It is no secret that Gov. Gavin Newsom relishes opportunities to get into political scuffles with Donald Trump and the White House, but lately, the California Democrat and his team have taken this to an unexpected level with a new online strategy.
This tactics have hardly been subtle: Newsom’s office recently started using social media to mock the president by emulating the president, publishing missives that are clearly intended to mimic Trump’s hysterical tone and ridiculous writing style. (Some of the missives even conclude, “Thank you for your attention to this very important matter!!!” echoing the Republican.)
The content is deliberately rude, brash, self-aggrandizing and insulting — because it’s satirizing the president who uses his own social media platform to push rude, brash, self-aggrandizing and insulting content.
Some of Newsom’s conservative critics appear to be missing the point of the effort.
One Fox News host complained late last week that the governor’s online content “comes across as childish” and seems unbecoming of someone who’s “the governor of the biggest state in the union.” As HuffPost noted, a different Fox News host kept this going earlier this week.
‘You have to stop it with the Twitter thing,’ [former White House press secretary Dana] Perino said, before adding: ‘I don’t know where his wife is.’ … ‘If I were [Newsom’s] wife, I would say, ‘You are making a fool of yourself, stop it’ … He’s got a big job as governor of California, but if he wants an even bigger job, he has to be a little bit more serious.’
By all appearances, she was quite sincere.
In keeping with the shtick, Newsom’s office published a follow-up item specifically responding to the Fox News co-host’s criticism in the same way Trump tends to respond to his own media critics.
DANA "DING DONG" PERINO (NEVER HEARD OF HER UNTIL TODAY!) IS MELTING DOWN BECAUSE OF ME, GAVIN C. NEWSOM! FOX HATES THAT I AM AMERICA’S MOST FAVORITE GOVERNOR ("RATINGS KING") SAVING AMERICA — WHILE TRUMP CAN’T EVEN CONQUER THE “BIG” STAIRS ON AIR FORCE ONE ANYMORE!!! TRUMP HAS…








