As conservative media decries and (some) liberal commentators celebrate California Gov. Gavin Newsom‘s viral and no-holds-barred trolling of President Donald Trump via a campaign of social media mimicry that is deliberately juvenile, commenters and content creators are finding a new prompt for their creative energies.
Newsom himself is responding to the reactions also, as he taunts Fox News star Sean Hannity below, saying Hannity’s criticism “alllllmost” hits its mark. (Another hallmark of Trump’s style which Newsom is borrowing is the mockery of objectors as simply people who are too thick-headed to understand his “very stable genius” strategies.)
So, Hannity recognizes that it's bait, but still takes the bait by talking about it on air. Brilliant move.
— Seanye (@daSituasean) August 21, 2025
With Trump so often meme-ified into glorious poses by his rightwing admirers, cast with cartoon splendor as a muscled marauder campaigning for justice in superman garb — or sometimes wrestling gear — Newsom is now being projected in the same visual terms by content creators who are taking the Governor’s lead and running with it.
In Gavin we trust pic.twitter.com/N4EFg11RAb
— Dell (@Dell4peace) August 21, 2025
Trying to even the playing field so that both parties — not just Trump, who has mastered it — can speak with the same sort of bravado that memes rely on, Newsom may find himself a sacrificial lamb. Making the jokes, he risks becoming one if his detractors can pin him down as a clown.
But so far the jokes are landing with his audience, his approval ratings are up, and he’s got pundits explaining his strategies for him — another key Trump asset.
Below is young pundit Adam Mockler at a CNN roundtable explaining the leveling aspect of Newsom’s strategy, saying “norms work like consent” — in that they only have value if both parties follow them.
Mockler: Norms in a democracy work a lot like consent. You can't have meaningful consent when only one side is engaging in that, and you can't have meaningful norms when one side is engaging. So when Obama says, we're okay with temporary redistricting proportional to what Texas… pic.twitter.com/no6bQ2Qih4
— Acyn (@Acyn) August 21, 2025
Further proof that Newsom is reaching at least part of the audience he wants — maybe the most important member — is that the President himself is talking about him.
Trump is up past midnight tweeting about Gavin Newsom pic.twitter.com/x5BUqOari4
— PatriotTakes 🇺🇸 (@patriottakes) August 21, 2025
Mission-critical virality is a product of both meme-ing and commenting, as different audiences find content when it gets amplified by influencers with ample follower counts. Below, Jeopardy winner and Chicago-born influencer and atheist Hemant Mehta — with 100K-plus followers — shared a Newsom troll, adding his own Trump mimicry to double down on the “meta” aspect of what Newsom’s act is doing to the political scene.
Saying that Trump is imitating Newsom, when it is the other way around, Mehta adds a funhouse mirror effect to the trolling — because now when Trump uses all CAPS and lashes out on social, the background echo of Newsom’s mocking mimicry tags along.
Like Newsom, Mehta uses one of Trump’s own phrases — in this case, “reeks of desperation” — to pose the suddenly tricky question that Newsom’s impactful political sabotage makes possible: Does Newsom sound like Trump, or does Trump — in his latest post — sound a little bit like Newsom?
Trump's trying to copy Newsom's style to get attention. Just reeks of desperation. https://t.co/QFYVxN9Das
— Hemant Mehta (@hemantmehta) August 21, 2025
