Comment: Yes, Newsom’s new podcast is terrifying. But is it also smart?

The new podcast by Gavin Newsom “This is Gavin Newsom” has Democrats in a Tizzte. Republicans too.

It was almost universally exceeded (or celebrated depending on political stripes) because they have falsified their right-wing extremists-Charlie Kirk, Michael Savage and Steve Bannon and the experts ask why Gavin Newsom Steve Bannon hands over a megaphone. And for whom is Gavin Newsom’s podcast?

Let me answer both. Like everything a politician does, the podcast is for the man himself. And to be fair, nobody gives Steven Bannon a microphone because he already has one bigger than any democrat. If at all, Bannon Newsom shows on the show – this episode has contributed to increasing newsoma on top 10 lists for the listeners.

Put these two truths together and regardless of how frightening or even these first episodes were (and oh, they were horrific), the endeavor is undeniable.

Newsom has long been a student of the right, both his message and his media. He may be one of the few Democrats who regularly listen to outlets such as Fox News or even the Kirks in the world. He is also in a job for six years that can be the end of a chosen office for him, unless he can find a way to make himself viable for a presidential run – not an easy task.

He understands that there is a new political order, and it is not a question of to rise through the ranks of the party or to appease a basis. It’s about the audience, politics aside and newsoma is versed enough to pursue it.

If he takes it off, he could make himself an attractive presidential candidate in a field that only a few with likeable white boys on the one hand (Tim Walz, Pete Buttigieg, JB Pritzker and Andy Beshear) and everyone else on the other (Gretchen Whitmer, Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, even Kamala Harris). But even if this media company does not open a way to the Oval Office, the Democratic Party could offer a vision of how a piece of uninterested and disillusioned voters can be recovered, which Donald Trump achieved his slim victory.

Democrats are in ruins. You have no center and no consensus. And certainly no recognizable path to win in 2026 or 2028.

As much as there is disorder, there is also a gap within the party. There is the Ocasio Cortez-Bernie Sanders audience that wants to double the progressive values. And there are the big tent people who run around the middle ground like rats from the fire, which are reversed by our president’s spent earth policy.

Newsom may take its own way politically and personally and tries to catch an audience that does not really know left from the right and loves to relieve facts in favor of “common sense”.

These voters may be frustrating, but they are also the key to win.

In his first episode with Kirk, newsoma threw transgender athletes under the bus and agreed with Kirk that they can compete for them “deeply unfair” against women. This is a safe political position -almost 80% of the Americans share -but Newsom let Kirk with only minimal setbacks about the way Maga transgender people in general demonized and armed, and a community already left out a high degree of violence in an even more precarious position.

In his interview with Bannon, he agreed that “there was a layer of clay in the bureaucracy, and they are right, not subject to accounting” and offered no contradiction when Bannon claimed:

Newsom expressed contempt for meetings in which people identify their pronouns, did not fight with Bannon when he claimed with violence that the election in 2020 had been stolen and spent a long time to tell Kirk how much his youthful son was a fan.

Yuck.

The danger is of course covered in cuddling to extremists in your fragrance. Newsom claims that he wants to have respectful conversations with people who do not agree, but Maga does not respect newsoma. Disposable response makes them a floor mat, and when Newsom does not call its guests with more strength, he risks the punch line instead of the provocateur.

Paul Mitchell, an expert in coordination data, asked the California voters before and after the debut of Newsom and found that his general level of cheapness decreased by more than 10 points after people had observed some of these clips. He also stated: “The Democrats feel crossed twice and the Republicans were like … I agree with what he says, but he is a liar.”

After Mitchell had shown three parts from the Kirk Podcast, he found that 26% of the voters “violated” their perception of Newsom, while 37% of the self-identified liberals said that the clips “violated their perception of the governor”.

But to a certain extent, the Democrats are not playing so important. Democrats will mainly be democrats when we all go back to the surveys.

It is the non-committed voters that were important, and who had the last word in the last elections, the so-called “low information voters” who do not follow as much politics and receive their often qualified information from non-traditional sources.

Democrats, warns Mitchell, “have to find a way to bring voters back to you with low information.”

For young men, whose well -being we are all afraid, the worldviews are shaped by the voices of the manosphere such as Bannon and Kirk, who have polished their complaint hetorics until they appear like the civil rights speeches of the old civil rights speeches. Once it was Democrats who were talked about working people and their fights. Now Bannon has nailed it.

“We believe that we put power back on the base,” he said to Newsom. “One of the reasons is that the elites in this country, the highly educated elites, the political class, Wall Street, the Silicon Valley, the Hollywood, have really forgotten the underlying principles of the country, and they know that they decide.

This is a seductive and powerful message, and a democrat used to have.

Newsom could be one of the few Democrats who really understand how much of this space of the working class has been lost by Maga. If he can only deduct part of this audience and give them a democratic intake that swings enough to achieve an impressive performance for himself and his party in 2026 and beyond.

For himself, he will have established a power outside the traditional limits of politics – a kind of influence that republicans have a new way. It could not clarify the way to the presidency, but it could open other options.

Do you need evidence?

The conservative former podcaster Dan Bongino was sworn in as deputy director of the FBI on Tuesday. Defense Minister Pete Hegseth used to work for Fox. Due to the popularity of his “war space” show near the White House, Bannon kept nearby and given him enough immersion to even question the king of the social media power, Elon Musk. (Bannon has called Muschus a “parasitic illegal immigrant”.)

Also on Tuesday, Newsom had his first interview with a democrat, rolling and the two considered how to fight Maga.

“These are bad guys,” warned Walz.

“But they exist,” said newsoma. “We can’t be in defense.”

Even if the crime frightens us all.