Ah, Gavin Newsom, you magnificent French Laundry populist b*****d – I read your BOOK!*
Which is, apparently, more than Newsom himself can do.
So Newsom assured a crowd in Atlanta this weekend, part of – I kid you not – the California governor's book tour. In an on-stage dialogue with Atlanta mayor Andre Dickens, Newsom tried to express his solidarity with a primarily black audience by reassuring them that he was just like them ... as long as they recognized that they were apparently illiterate midwits, or something (via Twitchy):
Gov. Newsom to a black crowd in GA: "I am like you. I'm a 960 SAT guy. I can't read." pic.twitter.com/4Gk0WKbIYz
— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) February 23, 2026
Again, let me reiterate with emphasis: Newsom showed up to sell his book. The one Newsom supposedly wrote. Instead, Newsom seems to have channeled the 1989 Purina Beggin' Strips commercial, wherein the dog begging for bacon sees the package and cries out: "I CAN'T READ!" And neither can Newsom, he claims, although he's touring the country selling a book he claims to have written.
Worth noting: Newsom did have significant dyslexia issues as a child, and that probably led to his poor SAT scores; 960 is 41st percentile in the SAT distribution curve, which means 58% of test takers score better. The SAT is not necessarily a perfect measure of intelligence. The more important point, though, is what this says about how Newsom sees this audience. His attempt to ingratiate himself through what initially looks like self-deprecation curdles quickly into contempt. Newsom sees this audience as generally illiterate and intellectually inferior, and positions himself as the same to appeal to their populism and presumed resentment.
Why? Newsom is one of the wealthiest politicians in America, and in the top five of governors at the moment, with a net worth of at least $20 million. Newsom made his fortune in partnership with the very non-populist Gettys, a point that Newsom often leaves out when discussing his supposedly quotidian upbringing, which included his father's business dealings with the Gettys. The French Laundry incident that nearly got him recalled out of office in 2020 was no fluke, either. After mandating masks for children at all schools and camps, Newsom sent his own kids to a camp in 2021 that didn't enforce that edict. The next year after that, Newsom took the family on vacation to Montana – a state that Newsom explicitly banned from official state business for their policies on abortion and sex-change operations on kids.
Maybe Newsom had trouble reading his own orders?
At any rate, this isn't populism; it's insulting condescension. It's the same kind of absurd paternalism that causes Newsom and other Democrats to insist that women and black voters are too incapable of finding their birth certificates to prove their identity and citizenship. That, by the way, is not just a necessary step for getting a passport, but now in most states for getting a driver's license, thanks to Real ID requirements. Most of these same Democrats require ID to enter into their rallies, a point that comes up over and over again, as Democrats fight voter-ID policies that 80% of voters support, including similar majorities in every partisan and ethnic demographic.
It's at this point that the argument gets incoherent, of course. Newsom and his fellow Democrats want to tell voters that they know best, while at the same time claiming solidarity with the same victim-demo voters they're paternalizing because they're only 960-SAT thinkers just like the elites!
At some point, these voters will get tired of this insulting paternalism, as well as the Newsom conceit of pulling himself up by his own bootstraps. That's the central message of the book Newsom's pushing, titled Young Man In a Hurry, which gets launched tomorrow. Maybe it's best to look at it and exclaim, "I CAN'T READ!", in solidarity with Newsom. And with the dog looking for bacon, only to get deked by his dog mom. Anyone who follows Newsom can relate better to that than with Newsom's "down with the struggle" poseur messaging.
* - Note: I have not actually read Newsom's book, or the book of whomever Newsom paid to ghostwrite it. Also, here's the orginial Beggin' Strips ad. My wife and I still occasionally toss the line, "I CAN'T READ!" at each other for a laugh. Now it's even funnier than ever.
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