The rules never apply to California Gov. Gavin Newsom. It makes him the perfect face for the modern Democratic Party.
Newsom has most recently been caught vacationing in Montana, which is one of the 22 states California bans state-funded travel to. Montana refuses to let men compete against women in sports, which goes against everything California liberals stand for. But Newsom decided to visit family there, and his office insists he is doing nothing wrong because it’s a personal vacation, though no one is saying whether the state is funding his security.
Even if Newsom did fund his own security, it’s a bad look, as evidenced by his office trying to keep the trip under wraps in the first place. California’s state-funded travel ban targets “hateful” states that pass laws regarding religious freedom, women’s sports, and gender transition procedures that California Democrats disapprove of. Most recently, California added Arizona, Indiana, Utah, and Louisiana to the list, bringing the state just three away from banning state-funded travel to half the country.
And this is not the first time Newsom has violated the state’s restrictions or the “spirit” of them. Newsom apologized for doing the latter in November 2020, when he went to an upscale French restaurant to celebrate the birthday of a lobbyist in violation of the COVID restrictions he forced on everyone else. Newsom insisted that the dinner took place outdoors despite photos indicating otherwise, and he violated the restriction on the number of households he allowed to meet on top of it.
Newsom is the personification of elitism and privilege that typifies the modern Democratic Party. Party leaders across the country, from governors to mayors to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, violated travel restrictions they imposed or supported during the pandemic. Many Democrats shamed Florida for not forcing its residents into lockdowns only to vacation in the state themselves. Newsom took it all further, whining that voters in his state wanted to hold him to account with a recall, going as far as to claim it was “cancel culture” to try and vote politicians out of office.
California is the perfect representation of Democratic progressivism. While claiming to fight for the poor, California has become a state run by liberal elitists for liberal elitists, chasing lower- and middle-class residents out with an exorbitant cost of living. Newsom and California lawmakers wade into cultural battles on abortion and transgenderism, while the state has the highest poverty rate and worst homelessness crisis in the nation. All the while, Newsom has focused on attacking Republican-run states, because the culture war is more important than your own state falling apart.
Newsom sees a presidential run in his future, as evidenced by his foray into the Florida ad market to attack Florida Republicans. Newsom is an elitist who claims to represent the will of the people, a privileged white man claiming to be a warrior for diversity, and a hypocrite who thinks the rules should apply to everyone but him. Democrats couldn’t find a better representative for the state of their party if they tried.
