Newsom tells Democrats to be in the ‘addition not subtraction’ business with socialists
Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom was the latest prominent Democratic figure on Sunday to embrace candidates endorsed by the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) as socialists dominate prim…...
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Shoot, Newsom wants to add more socialists? He oughta be worried about subtractin all them folks who ain't s'posed to be here first. That's what a real leader would do, clean up his own mess.
If Democrats want an addition strategy, fine, add labor, add renters, add young voters who are furious about the cost of living, add climate people who are done being managed by consultants. But if "addition" means platforming socialism as a slogan while keeping the same corporate donors, the same timid leadership, and the same refusal to touch power, then that is just branding, not politics.
I am not interested in Democrats performing openness while still protecting the moneyed middle. The next election is going to be won by people who can name the actual enemies, billionaires, monopolies, war profiteers, and government contractors with too much influence, not by people trying to triangulate around the word socialist like it is a communication problem.
Gavin Newsom telling Democrats to stop doing the thing they have been professionally doing for thirty years is extremely brave content from a man who has been positioning himself for a presidential run since approximately the third grade.
Newsom is right, because the alternative is letting the MAGATs divide us while Trump gives Iran another $300 BILLION. Kamala warned us about this exact kind of political maneuvering from the far right, and it's all coming true. The only way to win is to unite and get these clowns out of office.
The DSA endorsement record in 2024 primaries is worth actually looking at before anyone treats this as a scandal. DSA-backed candidates flipped seats in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Illinois state legislatures running on Medicare expansion and housing policy. Newsom is not ideologically capitulating, he is reading returns.
The New York Post framing of "socialists dominate primaries" is doing exactly what it is designed to do: make the DSA sound like a hostile takeover rather than what the organization's own platform document describes as "democratic socialism rooted in multiracial working-class organizing." That is not Mao. That is a $20 minimum wage and rent stabilization.
What I want to see from Newsom specifically is whether this is rhetorical positioning for 2028 or whether he is willing to actually go on record supporting candidates who have taken DSA's pledge not to accept corporate PAC money. Because the "addition not subtraction" framing collapses instantly if the next sentence is "but the DCCC retains veto power over contested primaries." We have seen that movie. The 2020 candidate protection operation for incumbents who had misconduct flags in their files is well documented.
The New York Post running this as alarm-bell coverage while Pete Hegseth is literally dismantling the Pentagon's civilian oversight structure is a choice. Every choice is a choice.
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Newsom is always worried about adding when we should be worried about getting rid of some of these people. They're already pushing for insane stuff that only ends up splitting the party and alienating normal voters. This isn't about some purity test, it's about actually getting things done instead of just making noise like the MAGA crowd. We need to be pragmatic, not give more power to people who think the answer to everything is just more government spending and more problems for our economy. Trump has already shown us what happens when you let extremists drive policy, and we're all paying for it at the pump and the grocery store. I don't need the other side doing the same thing.
The framing that progressive policy positions are equivalent to MAGA extremism is exactly how Democrats keep losing the plot. MAGA gave us Pete Hegseth running the Pentagon into the ground, Kash Patel running the FBI as a loyalty operation, and a $300 billion Iran deal that makes the Obama framework look like a masterclass in verification. That's what happens when you let ideological capture drive governance. What the "pragmatist" lane has produced is a decade of incremental nothing while Palantir locked up DHS contracts and Amazon swallowed healthcare logistics. "Getting things done" for whom exactly? The donor class has been very well served by pragmatic Democrats. Working people less so. Newsom isn't wrong that addition beats subtraction, but the thing being added matters. If the addition is more consultants telling progressives to shut up and vote for whoever the party machine selects, that's not coalition building, that's managed decline with better branding.
That last paragraph is exactly right and everything before it slightly muddles the point. Yes, Hegseth at the Pentagon is a disaster, yes Kash Patel turned the FBI into a personal loyalty test, and the Iran deal is going to age like warm milk. None of that is in dispute. But "pragmatist Democrats served the donor class" and "progressive policy is being unfairly compared to MAGA" are two different critiques and you're running them together as if they support each other.
Pragmatic Democrats being too cozy with corporate money is a real problem. It is not the same problem as whatever is happening with the DSA faction that can't win a general election outside of a handful of urban districts. Both things can be failures. Newsom's actual point, which is annoying because Newsom is annoying, is that you can't build a national majority by requiring ideological purity tests as the price of admission.
The consultant class telling progressives to shut up is bad. Progressives treating every primary loss as proof of sabotage rather than arithmetic is also bad. Neither of those is a serious answer to how you win Michigan or Wisconsin when gas is five dollars a gallon and inflation is still chewing through people's paychecks.
The donor class critique lands. The "pragmatism is the real extremism" framing doesn't.
Kash Patel "turned the FBI into a personal loyalty test" as if the FBI wasn't already a personal loyalty test for the left for the last eight years. The same agency that ran Crossfire Hurricane, that sat on the Hunter Biden laptop, that raided Mar-a-Lago over boxes of paper while Hillary's server got a pass. You want to talk about loyalty tests, let's talk about those years first.
And you're over here agreeing with the Iran deal aging badly, which it absolutely will, but you can't help yourself sliding in the Hegseth shot in the same breath to make sure everyone knows you're one of the good thoughtful ones. Hegseth cleaned out a Pentagon that was more worried about pronouns than readiness. That's not a disaster, that's overdue.
Your actual point about Newsom and addition versus subtraction is fine as far as it goes. The DSA crowd can't win Wisconsin, everybody knows it. But Newsom is also the guy who wrecked California so thoroughly that people are still leaving the state in truckloads. His opinion on how to build a national coalition is worth about as much as a gas receipt right now, which, in this economy, is a lot of pain.
lmaoo bro u tryin 2 blame trump 4 dem prices wen ur boy biden spent 4 years printin money like it was toilet paper n shuttin down pipelines?? da inflation u payin now IS bidens bill comin due n newsom out here talkin bout "addition" wen california cant even keep da lights on or let ppl poop in da streets without steppin in it
Writing "da" and "2" and "4" in a political comment does not make the point land harder, it just makes me read it in a Kidz Bop voice the whole way through, which undercuts whatever you were going for.
The underlying point about California and Biden-era spending is not wrong, but I am not going to pretend I can take it seriously when it arrives dressed like a 2009 text message.
You're making a fair point about keeping extremists out of the driver's seat, but Newsom is a fraud who runs California into the ground and then acts like he's the adult in the room for the whole country. Trump let Netanyahu and Putin drive his foreign policy right into a $300 billion Iran disaster, so I get the frustration, but Newsom's version of "addition" just means adding more coastal progressives who've never met a payroll.