“America is in an existential struggle for democracy,” says California Governor Gavin Newsom in a new video that many are characterizing as an early primer for a 2024 presidential run. Newsom is launching a new ‘Campaign for Democracy’ with the stated goal of wrestling back power from what he calls “authoritarians” in the GOP.
“Extremist Republicans are systematically attacking the very foundations of our free society,” Newsom says, claiming his new organization had raised $100,000 from donations in all fifty states in just a few hours.
The nearly two-minute video deploys a campaign style and articulates a broad platform, unambiguously claiming a national agenda and national ambitions, the scope of which political watchers say matches Newsom’s own ambitions.
NEW: I’m launching a new organization, Campaign for Democracy.
— Gavin Newsom (@GavinNewsom) March 30, 2023
America is in an existential struggle for democracy.
Extremist Republicans are systematically attacking the very foundations of our free society — denying women equality, attacking https://t.co/dhkSqoB0db… pic.twitter.com/cvdJu9mNro
In the middle of enumerating the problems that Newsom says are attributable to Republican strong-arming over popular will, Newsom — pictured with President Joe Biden — promises he’ll “lead the fight to make sure we’ll elect leaders in 2024 who believe in democracy.”
It’s not hard to see the photo — and another where Newsom is shown with Vice President Kamala Harris — as optics working to shift the California governor to the national stage, just as his ‘Campaign for Democracy’ plans to put agenda boots on the ground in the states.
In a nation roiled by division, Newsom identifies the biggest problem facing the U.S. right now as “authoritarian leaders who are so hell bent on gaining power and keeping it by whatever means necessary that they are directly attacking our freedoms in state after state.”
As Newsom speaks, photos of those authoritarians he presumably refers to flash on the screen — Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, Texas Governor Greg Abbott, and Donald Trump among them.
Newsom proposes a road show to help restore freedoms in states that are dominated by what he portrays as autocratic figures who “ban books, fire teachers, criminalize doctors, intimidate librarians…kidnap migrants.”
Newsom continues, adding to his list of purported transgressions against individual freedoms perpetrated by Republican legislators, accusing GOP leadership of targeting trans kids, stoking racism and condoning anti-Semitism.
Newsom says “what’s happening in those red states, it’s not who we are. It’s un-American, it’s un-Democratic.”
Whether the red states want Newsom’s assistance remains to be seen, but many in California do. Amidst the normal blowback from MAGA mercenaries and the ubiquitous bots in the comments, one commenter spoke plainly to Newsom about the governor’s new national effort writing: “Again, please stay focused on California. We have so many problems here. Stirring up more division on a national level does NOT help Californians.”
