically and commenced asking administration officers how they have been going to cancel Walgreens’ state contracts. Officers shortly mentioned there have been no cancellation plans as a result of underneath federal legislation, these with Medi-Cal well being care can get prescriptions from any licensed pharmacy.

Newsom spokesperson Anthony York then mentioned, “Tweeting is just not coverage,” including, that the governor won’t “take any motion that hurts individuals who want entry to care.”

If a governor’s tweets aren’t coverage, then what’s? Does it imply nobody ought to take critically something Newsom says?

One wonders, for instance, about his off-the-cuff assertion to a tv interviewer that he would appoint a Black lady to the U.S. Senate if Sen. Dianne Feinstein resigns. Is that to be taken actually or does it fall into the “tweeting is just not coverage” class of meaninglessness?

A few different examples come to thoughts.

Newsom signed laws making a fee to check reparations for Black Californians stemming from the residual results they expertise from slavery, saying it could right the “structural racism and bias constructed into and permeating all through our democratic and financial establishments.”

“Coping with that legacy is about rather more than money funds,” the governor mentioned in an preliminary response, whereas praising the fee’s work as “a milestone in our bipartisan effort to advance justice and promote therapeutic.”

So, was Newsom’s signature on the unique invoice simply advantage signaling? He needed to know that creating the fee might elevate expectations for advantages that might be costly, and maybe not possible, to implement.

Newsom’s newest bid for consideration is proposing an modification to the U.S. Structure that might legalize California-style controls on weapons. He garnered nationwide media consideration however as soon as once more advocates for one thing disconnected from actuality.

Jurors in prison trials are instructed that in the event that they discover a witness to be untruthful in a single response they need to be skeptical of different statements. It must be utilized to politicians like Trump, DeSantis and Newsom who, like naughty youngsters, say provocative issues simply to say them.

Dan Walters is a CalMatters columnist.