What’s that old Nietzsche line about gazing long into an abyss? Gavin Newsom would do well to recall it. Eventually, Donald Trump turns all of his critics into an ersatz version of himself, and, evidently, the governor of California is not immune. It is common to hear Newsom described as an oleaginous man, but, at this point, he might better be compared to sand. Sand absorbs oil, and retains its color in the process. Of late, Newsom has absorbed an Exxon Valdez’s worth of Trump.
It’s not just the all-caps tweeting, or the acid mockery, or the hypocritical demands that everyone but him must play nice that Newsom has assiduously copied. It’s the chutzpah. This week, Newsom tweeted that “nothing is sacred in Trump’s America — not the First Amendment, not the Second, not even life itself,” before vowing, “We, the People, will not allow the Trump Administration to erode our rights.” An admirable sentiment, in a vacuum. But surely the “we” in the sentence cannot include Gavin Newsom?
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