Does Newsom's 'rule of Don' attack lay ground for 2028 presidential run?

RTÉ News​

a day ago

Was this the moment California's Governor Gavin Newsom finally threw his hat in the ring for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination?
"What Donald Trump wants most is your fealty, your silence, to be complicit in this moment. Do not give in to him," he appealed, not just to Californians but to the entire country.
It's been a long time coming, it probably wasn't planned, it certainly carries plenty of risk.
But last night's blistering attack on President Donald Trump may well signal the moment that Mr Newsom finally made up his mind to give it a lash.
For years, the governor has been touted as a potential presidential candidate, for years he has found reasons not to run.
But on Sunday night, in a televised interview, he started to sound like someone who was getting ready to climb off the fence, daring the president to follow through on his support for the idea of arresting the governor - "why don't you just get it over with - arrest me, but stop attacking these vulnerable people", he said.
However, after last night's full frontal attack on the entire Trump presidential agenda, there seems little doubt: circumstances demanded it.
The timing probably won't suit him - it's a long run into the 2028 election.
But nobody predicted the chain of consequences sparked by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency's raid on illegal immigrants on Friday in a Los Angeles suburb.
Protests happened, the president reacted strongly and sent in the army, and Mr Newsom seems to have decided that he has run out of road - this is the moment to set out his stall in his quest to be the leader of the opposition in President Trump's America.
He has long been the subject of verbal attacks by Mr Trump, who clearly sees him as a serious potential rival, hence the need to attack and undermine him and his state, the most populous and wealthy of the 50.
Mr Newsom has also made it easy to attack him - there are too many opportunities in California's life and politics, which have been cast as the antithesis of all that MAGA stands for. But there is a grudging admiration in Mr Trump's attacks as well.
That's why the President has said the governor ought to be thanking him for sending in the army to stop Los Angeles being burned to the ground.
Last night, Mr Newsom pushed back in the strongest possible way, rejecting the deployment of troops as cover for a more malign project - the dismantling of the US constitutional order and traditions as part of a power grab by Mr Trump.
In recent months, Mr Newsom was re-positioning himself towards the more pragmatic political centre of American politics, trying to distance himself from the leftist circus that California is often depicted as.
The risk of claiming a leadership position on the immigration clamp-down is that it drags him back to the left wing "California crazy" image he needs to get away from if he is to appeal in the other 49 states.
But the provocation of President Trump's move leaves him little room for manoeuvre. So he came out all guns blazing. Here is what he said about the President, setting himself up as the opponent to all of it.
"Just yesterday, we filed a legal challenge to Donald Trump's reckless deployment of American troops to a major American city.
"Today, we sought an emergency court order to stop the use of the American military to engage in law enforcement activities across Los Angeles. If some of us could be snatched off the streets without a warrant based only on suspicion or skin colour, then none of us are safe," Mr Newsom said.
"This is a president who, in just over 140 days, has fired government watchdogs that could hold him accountable - accountable for corruption and fraud. He's declared a war, a war on culture, on history, on science, on knowledge itself. Databases, quite literally, are vanishing. He's de-legitimising news organisations, and he's assaulting the First Amendment.
"The Rule of Law has increasingly been given way to the rule of Don"
"By threatening to cut off their funding he's dictating what universities themselves can teach. He's targeting law firms and the judicial branch that are the foundations of an orderly and civil society. He's calling for a sitting governor to be arrested for no other reason than in his own words, for getting elected," he added.
"And we all know this Saturday, he's ordering our American heroes, the United States military, and forcing them to put on a vulgar display to celebrate his birthday, just as other failed dictators have done in the past.
"California may be first, but it clearly will not end here. Other states are next. Democracy is next. Democracy is under assault before our eyes. This moment we have feared has arrived," he said.
"He's taking a wrecking ball to our founding fathers historic project, three co equal branches of independent government. There are no longer any checks and balances. Congress is nowhere to be found. Speaker Johnson has completely abdicated that responsibility.
"The Rule of Law has increasingly been given way to the rule of Don," he added.
"At this moment, we all need to stand up and be held to account - a higher level of accountability. If you exercise your first amendment rights, please, please do it peacefully.
"I know many of you are feeling deep anxiety, stress and fear, but I want you to know that you are the antidote to that fear and that anxiety. What Donald Trump wants most is your fealty, your silence, to be complicit in this moment. Do not give in to him," he added.
The broadcast ended suddenly, dramatically, with those words.
Appropriately the speech had a Hollywood feel to it - a Hollywood beginning, not a Hollywood ending. So all the plot twists are yet to come.