Ian Miller
Videos by OutKick
Gavin Newsom has never been a particularly intelligent politician.
Earlier this year, Newsom staged a photograph of him reading “banned books” and suggested that other states were engaging in this horrific, unprecedented attack on literary achievement through repressive policies reminiscent of a theocratic dictatorship.
Except that at least one of the books he staged was banned by far-left progressives at a school district in his own state of California:
Newsom is clearly trying to increase his national profile and seems to be setting up his run to challenge the unpopular and mentally diminished Joe Biden.
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His latest attempt to raise his stature resulted in him turning his inaccurate attention to the state of Florida.
In a recent ad (campaign ad?), Newsom claimed that “freedom is under attack” in Florida due to Republican politicians.
Newsom, with no sense of irony, said Florida is “banning books,” ignoring that his ideological allies in his own state are also banning books. He also claimed, based on nothing, that the state is making it harder to vote and openly lied by saying they are “restricting speech in classrooms” and “criminalizing women and doctors.”
Covering the list of inaccuracies in his thirty-second ad would take hours, but Newsom’s main pitch is for Californians who have fled the state’s high taxes, high cost of living, energy disasters, endless COVID mandates, horrifying laws and far-left agenda to return.
Instead, Florida gained 211,000 residents in only one year from July 2020-July 2021, many of whom came from California to escape Newsom’s authoritarian and ineffective COVID restrictions. The Sunshine State also had the newest business applications in the US.
Meanwhile, California lost nearly 118,000 people in the same timeframe, the second consecutive year the state population dropped. Nearly a quarter of a million Californians moved to other US states in 2021 alone.
Even worse, nearly 1% of the entire state or 367,299 people, left Newsom’s disastrous governance between 2020-2021.
Newsom claiming to be a defender of freedom ranks alongside “Putin’s Price Hike” as perhaps the most laughable and provably inaccurate political messaging in the current national discourse.
A short list of anti-freedom actions from Newsom and the state of California, just in recent years:
- Newsom gleefully announced he would be mandating COVID vaccines for all school children (now delayed until 2023), inaccurately comparing the mRNA vaccines that do nothing to prevent infection with sterilizing measles vaccines
- Continuing a state of emergency for ~28 months and counting, giving him nearly unlimited power to enact whatever policy he wants without legislative approval
- California lawmakers proposed a bill to restrict the freedom of doctors to speak out against the COVID “consensus”
- Enacted strict lockdowns that restricted freedoms; freedom of worship by closing churches, freedom to operate businesses, freedom to go to school
- Kept his own winery open while forcing others to close
- Refused to allow diners to eat indoors unmasked, while having large, unmasked, extravagant parties at luxurious Napa valley restaurants
- Mandating vaccines for healthcare workers
- Mandating boosters for healthcare workers
- Mandating masks into 2022
- Continue school mask mandates after general mandates had lifted
- Supporting and promoting vaccine passports and mandates for private businesses
It’s hard to imagine a more anti-freedom governor than Gavin Newsom.
By contrast, Florida has been a beacon of individual liberty under Ron DeSantis. He’s banned vaccine mandates, ensured that parents retain more control over their children’s education, encouraged businesses and growth, and correctly realized that COVID policies were useless and destructive.
Florida even conducts elections in a reasonable time frame, unlike California where results can take weeks or even months.
Nearly everything Newsom said in his ignorant, desperate ad was inaccurate or a purposeful lie. He even mentioned the “right to choose” when abortions have been and continue to be legal in Florida.
The entire bewildering episode is a testament to his incompetence and poor political instincts. Newsom, like Kamala Harris before him, believes that Twitter likes from progressives makes him popular.
If he really does believe that he has a chance at winning a national election, let alone one against Ron DeSantis, by pretending to be a champion of freedom, he’s even more delusional than his policies suggest.
You forgot the biggest one: Newsom shut down public schools for a year and a half, claiming in-person classes would kill children. All while sending his own kids to in-person classes at a private school, where one of his kids got COVID, then returned to school when she was well. Again, while telling everyone else in-person education was tantamount to attempted murder.
Oh, and CLOSING THE FUCKING BEACHES during the pandemic. Because being outside spreads COVID.