There has always been a performative aspect to American politics. Politicians say or do things to attract attention, rather than to contribute to governance. But it has become widespread in recent years.
Former President Donald Trump epitomizes the bombastic approach, saying anything to anger his supporters, even to the point of violence, and get the attention of the media, no matter how out of touch with reality they are.
Unfortunately, however, Trump is not alone. Politicians of all ideological stripes now see attention-grabbing verbiage as an end in itself, making statements and issuing promises with little or no basis in reality, but this can mislead the unwary.
California Governor Gavin Newsom is a particularly active speaker, hardly letting a day go by without uttering: or tweeting — something that gets the attention he apparently craves, especially from the national political media.
Newsom regularly exchanges incendiary rhetoric and cheesy stunts with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and says he would debate his partisan rival. The verbal conflicts serve their equal desire for national prominence.
“California will not do business with @Walgreens, or any other company that hides from extremists and puts women’s lives at risk. We’re done,” Newsom tweeted in March.
California reporters took him seriously and began asking administration officials how they were doing will cancel Walgreens’ state contracts. Officials quickly said there were no plans to cancel because, under federal law, those with Medi-Cal health care can get prescriptions from any licensed pharmacy.
Newsom spokesman Anthony York said at the time, “Twitter is not politics,” adding that the governor will not “take any action that will harm people who need access to care.”
If a governor’s tweets aren’t politics, what is? Does that mean no one should take what Newsom says seriously?
One wonders, for example, about his off the cuff statement to a TV interviewer that he would nominate a black woman to the US Senate if Senator Dianne Feinstein resigns. Should this be taken literally or does it fall into the “tweeting is not politics” category of nonsensical?
A couple of other examples come to mind.
Newsom signed legislation that creates a commission to study reparations for black Californians stemming from the residual effects they experience from slavery, saying it would correct “structural racism and bias embedded and embedded in our democratic and economic institutions.”
“Addressing this legacy is about much more than cash payments,” the governor said in an initial reaction, while praising the commission’s work as “a milestone in our bipartisan effort to advance justice and promote healing.”
So was Newsom’s signature on the original bill just virtue signaling? He should have known that creating the commission could raise expectations of benefits that would be costly, and perhaps impossible, to implement.
Newsom’s latest attention-grabbing bid is proposing an amendment in the US Constitution that would legalize California-style gun controls. He got national media attention, but once again he’s standing up for something out of touch with reality.
Jurors in criminal trials are instructed that if they find a witness to be untruthful in an answer, they should be skeptical of other statements. It should apply to politicians like Trump, DeSantis and Newsom who, like naughty children, say provocative things just for the sake of saying them.
Dan Walters is a columnist for CalMatters.
