Irish Examiner view: Gavin Newsom seems to be the right man at the right time

California governor may not appeal to all voters, but he is challenging Donald Trump and asserting the value of a functioning democracy

California governor Gavin Newsom and his team are satirically skewering Donald Trump’s approach to social media, down to all-caps bulletins. Picture: Mario Tama/Getty

At a time when Donald Trump’s Maga movement is seemingly steamrolling its way through America, California governor Gavin Newsom is galvanising a sense of open resistance.

With Texas attempting to redraw its constituencies to deliver five more Republican seats in Congress, at Trump’s behest, Newsom has vowed to do the same in his state, to reduce Republican representation in California at a similar or greater level.

And it’s not just the resolute action, while many Democrat politicians instead opt for wagging fingers, Newsom and his team are satirically skewering Trump’s approach to social media, down to all-caps bulletins that could be lifted right from Trump’s Truth Social.

Newsom, not uniquely among Democrats but certainly most emphatically, argues that he and his party need to fight fire with fire, and that the future of democracy in the US is on the line.

He is not currently pitching himself as a 2028 presidential candidate — in fact he has been sounding warnings that there may not be an election if Republican changes go ahead — but he represents a wing of the Democrat Party, alongside JP Pritzker in Illinois and Jasmine Crockett in Texas, that has decided it will not be subdued quietly.

The contrast between the passionate, articulate Newsom and the increasingly incoherent ramblings of Trump could not be starker.

California’s changes would only come into effect if another Republican-controlled state changes its districts, and he has said they will be subject to the results of the 2030 census anyway, meaning that, unlike Texas Republicans, he has signalled a willingness to change once (or if) the fight is won. 

Even though some of Newsom’s policies toward the homeless and LGBT+ community are not as progressive as one might imagine from a California Democrat, he nonetheless seems to be the right man at the right time.

Armed border patrol agents converged on one of Newsom’s events last week, though he has refused to be intimidated.

Sending armed, masked agents to a political rally is not a sign of a functioning democracy. Newsom will be hoping that, one way or the other, his efforts will go toward restoring one.

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Festivals bring us together

Who doesn’t love a festival?

Judging by how well the country’s events — music, food, cultural, even matchmaking — have done these past few months, we seem to be a nation of festival lovers and, perhaps more importantly, festival goers.

The figures have consistently shown that festival attendances across the country are at or around pre-pandemic levels, and it’s fair to say that almost every niche is covered — from comic-cons to folk music.

We may not be at Coachella levels — where attendees regularly go into debt to get tickets and accommodation — but we’re probably better off for it.

It requires no great sage to see their importance from an economic standpoint, with established offerings such as the West Cork Literary Festival, Fastnet Film Festival, and Puck Fair pulling in the punters and generating sizeable amounts for their regions. You can scale it up as much as you like — Electric Picnic on August 29 will bring in serious revenue for Co Laois, for example — but the dividends go beyond euro and cent.

In an unsettled and fractious world, they are more important than ever at bringing people together and reminding them of the simple joy of experiencing music, drama, or food among the infectious joy of being around people of shared interests. 

Even when not interacting directly, there is still something immense and intangible about knowing one is not ploughing a furrow alone in the wilderness.

Brendan Gleeson recently made the case for a regular arts segment on RTÉ news broadcasts, “the same way as there is for sport”. The arts “make people feel less alone”, he said.

And at a time when so many of us seem at odds with one another, isn’t a fine thing to know you’re not alone?

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Lives lost to drowning 

More than 50 people have drowned so far this year. That’s more than 50 families mourning losses that they may never recover from, and more than 50 local communities missing one of their own.

Irish Water Safety noted last week that in an eight-week spell from May to June, seven children drowned, the majority of them teenagers.

Days earlier, a child had to be rescued after the inflatable they were using floated out to sea, while a man in his 60s died a few days later after getting into difficulty swimming off the coast of Waterford.

The water cares not for age or social standing, and when troubles arise, there can be limited options. The same applies to our myriad inland waterways.

In Cork City, some 200 lifebuoys are placed along the River Lee, with an average of one a week used to save a life, and yet a perennial problem is losing them not to the water, but petty theft and vandalism.

Two weeks ago, our Sarah Horgan profiled council worker Colin Russell, whose job it is to maintain the buoys. He said some 25 a month are simply dumped in the water, and it costs the council €20,000 a year just to replace them.

“I’ve often been in the Lee Fields where the small ones in the yellow boxes were set alight by people who were there fishing,” he said. “Other times they just burnt them while drinking, maybe to keep warm.

“Some people take them as souvenirs to hang up on the walls of their houses and bedrooms.”

Lifebuoys stands are sometimes emblazoned with the motto “a stolen buoy, a stolen life”, and it would do us good to remember this. Given that CCTV has been used to track down people interfering with lifebuoys, why shouldn’t the penalties be increased, even drastically so? In any other area or sector putting lives at risk would be punished severely. Why not here?