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[–] 33 points 9 months ago (1 child)

Newsom says he’s eager to pitch a big tent for the Democratic Party, declaring that he welcomes the likes of former US senator Joe Manchin as well as New York’s socialist mayor Zohran Mamdani in the fold. “I want it to be the Manchin to Mamdani party,” Newsom said in November.

Newsom can fuck right the hell off. Manchin represents everything that is wrong with the Democratic party and so, apparently, does Newsom.

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  • [–] 39 points 9 months ago (9 children)

    You mean the serial adulterer who can't read and whose entire life has been sponsored by a Getty oil heir isn't a good candidate for president of the United States? Shocked.

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  • [+] -6 points 9 months ago (8 children)

    I thought his inability to read was because of ADHD. We back to hatin on disabilities again?

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  • [–] 24 points 9 months ago

    I mean, in addition to what everyone else said, disabilities can in fact disqualify you from being a good president.

    If someone is non-verbally autistic with an ID diagnosis, it's not ableist to say they aren't a good candidate to be president.

    Obviously this is a spectrum, and ADHD shouldn't be, on its face, disqualifying. But if it's so bad you're literally illiterate, then it's no ableist to say that makes you a bad candidate to be president.

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  • [–] 15 points 9 months ago (4 children)

    Eh... Context is important. I think if he had overcome his disability and managed to power through it to achieve a decent education that would actually be a plus.

    Instead he has a bachelor's from an expensive private school where he "studied" abroad. I think it's just indicative of his history of being able to rely on connections and money to achieve his position in life. And it makes me doubt that he is educated enough or willing to work hard enough to learn all the things someone should know to be president of the United States.

    As someone who has a neurodevelopmental disorder, my problem isn't that he has a learning disability. It's that he's a rich fuck boy with a learning disability, which is a powerful combo. I know if I had a friend who just gifted me multi-million dollar businesses that allowed me to do whatever I wanted.....I would be an idiotic terror.

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  • [–] 6 points 9 months ago (1 child)

    I tutor, and I’ve ran into lots of rich boys with disabilities who learn that they can get their parents to pay for their homework to be done for them (or the mom does it herself…). Fired a client because he had too much of a “reading disability” to do the required reading for the paper we were writing - previous tutors would write his papers for him!

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  • [–] 2 points 9 months ago

    Yep. I have a position at a teaching hospital where we teach residents from all over the country. The ones from pay to play private schools are always subpar both in their education and especially in people skills. Most of them drop, or pivot to administration positions where they don't have to associate with everyday people.

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  • [–] 18 points 8 months ago (2 children)

    This guy was once married to Kimberly Gilfoyle, who was Don Jr's concubine for a few years, until fairly recently, so that tells me all I have to know about him, or her. He's a Manchurian MAGA.

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  • [–] 2 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    Wow I didn't know this. This should be talked about more

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  • [–] 2 points 8 months ago

    She got exiled to Greece to be the ambassador, and shut her up. On one hand, she's out of the inner circle, so it's a huge step down, socially, but on the other hand, she's an AMBASSADOR - la dee dah! - and not just and ambassador of some off-brand country, she's the ambassador of Greece, which is...um...a country people have heard of. Beautiful, they say.

    Anyway, she's way over there.

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  • [–] 18 points 8 months ago

    I saw him speak at Davos a while ago and I thought he was a big phony guy with very little acting skills but who is constantly acting. Another cult of personality instead of any real depth of thought.

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  • [–] 13 points 9 months ago (1 child)

    Best way I've heard to describe him is, "at least he's lawful evil"

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  • [–] 8 points 9 months ago

    Such is the standards of our time, where Law, even an Evil variety, is better than the purely malicious Chaos we have. Mostly because the law is running on the fading fumes of Neutral.

    Given a few decades of Newsom, we would have Ronald Reagan Deluxe.

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  • [–] 12 points 9 months ago (2 children)

    Gavin Newsom has a greater chance of losing to Vance and almost any other democratic candidate.

    Libs need to stop falling for the 'leftists want trump to win, see look they wont commit to voting for the Democrats' shtick. They just want to discredit the part of the base that's trying to actually save the party.

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  • [–] 16 points 9 months ago (1 child)

    Mamdani handed the DNC a win and they fought him the whole way anyhow. Centrists as always act like there’s no alternative between centrism and conservatism even though it’s only and specifically because they systematically attack anyone who actually tries to make things truly better.

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  • [–] 32 points 9 months ago (6 children)
  • [–] 11 points 9 months ago (5 children)

    I hate to admit this, but I used to listen to the Adam Corolla podcast years ago, and he had Newsom on as a guest when he was lieutenant governor of California. At the time, he claimed that the biggest issue facing Californians was being unbanked. Like payday loan companies were the worst threat.

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  • [–] 9 points 9 months ago (4 children)

    Newsom was Lt. Governor of CA from 2011-2019. I am not Californian, and I don't know what they're dealing with outside of the seemingly-constant wildfires, and those seem pretty fucking bad, and I'm sure there are some other pretty terrible things Californians have to deal with, too.

    That said, payday loan companies deserve to get spit-roasted by the Devil and the Devil's angriest pet donkey in the deepest bowels of Hell.

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  • [–] 0 points 9 months ago (3 children)

    As a Californian, the state is absolutely huge and I have never been affected by any of the wildfires and frankly I doubt more than 1% of the population has even been affected directly by the fires. It's a completely overblown issue. Does it suck? Yes. Does the media make it seem the entire state is on fire 24/7? Yeah. Don't believe the media.

    The real issues Californians face are:

    • Housing/Zoning/NIMBYs
    • Public transportation
    • ISP services(or lack thereof)
    • Huge population(traffic, cars, etc), of course some areas are worse than others

    We do have pretty cheap groceries as long as you don't shop at Target or Pavilions. Costco, WinCo, Aldi's, etc. all have great pricing compared to other posts I see from around the country. Same goes for gas. Costco is around $3.50-$4.00 a gallon(for 87) for the past couple years. But the Chevron or Shell down the street is $4.50-$5 a gallon.

    Taxes are also overblown. Everyone looks at our marginal rates and go "so high!" but never calculate what their effective rate is, which is usually much lower.

    And then people love to bring up "the homeless" like there's a camp on every street corner. Like yeah, maybe in LA. But for my city I have only seen the occasional pan handler on the freeway off ramps, which I doubt are even homeless since I've seen at least one leave their corner and go to their SUV in the nearby parking lot and drive away at the end of the day, like it's a job for them.

    We have our issues, the state is far from perfect, but I'd rather be here in Cali than any other state at this point.

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  • [–] 1 point 9 months ago* (1 child)

    A few years back the Boston globe did an expose on panhandlers and yeah, there are scammers and you need to recognize them but most people in need are truly people in need.

    My take on it was that aggressive panhandlers in prime locations (major tourist spots, intersections with chronic backups) are most likely scammers. People sitting quietly looking defeated are in need. The hard part is deciding whether/how to help all those in between, but it’s good to remember that most people who look homeless are homeless

    Then there’s that weird guy who approached to talk about his knife, probably to try to steal my dog while technically not threatening - I so regret not calling police

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  • [–] 2 points 9 months ago

    Oh for sure, I try to keep cash on me for the ones I know truly are homeless. Sometimes I need to do late night grocery runs and the dude hanging out in front of a grocery store at 10pm isn't a scammer. If I don't have cash I usually offer to buy something, usually grocery stores have those pre-made sandwiches.

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  • [–] 22 points 9 months ago

    Watching how fast he threw the trans community under the bus told me everything I needed to know about him. He has the moral compass of a boiled piece of spaghetti... fuck this corpo dem.

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  • [–] 30 points 9 months ago (7 children)

    Hopefully, we get AOC as the front runner. I am sick of the Democratic establishment.

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  • [–] 25 points 9 months ago (5 children)

    Only the democratic establishment could lose to Trump TWICE!!!

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  • [–] 6 points 8 months ago (3 children)

    Nah, MAGA won once in 2016, with Russian interference, but they only prevailed in 2024 because they openly cheated, with the help of Musk and Putin, and the MAGA comedy act of Schmuck & Jeffries covered for them.

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  • [–] 6 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    Democrats lost in 2016 and 2024. They would have lost in 2020 if it weren't for covid.

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  • [–] 1 point 8 months ago

    They openly stole it in 2024, and they told us they were doing it the entire time they were doing it. They didn't even try to hide it. MAGAs and Dems chose to ignore it "for the good of the country," or some such happy horseshit, and here we fucking are.

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  • [–] 20 points 8 months ago (4 children)

    I believe the term is Blue MAGA.

    And the worst part is the democratic party will champion this fucker because it's fully bought and paid for.

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  • [–] 3 points 8 months ago (3 children)

    The people who are upset with that term just enforce the reason why we have the term.

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  • [–] 3 points 8 months ago (2 children)

    I mean, if they didn't want people using the term, they should tried harder not to fit the description, yeah?

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  • [–] 17 points 9 months ago (3 children)

    What, this guy? Surely not.

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  • [–] 13 points 9 months ago (1 child)

    gavin isn't the greatest but he was just following state law

    https://bsky.app/profile/parkermolloy.com/post/3merscb5bhs2i

    Parker Molloy ‪@parkermolloy.com‬ rubs temples

    As I've spent the better part of the day explaining why I don't think Newsom should be the Democratic nominee for president, it pains me to "defend" this, but...

    The governor of California is legally obligated to proclaim each Feb 6 Reagan Day per a 2010 state law.

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  • [–] 4 points 9 months ago*

    I got bad news for you... Also the person dnc/dems elected to give the state of the union rebuttal did nothing but say we should go back to Reagan times so really shows how much the dems are gonna fight

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  • [–] 15 points 9 months ago (7 children)

    I personally think Mark Kelly will be running and I just might choose him.

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  • [–] 9 points 9 months ago (5 children)

    He's the better choice strategically.

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  • [–] 11 points 9 months ago (4 children)

    Only problem is Kelly has the charisma that of a potato.

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  • [–] 54 points 9 months ago (30 children)

    As compared to what? Is he worse than Trump? I sincerely fucking doubt it.

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  • [–] 68 points 9 months ago (10 children)

    That's a ridiculously low bar, but it's also an important distinction.

    Do I want Gavin Newsom to be the Democrat nominee for 2028? Hell no! He's revealed himself to be a shallow political opportunist and an ideological chameleon. And I think that party can do better.

    But regardless, would he be an improvement over Trump? Hell yes!

    Another question is: is he - a supposedly populist liberal from California - even electable on a national stage? I don't think so. But then, we live in very 'interesting' times. So who knows.

    The third question is: will we have a fair enough election in 2028 (or an election at all)? That remains to be seen.

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  • [–] 3 points 9 months ago (3 children)

    See this I feel. These articles annoy me because it feels like the dem bad thing but yeah if your talking canidate heck I would love waltz. him being put on as vice president was the main thing that jazzed me a bit with harris. Honestly I did not want my own govenor to run because our state has been such a trump show in the past and its nice being on track for awhile but man we need something decent in the role. I really don't know enough about newsom to say for sure but he certiainly does not have much going for him outside of using social media to combat trump which is good idea overall. Still unlike republicans I am going to be voting based on someone who I think can actually do a good job in the role rather than score some points.

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  • [–] 0 points 9 months ago (2 children)

    These do annoy me. Of course Newsom is not the best candidate but they are distracting everyone from how much better that would be than the current shitshow

    And I have to ask y’all, are we really going to an insists on an ideal candidate regardless whether they are electable?

    I have no idea whether Newsom is but he has name recognition, presidential presence, and a successful “populist” strategy. He has successfully positioned himself as a leading foil of Trump. All that stuff that seem necessary for getting elected even if they have no part in whether they would do well for their constituents. …. And they’re building a train!

    I do always wonder if this is just republicans trying to astroturf “both sides the same”.

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  • [–] 3 points 8 months ago

    I think there's this assumption that the more centrist a dem is, the more electable they are and that may have been true decades ago. Now though? With how polarized the electorate is, people either vote for their party's candidate or the couch. Trump got roughly the same number of votes in 2024 (77M) as 2020( 74M) maybe he changed some minds; but Harris got 7M fewer votes than biden (81->74). People stayed home. "Not trump" wasn't enough to get excited about for enough folks, and that's about all Newsom has to offer

    I genuinely believe Bernie is more electable than Newsom. We should give voters some credit

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  • [–] 2 points 9 months ago

    I mean when it comes to primaries I do not vote on electability. I think that is how we get the democrats we have now. Come general though im not going to be supporting the republican by voting for them or not voting. Bernie was the supposed unelectable canidate and I voted for him but come the general I voted for clinton.

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  • [–] 2 points 9 months ago (5 children)

    Put it this way, us overseas would rather see Newsom in charge of it than Trump.

    That’s way better for us.

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  • [–] 4 points 9 months ago (4 children)

    Anyone would be an improvement over Trump. Even Vance, probably. I'd gladly see Newsom win. But even more than that, I'd like to see Bernie, Warren or AOC win.

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  • [–] 1 point 9 months ago* (2 children)

    Me too, but anyone who doesn’t threaten the sovereignty of other countries and respects some form of order is good for us.

    Edit: Vance would last a month and no, if he could get full influence he might be as bad or worse than Trump.

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  • [–] 33 points 9 months ago (1 child)

    Democrats have been playing the "well they suck, but at least they're not Trump!" game for a decade and gotten Trump two out of three times. Maybe we should aim higher.

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  • [–] 14 points 9 months ago* (5 children)

    As compared to some of the other candidates that might have run if the Democratic Primary were an actual primary and not a coronation.

    The last time Democrats ran an actual primary ws 2008, when a young, generational candidate beat out the (kinda boring) establishment choice. Democrats learned their lesson to never let something encouraging like that happen again!

    Gavin's gonna win the Primary, as his right as the Next One Up, and we're all gonna vote for him, because as awful as he is, he is objectively better than whoever the MAGA party will run.

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  • [–] 4 points 9 months ago

    And this is the exact attitude why nothing will ever change in this country. You can't keep voting in people hellbent on maintaining the hegemony capital has over everyone and expect anything to get better for you.

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  • [–] 0 points 9 months ago (3 children)

    In the history of Democratic party, there was exactly one time where the candidate that the DNC chose, actually lost a popular vote. Exactly one.
    It was in 2008, when a young, generational candidate actually lost the popular vote by 1% to the (kinda boring) establishment choice, but was chosen anyway.
    It's nice to have this simplistic worldview, when "they" control everything anyway so you don't have to do anything and just complain when "they" don't do what you want. It's harder to confront the reality when "they" actually consist of all the people around you, and the only reason you don't get what you want is because you don't do shit.

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  • [–] 6 points 9 months ago* (2 children)

    Nice try, but the popular vote doesn't mean anything in primaries, because the elections are held over a period of time and many candidates drop out mid-way through, so we will never know how many Joe Biden or John Edwards voters would have voted for Obama over Clinton. Clinton did not win a majority of votes, after all.

    Obama won a majority of pledged delegates, even before taking the undemocratic Super Delegates into account, and it's delegates that count.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Democratic_Party_presidential_primaries

    Democrats don't need to mess with the counting of votes to "fix" primaries. They do it the old fashioned way, by manipulating the primary calendar to make certain candidates inevitable.

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  • [–] 0 points 9 months ago

    Popular vote reflects how people who actually vote think. Candidates aren't appearing out of thin air, they're nominated as the result of political campaigns.
    You can't shift the blame for candidates to ambiguous "them" if you didn't get your ass to try to affect it in any way. The delegates represent pretty nicely the opinion of people who actually vote in Primaries, with almost perfect track record. They don't represent your opinion because you don't vote therefore don't have an opinion. So you don't get to complain about what party that you're not in is doing. Want it to change? Use the ways to change it. Those ways aren't hidden from you, aren't secret, aren't gatekeeped by a shadow cabal, you just need to do politics about it. People who get their candidates elected do that.

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  • [+] 3 points 9 months ago* (1 child)
  • [–] 2 points 9 months ago

    There’s an argument that most of the stuff done in trumps name would be “ok” if he did it legally and that’s what people wanted. It’s the abuse of authority, the personal enrichment, violating the constitution, holding people above the law, enforcing personal feelings, violating checks and balances that are the critical issues.

    I wouldn’t want to live in such a society but it would at least be “legitimate”

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  • [–] 4 points 9 months ago

    Idk I think he reflects the country pretty well like Trump.

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  • [–] 4 points 9 months ago

    It's cool. The top two candidates for governor in California are both MAGA Republicans. You're gonna get your wish.

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  • [–] 4 points 9 months ago

    Fuck you, Gavin! It's much bigger than that! It was cold outside...

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  • [–] 3 points 8 months ago

    Whaaaaaaat? A politician behaving like a political animal? The shock! The scandal!

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  • [–] 5 points 8 months ago*

    Yea he’s a fascist. That’s why he platforms Nazi’s and Zionists on his podcast and magically lets them persuade him that they are right. It’s also why he vetoes everything that helps the working class. It’s also why he let PG&E get away with murdering 800 Californians and he allows them to raise our rates 6 times a year while they continue to make record shareholder profits. It’s also why why he is fighting the one time 5% billionaire tax proposed by the California legislature as hard as he can. We need an FDR Newsom is an Israeli asset and a closeted republican who’s Gen z handlers make funny tweets.

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