Are we all Gavin Newscum?
is all opposition just opposition?
It seems painfully obvious anymore that the left’s largest issue with Trump and the movement he founded is that it’s so overwhelming. It beats you over the head with its presence.
What has he/have they done today? Invade Los Angeles? Break up with Elon? Take a winged bribe from the Qataris? Live-chat a military strike?
This deluge of headlines makes it impossible for the left — and certainly for the Democratic Party — to say basically anything. They are like a person trying to stand still on a treadmill. You can do it, but not for long.
For the past decade, the prevailing message has been that the Democrats are simply not Trump. This is not entirely their fault, they have a party platform with detailed plans addressing healthcare and gun reform. But in that party platform, the word “gun” is mentioned 15 times. “Health care” is mentioned 90 times. “Trump” is mentioned 120 times. And the message that gets out there, out into the provinces where the voters vote, is that Democrats are simply not Trump.
This tracks back to the beginning of our current era. In 2016, when more people were voting against a candidate than for one. The 2020 election was a wildcard, held during a pandemic that had substantial effects on the civic ideas of, I’d estimate, twenty percent of America — what are the responsibilities of a government? What are its limits and how much is it to be trusted? Like it or not, the pandemic shifted these barometers for millions of people.
But the 2024 election really wasn’t that much different. The whole “they’re weird” phenomenon that gained traction in the brat summer was only an argument by virtue of separation; the same as it was in 2016, though there’s a notable distinction here. In 2016, the message was “we’re not Trump, he’s a conman,” in 2024, the message was “we’re not Trumpism, they’re weird.”
And yes, JD Vance may be weird. Steve Bannon and Elon Musk and Stephen Miller may be weird. They may have the same backwards-ass fixations as the obese antihero Ignatius J. Reilly in Confederacy of Dunces ("employers sense in me a denial of their values. They fear me. I suspect that they can see that I am forced to function in a century I loathe.”)
But a rejection of these ideas, is not, in itself, an ideology. A rejection of these ideas can, occasionally, turn out in victory — as it did in 2018 and, likely will in 2026 — but it’s not a sustainable agenda.
So here we are once again, we’re all against something. The president is throwing a parade for his birthday (it’s also the Army’s birthday, but the U,S. Army doesn’t need a parade, it’s long been the biggest swinging dick of hard power).
The parade, obviously is weird. And people came out in en masse to protest against it, a sort of attempt to fight theatrics with theatrics. Which, good for them. But let’s not forget that there were millions of people at the Women’s March in 2017 too.
Out here in Los Angeles, I saw huge crowds of protesters — people were pissed. And this fire has been boiling for two weeks, ever since the ICE raids began. The ICE raids are palpable here. You actually see them happening. Last week, when I was driving through Oxnard for a surf session, I noticed security guards posted outside the strawberry fields, ostensibly there to tell immigration agents that private property is private property is America is still America.
California Governor Gavin Newsom has, for the past week, been the embodiment of this resistance. He’s been fighting the good fight. But that’s the sleight-of-hand of political theater in the age of Trump — you can give the illusion of purpose simply by your own opposition to the momentary evil. See: Jim Acosta, Michael Avenatti, Adam Schiff. I’m not saying these people were wrong, I’m saying they were judged to be in the right solely because of what they were opposing.
But this doesn’t go on forever. Trumpism is the dominating political ideology in American politics, fine. I don’t know if anybody can carry this particular torch for him (the parade was for his 79th birthday) but there has to be something more. The left needs to be able to start running on the metaphorical treadmill. They need to be able to make an argument. When Hamilton and Jefferson and Franklin decided “we’re done with this king shit” they didn’t stop there, they proposed something else. They literally declared something else.