The Atlantic: “Newsom’s behavior is the product of perverse incentives. Excelling in leadership at the state level means waging and winning risky, politically inconvenient fights that do little to raise a governor’s national profile. A far easier way to attract attention and ingratiate yourself to Democratic power brokers is by picking culture-war fights with enemies of convenience—that is to say, people whom most of your fellow partisans loathe—no matter how tenuously connected those fights might be to politics or policy in the place you’re supposed to govern.”
“Many Democrats rightly scoff at Trump-era conservatives who care more about owning the libs than serving their constituents. But Newsom likewise seems to think that, in today’s political environment, the best way to improve his national prospects is to mock and irritate the other side. And for better or worse, he may be correct.”
