Gina Harris's Blog, page 2

Your relationships and environment

Not all titles can be clever.

Some of you know that I used to do a preparedness newsletter; that's where the Sunday blog came from.

It often focused on pretty tangible preparedness for emergencies, but your emotional resources are a part of survival too. 

It totally makes sense to look at your environment in terms of whether there are nearby farms or you are in a food desert and are there plants contaminating the air and water or a pipeline that could explode without warning. Today, though, we are just asking...

Do you feel safe expressing yourself politically?

Would the neighbors shun you? Might you get a brick through a window?

Look, even here in the liberal suburbs of Portland, I know people who have had their Pride flags stolen and I see Trump and Thin Blue Line flags all the time... there aren't really monoliths. 

In general, though, are you able to express your views safely?

If not, you may be feeling some isolation. That may be more true on a day when a lot of rhetoric is flying around about how liberals are evil.

If your area seems bad in that regard, there is a good chance that it would not be economically feasible to move. You can still try and find community.

Look for the helpers. Maybe there are some like-minded people working on getting more supervision on the polluting factory or organizing to improve the food desert. 

If you don't find anyone, maybe you could start something and bring people in, but first check out who is around you. It might be surprising..

I should also note (and I promise you that dominator culture plays a role in this), it is not unusual for volunteer organizations to have terrible political struggles, with some people wanting to take leadership so slandering some members and playing favorites with others. I have seen some terrible burnout in dog rescue.

As we get into the relationships, we have to remember that people are not perfect. Also, you are people.

Who empties and who fills your bucket. Who listens when you are hurting? Whom can you ask for help?

The very important related questions are who confides in you? Who asks you for help?

Not having good answers is not where you throw up your hands in despair; it's just a starting point.

Maybe you need to reach out first. Is there someone whom you think might need help, and you would be willing to help them, but they haven't asked? How hard would it be for them to ask you?

You can tell someone that you are there for them, though it may require some reinforcement before they believe it.

You could also find that you would like to help others but you feel like your bucket is too empty. Is there someone you could talk to about that? 

If it's less pressure to do something that is not a big need, like a nice note or cookies, just because, that can be a perfectly fine starting place.

These are only starting questions, but I am going to throw two more out there knowing there are common patterns that come up:

Is your primary social engagement coming from work? 

Today's world makes that pretty easy, but changes in work can disrupt those relationships very abruptly, even when you socialize outside of work.

If job troubles happen, is that going to leave you isolated?

Also, if you live with people, do you all recognize each other as full human beings with the rights to their own thoughts and ways, who need to respect and be considerate of each other?

Sure, I ask that thinking more about husbands and boyfriends being sexist and not granting women their full humanity, but you know, it can happen with parents and children too.

That doesn't mean that you have to break up the relationship, but often people will struggle to realize they are not respected -- maybe they are not even liked -- and it's hard to move forward from that.

Respect is something that you both feel and do. My younger sisters and I are in a good place, but there was some anger and fighting along the way. Don't despair if things aren't good yet.

At the same time, if things are mostly in a state of detente achieved by ignoring issues, there may be room for improvement. That improvement is worth the discomfort that it will require.

I know there is nothing very concrete there, but it can't be concrete because it is so individual.  

It is also worth it.

Now in this worst timeline, there are previews of the accelerating stressors, so use them as a guide to what kind of improvements might help you and what improvements are possible.

We still need to be able to imagine something better, and implement it if we can. 

After the case studies, moving forward

Looking over the case studies has given me many thoughts about how we got here and what we do next.

I have been vacillating between giving personal tips and things to think about versus the importance of having some dominator culture analysis.

I think the analysis will take longer, so here are some tips.

Actually, today is more about the devastating reasons that we need the tips.

Looking at the three case studies, they were in different states of comfort and happiness, which seemed to be greatly affected by personal relationships and environments.

Obviously, in the same way that relationships form part of your environment, there can be some fuzziness on cause and effect in the relationships. I believe B's unexamined sexism damaged his relationship with his wife, and then that damage led to him becoming more misogynistic.

Life and people and situations can have all sorts of complications and nuances and they are very personal.

Because we know that, we are not going to necessarily judge people for what they do or don't do; that is not the purpose.

What we can do is consider our situations and options and then try and do better as we have the means.

Remember, A was the most conservative but also the most comfortable; most of us are at least suffering mentally now.

I do not expect that comfort to last, but the things that will cause that will not make life easier for anyone.

I predict future (already starting, really) difficulty along various lines.

We are going to see declining health with more difficulty accessing health care. That's not just vaccine-related but also deregulation and less enforcement of existing regulations. There will be deaths, but there will also be a lot of disability. Notice the increased talk of eugenics (even when they are not calling it that) and increased talk of institutionalization, especially  when we are talking about mental illness.

Growing stress and declining civility leading to more violence leading to increased fear, with increased fear also coming from incarceration of homeless people and immigrants. Yes, there have been deportations, but the camp in Florida seemed to be more about incarceration.

There will be more environmental disasters with worse government response. This is going to destroy jobs and housing situations. Also, we are seeing less job security and protection for workers. 

Add to that the rising cost of living on multiple levels, with some items becoming very hard to get, that is going to mean declining quality of life and private companies buying up real estate and this is also going to drive people into homelessness, which may drive them into incarceration.

Artificial intelligence in wrapped up in all of this, contributing to less respect for workers and more job loss, more environmental damage and energy instability, more psychosis, and less ability to get good information, which the government will not help.

I want to point out something with the increasing threats: you are not meant to feel safe unless you are "with them", but being with them is a moving target. The hate always needs to expand. Currently the people who care about the "good" immigrants that they like are starting to get it, maybe, but that will expand.

It's easy to feel very angry and bitter, but that won't help. Acknowledge the anger, because it is fair; then think about surviving and helping others.

And how do we survive and help others? 

That's where we start looking at our own relationships and environment. 

Case studies: Possibly the most relevant one

It's easy to think that most of my conflicts would be with conservatives; at least on the surface we seem most diametrically opposed.

However, I got on Facebook shortly before the country elected our first Black president. I think that might have caused some sifting, where I don't even remember the conflicts. I remember there were some, but it's been a long time. Certainly the oddball bigot pops up here and there, but my bitterest disputes seem to be with leftists.

That's why I say that C might be the most relevant, but of course the interesting thing about disputes with leftists is that they are so similar to disputes with conservatives. They are...

Confident that they possess the moral high ground.Discounting of the most reasonable things you say.Quick to become abusive.

It should be better. Trump is a way more vile person than Bernie Sanders, so you would think that someone devoted to Sanders would not be as noxious as someone devoted to Trump. As reasonable as that premise sounds, it just hasn't been my experience.

In this case, C could not stand my support of Hillary Clinton. He kept attacking my posts in her support, which I kept defending in turn. 

The point of the breach was that in checking out his own page I noticed I was not the only friend who disagreed with him, but he didn't seem to be attacking the men in the same way. I asked about that.

"How dare you accuse me of sexism!?!" 

From my perspective, I was only asking a question to make him think. I did have my suspicions that he was sexist, but I didn't think he was doing it consciously. Maybe that was condescending of me. Anyway, he unfriended me and the conversation ended.

That wouldn't even be that interesting, except that it surprised me that he is avoiding politics so much right now. 

There's a lot going on; most people are posting a lot, with lots of outrage and concern over the current government's corruption and depravity. 

Leftists contributed to these, so their posting is often kind of defensive about how Harris would be just as bad on Palestine or how Democrats should have given us a better candidate, but they are still posting. 

Why isn't C?

Last I knew, he was living in Texas, like A. That may not be working as well for him.

The most noxious leftists are living in New York or California, where they are a lot less likely to be beaten up for their beliefs. That could make a difference.

There you have it; those are all three now.

Can we learn anything from this?

I am willing to post more about that.  

1957 - 1954: August Songs

Writing about July, I mentioned that I was going to have to switch to only five songs per year at 1955, partly because there were fewer songs to pick from, and partly because they were a lot cornier.

Don't get me wrong: I like some of these corny songs. For my Ballroom Dancing 2 final, I choreographed and danced a tango to Hernando's Hideway. I did that because the soundtrack to The Pajama Game was one of the records we had when I was a kid. 

Those songs from 1957 were very popular in movies and television in the 80s, and I have residual fondness for a lot of them.

It's still nicer with rock. 

I don't know that "Rock Around the Clock" specifically had anything to do with increasing the number of hot songs in the year-end roundup, but it is generally considered to be the song that brought rock into the mainstream. Having rock around did make things different.

I found Nik Cohn's Awopbopaloobop Alopbamboom: The Golden Age of Rock pretty annoying, but I may need to revisit it. In retrospect, things that stuck with me from it seem important.

He had pointed out that previously young people and their parents were listening to the same music; then rock was adopted by only the youth.

Now, Cohn's racial analysis was terrible (that was one of the annoying things), but I know variations of this music had been around for a while; it just wasn't being listened to by the white middle and upper class. 

I suspect that was a big part of the conflict; these kids from nice families are listening to music for poor people, if not expressed in those words. That it happened at a time when these nice kids had pocket money added fuel to the fire and cash to the industry.

Cash does tend to help things catch on. 

From Billboard's Hot 50 

1957

8/1 “Whispering Bells” by The Del-Vikings
8/3 “Mr. Lee” by The Bobbettes
8/3 “Old Cape Cod” by Patti Page
8/4 “Green Door” by Jim Lowe
8/5 “Chances Are” by Johnny Mathis
8/6 “I’m Walkin’” by Fats Domino
8/7 “Silhouettes” by The Rays (Repeated on 8/8)
8/9 “Searchin’” by The Coasters
8/10 “You Send Me” by Sam Cooke
8/11 “Day-O (The Banana Boat Song)” by Harry Belafonte

1956

8/12 “Moonglow and Theme from Picnic” by MorrisStoloff
8/13 “The Great Pretender” by The Platters
8/14 “Be-Bop-A-Lula” by Gene Vincent
8/15 “Long Tall Sally” by Little Richard
8/16 “Lisbon Antigua” by Nelson Riddle
8/17 “Love Me Tender” by Elvis Presley
8/18 “Why Do Fools Fall In Love” by Frankie Lymon and theTeenagers
8/19 “More” by Perry Como
8/20 “The Wayward Wind” by Gogi Grant
8/21 “I’m In Love Again” by Fats Domino

From Billboard's Hot 30   

1955 

8/22 A Blossom Fell” by Nat King Cole
8/23 “Cherry Pink And Apple Blossom White” by Perez Prado
8/24 “Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing” by The Four Aces
8/25 “Rock Around the Clock” by Bill Haley & His Comets
8/26 “Mr. Sandman” by The Chordettes

1954

8/27 “Sh-Boom” by The Crew-Cuts with David Carrol
8/28 “Papa Loves Mambo” by Perry Como
8/29 “Hey There” by Rosemary Clooney with Buddy Cole
8/30 “Hernando’s Hideaway” by Archie Bleyer
8/31 “Answer Me My Love” by Nat King Cole

Case studies: The saddest one

B is the one who I think is divorced now.

I already mentioned him declaring the truth of the clip with a man imperiously telling a woman that gaslighting doesn't exist; but there was something else.

It was a picture of Ryan Adams requesting that he be freed. B captioned it, "He once broke up with a girl... the horror."

Ryan Adams is not in jail. He has many releases including this year, so is not prohibited from working. 

However, there are people who look down on him because of harassment allegations. Seven women, including his ex-wife, said Adams offered to help them musically, but was really trying to pursue them romantically, and then retaliated and harassed when his advances were rejected. Adams has apologized for this, after initially denying it.

It's not the most recent post, but one where his personality is coming through and looking pretty misogynistic.

One thing about the three is that they were all at very different places politically when we scuffled. B was someone who liked conservative traditions but did not like the direction they were going.

Often those were the types who would say that they are socially liberal but fiscally conservative (which is a crock), but I think he was a little bit too religiously conservative to have fully supported reproductive choice. I imagine the direction he went was full-on libertarian, but bitter about that being his most palatable option.

I too am very sad about how the Republican party has devolved. I mean, they haven't been that great for a while, but nothing good has come of it getting this bad.

(Sorry for those who thought this nightmare would propel the revolution forward. You were wrong.)

(For the Republican devolution, a lot of people will look at Lee Atwater and the Southern Strategy as the start, but even if you don't go back to the end of Reconstruction, I would at least go back to the Dixiecrats. It was a process.) 

While I understand that it can be very hard to admit that you were wrong politically, I don't think political trends took the worst toll. 

I believe his biggest problem was the unacknowledged sexism. Of course I respect women. Of course I support their rights. 

But in this moment I know that I am right and you are wrong... somehow repeating in every moment where there was a conflict.

I believe that harassment is bad in theory, but in practice it keeps not seeming that bad.

Of course I know that you are a complete human being, but... over and over.

It is easy to avoid acknowledging those patterns baked into the patriarchy. It would take digging deep to grow out of them, in a way that is not comfortable or flattering. 

Plus, if his sexism is benevolent enough and her expectations are low enough, you can get along fairly well for quite a while. 

The benevolent sexism still wears down the recipients, less gradually as it becomes less benevolent.

Times like these are not great for benevolence. 

Know that not examining your sexism affects your political beliefs, and that racism works in much the same way, but less frequently in such intimate relationships. 

Case studies: The first one

I know... I keep going back to those former friends.

Let me try and put some perspective to it.

I have thought about doing some blogging on predicting how different things will play out and what might be good things to do for various circumstances. I still might.

However -- in my obsession with people mattering -- I think it is most important that we hold on to our humanity. 

That gets tested in different ways.

All three of them started out differently, so the differences between them now make sense.

Since it looks like I am going to be spending some time here, I probably need to assign codes.

The one who is now in Texas will be A.

The one who seems to have gotten divorced will be B.

The one who mostly only talks about music now is C.

A was always conservative. He was not a mean-spirited person, but would easily believe that all of our problems come from immigrants and that they are all illegal and criminals, regardless of facts.

Let me put it this way: he sincerely believed that pregnant women who didn't have health care would deliberately get arrested so they would have health care through the birth. They could just arrange to have someone to care for their baby from birth until their release date, and that this happened regularly. 

He gave them credit for not getting abortions. 

I can't guarantee that this has never happened, but I doubt it. There have been so many horror stories about awful health conditions in prison, with needs being ignored, giving birth in showers or alone in a cell, where the slightly less awful stories are about giving birth in shackles. Then, if you are someone who does not have the resources to get health care, it is very possible that you do not have people with the means and willingness to take care of a newborn. The most likely result would be a very stressful pregnancy, a nightmarish childbirth, and then the child going into foster care and a real risk of never being reunited.

This makes me skeptical about it being a common plan, but there is a conservative mindset where other people are always abusing the system, and it is easy to do. Unless you are a white man; then everything you have was earned!

I would say that he is the one who is currently in the best frame of mind. I think there are two reasons for that. First of all, he has intact family relationships, which is huge. In addition, I don't think he gets challenged a lot, especially since moving to Texas. 

Remember, with all three relationships, the fractures happened because they were facing arguments that maybe their worldview was wrong. They were enraged by the stubborn refusal to acknowledge how right and smart they were. 

Right now I think he has it pretty easy. 

Mind you, I don't think that will last. This administration is trying so hard to kill so many of us that for all the pain now, there is more coming.

As it hits different people at different intensities, some will change their minds, but some will really hold on.

Denial is powerful.

I don't begrudge him the satisfaction he has now. 

I also don't envy it, and I don't know how long it will last. 

Uncontrollable rage?

There is a point that I want to make about those "former friends", but I think maybe to get to it I need to mention another memory first.

I was at Beaverton Transit Center waiting for the train. Over on the bus side, this man just started yelling at this woman.

She was ignoring him. It was not certain that he was yelling at her; he was not acting lucid so I can't rule out hallucination. He stayed pretty focused in her direction, though, so it seemed to be her.

There were lots of people around, and it was not long before she got on a bus. Even if he had followed her, there was a bus driver there, so in that context it did not seem dangerous, just unpleasant.

None of those details are really uncommon, but it stayed with me for two reasons. 

One was the intensity of the rage where it seemed to have a visible target. Often that kind of meltdown is directed at someone invisible. Also, while the visible person is very upset, there is often more fear or despair or something like that.

The other reason it stood out was that I had some suspicions about the origin. 

The man did not appear to be homeless, but most of the people I had seen exhibiting similar behavior were homeless. 

I had learned by then was that while it is certainly possible for someone mentally ill to become homeless, it is more common that homelessness -- with the stress and lack of security and dehumanization -- brings on mental illness.

I acknowledge that this was supposition, but it was a strong feeling. I felt that this was someone whose prolonged anger had taken away his balance and brought on delusion.

If you look for associations between anger and mental illness, initially you find those in the other order, like bipolar disorder or borderline personality disorder might lead to rage outbursts. Well, maybe, but there are people who have those disorders and will not rage at you. 

We also look at children having tantrums and accept that a normal part of growing up is emotional regulation, where you get better at dealing with emotions in appropriate ways. 

(Or maybe some children learn mainly to repress their emotions; our society is not perfect.)

I suspect that you can also lose the ability to self-regulate, especially if you don't see the value in it. Now being loudly horrible is demonstrated by people at the highest levels of government. Previously, people in those positions would often be kind of corrupt and horrible, but they would maintain this veneer at least. 

Would it surprise anyone if I added that in that incident, it was a middle-aged (or so) white man yelling at a younger brown woman? 

Character development in The Big Bang Theory

My sisters and I continue going through various television shows in order. We recently started Modern Family after finishing The Big Bang Theory.

It is not as unfailingly kind as WKRP in Cincinnati; characters do come through for each other, but they can be pretty mean to each other too. It is not as focused on empathy as Barney Miller, though they sometimes focus on empathy, especially with Sheldon trying to understand it.

One thing I have really appreciated is the character development.

There were things that I had noticed in general before. For example, it makes sense that Raj was the last one unmarried at the end. He had progressed a lot from being someone who could not even talk to women (and was a spoiled rich boy) to someone who had been able to have multiple relationships and survive breakups. 

It was emotionally a huge moment when he was first able to speak to Penny without having any alcohol, and meaningful that he had a recurrence of it with Anu but was able to discuss it with her. 

I liked his relationship with Anu, and with Emily before that, but if all of the original cast had ended the series married, that might have felt a little too neat. One could reasonably believe that as the character goes on, he would be able to find a good match and move forward.   

I am sure some people did not like Penny being pregnant and happy about it at the end, but there had been multiple times when she had indicated that having children was in her plan before. Fear of commitment was also a well-established part of her long-term character arc. So that she could develop cold feet about it, then be happy about it once it happened, makes a lot of sense.

Those were things that I had noticed from starting in season five and seeing a lot of reruns, where I had pretty much seen everything, but not in order.

Going through in order, I see that that Howard asked Leonard to set him up with one of Penny's friends after Raj and Sheldon started working together and Howard tried hanging out with Penny and Leonard and felt like a third wheel. 

Watching in order, it was clear to me that when Penny told Sheldon a story about regretting not telling someone how she felt, it was about Leonard. She could easily have had other past experiences, but that was not what she was describing.

In season 7, Sheldon wants to quit string theory, isn't allowed to, and runs away to rides the rails. The immediate catalyst seems to be someone else making a big discovery, but earlier that season there was a lot of drama over Sheldon thinking he had found a way to synthesize a new element but making a big mathematical goof. There were several episodes in between, but the way it eroded his confidence is completely logical.

It feels like the writers knew the characters really well, and were keeping track of their journeys, not leaving them static.

Of course, that means that when they did sacrifice continuity for a cheap joke, it bugged me more. Sometimes they totally did.

Also, I really hate some of their cameos. 

That being said, I do not blame them for retconning Mrs. Wolowitz into someone more beloved after the actress who portrayed her died. They were paying their tribute to Carol Ann Susi, and I think that's a good enough reason. 

I know it wasn't a perfect show, but we mostly enjoyed it. That dipped a little in the last two to three seasons, but even then there were some pretty good laughs.

It's one we can (and do) quote a lot, which always helps. 

We have not watched any of the prequel spinoffs, but have not ruled out the next one yet. Premise is important, but then it comes down to execution.

Catching up with former friends, emphasis on "former"

This post may seem like mean-spirited gossip. I am aware, but I think it may be useful for some other things I want to explore next week.

When I was posting about my concerns about being a scold, I started thinking about when people were disagreeing with me on Facebook and then unfriended me. 

For the three I was thinking of specifically, it always happened around election times. With at least two of them I think a big part of it was that I was a woman disagreeing with them, refusing to see how right they were.

Since it was mostly regarding voting and anger at the Democratic candidate, I wondered if they saw things any differently now. Would we be in agreement now?

I guess there should be a question about whether I was wrong, but since it was so much about elections, and Trump is himself, I will not concede any ground here. 

I will also not concede ground on defending the posts I made on my own Facebook page about things I strongly believed in when people were arguing points that I knew were wrong. If I had been the one arguing on their pages, that might be another issue. 

I realize this is starting off where I might be the one not open to personal growth. For these areas, yeah, I am pretty comfortable.

That leads to one more issue: I am not going to name people. I believe this is appropriate. However, when I do that (I did write about at least some of these incidents before) I frequently get messages with people wanting to verify their guesses. 

(Which I get, and if you ask I probably will tell you.)

Anyway, to eliminate some of the need to guess...

This will only cover people who deleted me after their efforts to change my mind failed. Therefore, soft deletes for posting stupid stuff that I knew would lead to a fight are not in here. 

The person I deleted after a discussion on police racism after he stated he would be okay with one (Black) friend of mine being shot in a nice neighborhood, because after all, he did have a criminal record (though not for anything you should shoot someone for) would not count. However, I know his arrogance and crookedness did lead to a near nervous breakdown and rupture with his friend and business partner, so my expectations for him are low.

It also does not include the person I deleted for becoming really abusive when I was supporting Clinton over Sanders. However, I did look her up a while back to see if local measles outbreaks had softened her vaccine-cautious stance at all, and no, it had not.

Also, for the two people from school who were always correcting everybody in the most obnoxious way possible, I was never friends with the one who died (though I did talk to him at a gathering) and for the one who was always telling women how they were so cute and he always had a crush on them, I blocked him after he got nasty with me when I explained why I did not feel comfortable accepting his friend request (due to some spying). 

So it's not any of them!

That leaves three.

The one from longest ago, while I was disagreeing with him, a friend was disagreeing with him worse. He couldn't unfriend her, so he did unfriend me. (This is the one where I did not notice the gender aspect as much, but it have have just been less personal for me because of the other woman, who ended up leaving Facebook.)

He has since moved to Texas. While it is no longer his profile picture, he did at one point change it to the Marine Corps War Memorial (Iwo Jima) statue style photo of Trump with the bloody ear, with a lot of hearts all around it. 

If he hadn't unfriended me then, I suspect it still would have happened eventually.

The second one, who had previously complimented my intelligence which I think made my disagreement more bitter, has changed his name. I thought maybe there had been some mix-up, but those pictures of the kids are his. The pictures are really old, but they are his. I feel like there is a divorce in there somewhere.

Anyway, along with some anime and football, he has an angry post about Noam Chomsky endorsing Biden, a comment that something that was labeled neo-conservatism is actually grass roots conservatism, and a Rick and Morty video clip saying that gaslighting doesn't exist with the comment "true". (In that clip, it is a man telling a woman that, arrogantly correcting her, but that is probably a coincidence.)

He seems like a lot of fun. 

Finally, the third -- who could not reference Clinton without changing "Hill" to "shill", "shrill", or "kill" -- seems to only post about music now. 

That might show some change, though only at a level to avoid the issue, not fighting for anything better. 

I get being exhausted by it all, I even get a sense of futility, but hey, you were part of the harm. Suck it up and do something.

I am afraid this post feels very self-indulgent, especially since having done the review now my first thought seems to be "Good riddance!"

There is a second thought, though, of some sadness. 

Leaving aside those two that I was never friends with, these are all people that I have liked. I often liked them a lot. I remember good things about them. 

I know they would not agree, but the disagreements we had were fundamentally about the right of others to exist unmolested, and about being good to each other. That so many people who would endorse that in general couldn't live with that when it specifically conflicted with their ego and prejudices is a tragedy. 

It is not less of a tragedy that the ego and prejudices were unexamined. 

That just makes it worse. 

Related posts: 

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2016/04/fighting-on-internet-three-stories.html  

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2016/06/borders-and-boundaries.html 

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2025/05/two-more-down.html 

Reactions all over the place: Gavin Newsom

I haven't posted a single thing about Gavin Newsom before. 

I have wanted to respond to a few posts, which would probably really irritate the people sharing them. I have also seen enough contradictory posts that I don't know that me responding would matter, except you don't really know what other people see.

What else is there for me to do but a blog post where I can go over the different aspects? That's my jam.

You are probably aware that Gavin Newsom has started mocking Trump by imitating his communication style. This includes lots of capital letters, vainglory, and ridiculous photos. 

There are people celebrating it and criticizing it. The political alignment is not as clear as you might expect.

There can be the usual argument of whether having fun with mockery is detrimental or takes away from other issues; I wrote about that yesterday, and different opinions can be valid.

Here are some of the specific points and my thoughts on them.

It is a way to make the media deal with Trump's incoherence and the problems in his governance.

That might be worthwhile, but it doesn't seem to be happening. Morning Joe said that Newsom was embarrassing himself and that it was pointless since Trump isn't even up for election now, but he seemed to be deeply uncomfortable saying that. I think maybe Morning Joe is embarrassed at their failures, but refusing to deal with it.

Realistically, the media has ignored so many reasons to cover Trump responsibly that I don't know if there is anything that could make it happen at this point. Like, maybe if there were serious personnel changes, but what we have instead is rich people buying and corrupting media sources. Changes here would be great, but that's not something Newsom can fix, even if that is his goal.

I wish our governor was doing something like that!

That's from an Oregonian. I just want to point out that you cannot read a single thing about what Tina Kotek is doing without seeing massive disrespect being thrown at her for being a lesbian. They would excoriate her for trying something like what Newsom is doing.

I don't agree with everything Kotek does, but I often can see that while something is not ideal it is trying to head off something worse. Even though there have been ICE raids in Oregon, we are being criticized already for not doing more. There are some other areas where federal persecution is going to be a real problem. I don't know the best ways of dealing with all of it, but I am positive Newsom-style mockery would not serve our state well.

Let's look at Newsom's position: he is a straight, white man who is relatively good-looking at the head of the fourth largest economy in the world. While California does have its conservative pockets, overall votes tend more reliably liberal than Oregon, where Democrats generally capture the federal but never the legislature. 

Newsom is privileged. You can argue about whether or not what he is doing is the best way of using it, but don't try and pretend that anyone could get away with it.

He could be president!

I do not in any way doubt that part of what he is doing is angling for the 2028 nomination. I do want to note that a big part of this mess that we are in is that people are so quick to jump on bandwagons. Anytime someone says something they like -- even if not particularly profound or even original -- it becomes "This is the one!"

What's really great is that it has the conflict of enemies never being allowed to be human. That means when a Cheney defends democracy -- unexpected, but not so much revolutionary as the least they should do -- you have people saying she should be the running mate on the Democrat ticket. That didn't happen, but then there are still leftists who won't forgive Kamala Harris for having Liz Cheney join her at a rally.

I mean, I guess if the electorate is going to be that fickle with that little attention span and analysis, that's how we got here, but isn't that a reason to change?

It is also worth pointing out that they won't forgive the woman with darker skin, but so easily reconcile themselves to the white guy being an ass. I mean, are we going to learn anything? 

But he is anti-trans and anti-homeless people!

I hate to keep going back to race, but one thing we really need to understand is that white men are so closely aligned to power that they very easily sympathize with it. Being elected to a high political office does nothing to discourage that sympathy. That being said, Newsom is definitely a bigger jerk, less focused on service and equity than Joe Biden. 

Newsom had his biggest opportunity to oppose Trump and Charlie Kirk on trans rights and he blew it. That should not be forgotten.

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/06/03/newsom-takes-the-heat-for-an-unfair-trans-policy-00384037   

He actually does not seem to be doing terrible things with homelessness. That does not mean he has never cleared an encampment or done something inhumane, but he seems to be doing better, and that is worth something.

https://davisvanguard.org/2025/08/newsom-homelessness-progress-report/ 

Look, if we do indeed get to vote for president again, I do not see myself promoting Newsom or supporting him in the primaries, but if he ended up being the Democrat candidate in the general election I am positive he would still be better than any Republican candidate because their bar is that low.

Nick Fuentes likes him.

This is again something that makes a lot of sense. Newsom is imitating toxic masculinity and he does not have the brown wife and children that Vance has. 

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/gavin-newsom-is-being-embraced-by-some-on-the-far-right/ar-AA1La2vG?ocid=BingNewsVerp  

It's still pretty gross. 

What are some things we can learn from this?

Well, it indicates there is not a lot of intellectual depth on the far right, but we always suspected that. 

Would it translate to the general election? I doubt it. Continuing in his current vein would alienate a larger percentage of voters, unless we are campaigning specifically on the idea that some people will get the joke and others won't and that will translate to a majority. That's about as sound a political strategy as the people who believed that a tie in the electoral college would get Evan McMullin elected in 2016.

It does make me think that there actually is some harm in this type of behavior. 

I would question that anyway, like if people get all caught up and elated from pure mockery and feelings of superiority, are they going to balance that with caring for people and working toward good? 

Maybe sometimes the reason that people get so quick to jump on a bandwagon and have a hero is that then it takes responsibility off of them. 

Maybe you can have both, laughing hard and then working hard, with a counterbalance, but I'm going to need to see more evidence.

So far I'm not impressed.