SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California Gov. Gavin Newsom has turned trolling President Donald Trump into a signature move, but Democrats looking for a shortcut back to power are getting a brutal reminder: memes can amplify a message, but they can’t replace one, Dec. 16, 2025.
Newsom’s latest volley — a “PATRIOT SHOP” merch rollout that mimics Trump’s brand and language — is undeniably attention-grabbing. It is also a temptation: After Trump returned to office in 2024, winning 312 electoral votes to Vice President Kamala Harris’ 226, according to the National Archives’ Electoral College results, Democrats are hungry for anyone who can land a punch that travels.
The problem is that going viral is not governing. And a party that tries to meme its way out of a trust deficit ends up proving the point its opponents want to make: That Democrats are great at posts, not so great at fixing what people can’t scroll past.
Gavin Newsom and the dopamine loop of online politics
There’s a reason Newsom’s trolling resonates with Democratic activists. It feels like reversal. Trump has spent years turning politics into a reality show, then monetizing the show. Newsom’s “Patriot Shop” flips that playbook, offering a bright-red hat that says “NEWSOM WAS RIGHT ABOUT EVERYTHING,” teasing $100 “Bibles” and leaning into the kind of performative bravado that thrives on algorithmic outrage.
As tactics go, it’s clever. It grabs attention without needing permission from cable bookers. It delights a base that’s tired of watching Democrats bring a policy memo to a meme fight. And it forces Republicans to respond to Newsom’s framing, even if their response is mockery.
But the same thing that makes trolling effective also makes it dangerous: It rewards the “hit” more than the “build.” The post that lands today becomes the expectation tomorrow. The satire becomes the brand. And eventually, the politician is judged less by whether the agenda works than whether the content performs.
Memes aren’t the message — they’re the delivery system
Democrats don’t need to pretend this media environment isn’t real. It is. As The New Yorker noted in a 2024 look at the meme-ification of politics, a growing share of voters form impressions through short, shareable clips and group-chat culture rather than long-form news consumption. That’s not a moral judgment; it’s a map of the battlefield.
What Democrats keep confusing is the difference between “distribution” and “substance.” Memes are distribution. They are how a message travels, not what the message is. When a party invests in distribution while letting the substance blur into vibes, it’s telling persuadable voters there’s nothing solid to hold onto.
And that’s what makes Newsom’s trolling so revealing: It’s not that it’s wrong. It’s that it’s easier than the other work — the work of translating a policy agenda into a simple promise that voters can repeat without sounding like they’re reading a press release.
The record is the real content, whether you like it or not
Online fights often treat policy outcomes as optional. Voters don’t. Newsom’s career is an illustration of both truths at once: He can win battles of attention, but he still lives with the consequences of governing a complicated state.
When he faced a Republican-backed recall effort in 2021, he didn’t survive by dunking alone. He survived by turning the contest into a referendum on what California is and isn’t — and he won decisively, with 64% voting to keep him in office and 36% voting to remove him, according to Reuters’ report on the recall results.
That episode matters now because it shows the real equation: Democrats can win when they build a coalition around tangible stakes. The coalition isn’t built on clapbacks. It’s built on whether voters believe the party is competent, serious and focused on what makes life work — schools, safety, costs, health care, housing, disaster response, the basics.
The DeSantis debate proved he can fight — and why fighting isn’t enough
Newsom’s brand as a national foil to Republicans didn’t begin with parody merchandise. In 2023, he stepped onto a Fox News stage to debate then-Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in an exchange that, by design, leaned into conflict and spectacle. The debate quickly turned acrimonious, with insults and accusations taking center stage, as described in Reuters’ account of the DeSantis-Newsom faceoff.
For Democrats, the takeaway was obvious: Here was someone willing to swing. Someone who didn’t sound apologetic. Someone who would say the line that the viral clip needs. That appetite hasn’t gone away — if anything, it grew after the 2024 loss, because losing makes a party chase the most emotionally satisfying explanation: “We didn’t fight hard enough.”
Sometimes that’s true. Most of the time, it’s incomplete. Fighting is an energy source, not an agenda. You can’t govern on adrenaline. And if Democrats want to win back voters who bounced in 2024 — the ones who don’t live online and don’t care who ratioed whom — they need more than a fighter. They need a builder.
What Democrats should demand from a “fighter” like Newsom
Here’s a useful test for Democrats who love the Newsom clips: If you strip away the trolling, what remains? If the answer is “a clear plan that addresses voters’ daily stress,” then the trolling is seasoning. If the answer is “a vibe,” then the trolling is the whole meal — and the party will be hungry again in two years.
Any Democrat with national ambitions — Newsom included — should be judged on three basics:
A policy promise that fits in one sentence. Not 12 priorities. Not a values statement. A promise a voter can repeat in a grocery line.
Proof of execution. What was the goal, what was delivered, and what got better? Not intentions — outcomes.
A coalition plan that reaches beyond the base. Not just “we’ll energize young voters.” Who specifically is persuadable, and why would they switch?
Trolling can help with the third item by making politics feel less one-sided. It can even help with the first by forcing clarity. But it cannot substitute for the second. Voters will forgive imperfect messaging if their life feels more stable. They will not forgive perfect memes if their life feels more expensive, less safe and more chaotic.
The brutal truth about politics in the meme era
Democrats don’t need to become humorless or high-minded. They also don’t need to pretend that online culture doesn’t matter. It does. Newsom understands that better than most, and he’s exploiting it with precision.
But if Democrats mistake “winning the internet” for “winning the country,” they’ll keep learning the same lesson the hard way. Memes are a megaphone. Policy is the message. And a party that only grabs the megaphone eventually gets asked the question it can’t dodge: OK — then what?
