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Gavin Newsom has stumbled upon the perfect slogan for his likely upcoming presidential campaign: “Strong and Wrong.” In a recent interview, California’s governor said Americans prefer crude politicians like Donald Trump over leaders who cling to niceties and norms. “Given the choice … the American people always support strong and wrong versus weak and right,” he said. This explains why Newsom now spends his days mimicking Trump – lobbing crude insults and mockery on social media. The governor – who has confirmed he’s mulling a 2028 run – plans to defeat Trumpism by imitating Trump. His amusing copycat antics have generated media attention, boosted his poll numbers and earned him the label of Democratic “frontrunner”. But the termed-out governor has a reality check in the mail, since his presidential ambitions will soon bring scrutiny of his record. Unfortunately for Newsom, his eight-year tenure as governor offers a buffet of failed hopes and broken promises. The politician who recently blasted world leaders’ responses to Trump as “pathetic” has a talent for talking big but falling short. Newsom ran for governor in 2018 as an unabashed progressive, bristling with liberal righteousness, under a campaign slogan of “courage for a change”. This seemed like a jab at his predecessor, Governor Jerry Brown, the elder statesman who focused on stabilizing California’s budget after years of massive deficits. To prove his grit – and to win support from the powerful California nurses’ union – Newsom said he would seek to create a single-payer public healthcare system in the state. When a critic assailed this as a “pipe dream”, Newsom chided their lack of vision. “I’m tired of politicians saying they support single-payer but that it’s too soon, too expensive or someone else’s problem,” he said. Then, as governor, he dumped his signature campaign pledge, opting for lesser reforms. “This is a flip-flop,” said one union organizer of Newsom’s betrayal. “This is absolutely unacceptable.” Unfazed, Newsom moved on to other bold visions. In 2019, he promised to build 3.5 million new units of housing by 2025. Three years later, he backed away from that idea, too, dismissing it as a mere “stretch goal”. “Just 13% of the 3.5 million homes he campaigned on building have been permitted, let alone built,” reported CalMatters in 2022. Newsom also pledged to appoint a “homeless czar” to address California’s surging homelessness. That promise also fell through the cracks. Frustrated by reporter questions, Newsom eventually declared himself the homeless czar. Then, as homeless numbers spiked, he pivoted to blaming local officials. Newsom spent unprecedented amounts of money on these issues – thanks to multibillion-dollar surpluses he inherited from his fiscally disciplined predecessor. But when it came to delivering on his key proposals, Newsom flopped. Making matters worse, the California legislative analyst’s office says he’ll leave the state with looming multibillion-dollar deficits. Newsom says Americans want strength, but his wishy-washy ways are legendary in Sacramento. As a staunch opponent of the death penalty, Newsom declared a moratorium on capital punishment in 2019. Yet he stopped short of commuting death sentences to life imprisonment, meaning the next governor can resume executions. During the early days of Covid in 2020, Newsom drew praise for his decisive action to halt the spread. Then, after Elon Musk reopened his California Tesla factory in violation of public health rules and rightwingers began protesting against lockdowns, Newsom caved. He rushed to reopen the state and push responsibility down to county officials. Infections and deaths surged. After the police killing of George Floyd, Newsom embraced the idea of reparations for descendants of slavery. He created a Reparations Task Force to propose legislation, earning him national headlines. In 2025, with racial justice out of style, Newsom vetoed many of the taskforce’s most significant bills to provide tangible reparations. “Mr Newsom may have less political motivation than he did before as he weighs the possibility of running for president in 2028,” reported the New York Times. “A majority of Americans oppose taxpayer-funded reparations, and the nation as a whole is more conservative than California.” Politicians shapeshift frequently, but it takes gall for the Golden state’s squishy governor to criticize other leaders as pathetic. In fact, Newsom pioneered the art of placating Trump – praising his botched Covid response in 2020 even though Trump had called the pandemic a “hoax” that would “disappear”. “He said everything that I could have hoped for,” Newsom said in March 2020, after talking with the president. “Every single thing he said, they followed through.” “Newsom has repeatedly said he has no criticisms for Trump’s coronavirus response,” reported the Sacramento Bee. “Yet his state is still waiting on needed equipment from the federal government to run tests and prepare its medical system for a surge in new patients – equipment the Democratic governor says he’s been requesting for weeks.” In Newsom’s defense, Trump had warned governors to be “appreciative” if they wanted federal help. So, Governor Knee Pads puckered up. “Governor Newsom has been very generous in his words, and I’m being generous to him, too,” Trump said. Newsom’s Trump-loving phase was among the lowest points of his career. He understands exactly why many world leaders now hesitate to provoke Trump’s wrath. But while he disparages others as cowards, his own courage remains quite selective. For example, Newsom is largely silent about the California tech oligarchs backing Trump’s regime. In 2024, he sided with many Silicon Valley venture capitalists and tech companies to veto an expansive AI safety bill. He signed a narrower version in 2025, but critics say he’s avoiding tough questions about how AI will kill jobs and harm workers. “This is a ‘which side are you on’ moment,” said the AFL-CIO president, Liz Schuler, at a press conference on 4 February where labor leaders from swing states threatened to complicate Newsom’s presidential run unless he stops siding with his “big tech billionaire friends” over workers. Tellingly, Newsom currently finds himself aligned with Peter Thiel – a Trump backer and major donor to Newsom’s gubernatorial campaign – in an effort to kill a union-backed billionaire tax that would help offset Trump’s healthcare cuts. Newsom mocks others for kowtowing, but he regularly bows down to the powerful California interests bankrolling the very authoritarianism from which he claims he can save the nation. This glaring hypocrisy fits with Newsom’s embrace of Trumpian tactics, but even his overwrought trolling shtick is a symptom of weakness. Desperate to cover up his liberal California past, he hosts rightwing figures like Steve Bannon and Ben Shapiro on his podcast, berates world leaders for the cameras, and pushes the cynical idea that Americans’ only choice is between glib loudmouths in different colored ties. Like Trump, Newsom breaks promises, serves billionaire interests and mistakes social media theatrics for leadership. Is that really what American voters will want in 2028? After Richard Nixon, Americans chose Jimmy Carter. After George W Bush, they chose Barack Obama. After Trump, they’ll likely want change – authentic, strong, moral leadership, a leader with competence and vision. Having watched Newsom for two decades, I don’t see why anyone thinks he’s it. He’s not even “strong and wrong” – just highly ambitious, strategically dishonest and blatantly opportunistic. Gil Durán is a California journalist and author of the forthcoming book The Nerd Reich: Silicon Valley Fascism and the War On Democracy. He was an adviser to several Democratic politicians