This week, Gavin Newsom made his latest pitch to the mob by proclaiming himself “an established insurgent.” It was vintage Newsom in trying to be everything to everyone, part of the establishment and part of the revolution. Like a violent pacifist or a preservation arsonist, it makes no sense to anyone else. However, with the victory of radicals across the country, Newsom is trying to join other armchair revolutionaries in seeking to lead the far-left mob. He believes that he can use a class war that will spare him while destroying his enemies. Call it the Danton delusion.
In my book Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution, I discuss the French Revolution and its decline into what the Framers called a mobocracy. What became known as “The Terror” was started not by the working class, but by educated lawyers, journalists, and even aristocrats as part of the Jacobin movement. One of the central figures was a lawyer named Georges Jacques Danton, a gifted orator and writer.
Danton would become the Justice Minister and later a member of the infamous Committee of Public Safety. The more he facilitated the rage, the more he found himself captured by it. Achieving power at the head of a mob, Danton fed the bloodlust of revolution, sending thousands to the guillotine and allegedly masterminding atrocities such as the September Massacres. Danton secured power by declaring others to be dangerous reactionaries, declaring, “The bell we are about to ring . . . sounds the charge on the enemies of our country.”
Danton struggled to stay ahead of the mob by feeding victims into the grinder of a class war. Eventually, however, the mob had finished off the aristocrats, clergy, and merchants. The most radical Jacobins, led by his ally Maximilien Robespierre, then turned on their fellow Jacobins, including Danton.
Before his fall, it was dawning on Danton that there would be no end to the killings. When one supporter excitedly told him of more executions of moderates as guilty of “factionalism,” Danton remarks, “We’re all factious. If they deserve to be guillotined, we all deserve so. Those men in Paris will guillotine the entire Republic.”
And so they did. Danton himself would stand before the “national razor” on April 5, 1794.
Notably, the radicals today are also calling for purges of the Democratic Party of moderates and denouncing dissenters as “factionalism.” Yet, Newsom still hopes that he can use the mob for his own ambitions, ignoring Danton’s warning, “Woe betide those who would provoke revolutions.”
Newsom wants to be one of the red aristocrats of the new Democratic Party. By calling for radical changes to our constitutional system, he is hoping that the socialists will ignore his own wealth and privilege. The same is true for Ro Khanna, who is also offering to trash our institutions. He hopes to secure the socialist vote despite being reportedly worth roughly half a billion dollars thanks to his wife’s inheritance.
In Newsom’s case, the proletarian pitch still comes off as more French Laundry than French Revolution. He is trailing in the polls, with some showing him falling behind former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who has been promising his own radical changes to our system while campaigning with controversial figures such as Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan.
The loss of DSA candidate Francesca Hong this week will not change the calculation for Newsom. What he saw was an extremist who came within less than one percentage point of winning the nomination for Wisconsin governor. The far-left gubernatorial candidate Peggy Flanagan did win the primary handily in Minnesota. Other leaders like Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison (who previously praised the violent group Antifa) celebrated the infusion of socialists into the party.
After the Hong defeat, socialist influencer and virulent anti-Semite Hasan Piker lashed out against the establishment Democrats and the media, declaring that they are trying to destroy the socialist movement and that “the knives will be out.”
Newsom believes that there is a pocket of delusional free-market Marxists who are longing for his leadership. If so, they do not live in New Hampshire, where Newsom is being trounced by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Voters can spot the real thing; AOC is authentically bananas. That is better than a Newsom banana split that is part establishment and part insurgency.
As Harris and Buttigieg make their own plays for the radical wing, Newsom will likely need to find another institution to offer up other than the Supreme Court. Packing the Supreme Court has become the mere starting ante in the game. Radicals are looking for bona fides of true believers with some calling for the scrapping of the Constitution entirely.
Newsom — “the established insurgent” — is desperately trying to be the next leader rather than the next trophy of the mob. History is not on their side. Well-coiffed hair and a hip podcast are not likely to be enough to keep the mob at bay. From New York to Colorado, the far left is taking establishment heads. In the end, Danton yielded one last time to feed the desire of the mob. When he was finally taken to the guillotine, Danton told the executioner, “Show the people my head. It is well worth seeing.”
Jonathan Turley is a law professor and the New York Times best-selling author of “Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution.”
This column also ran on Fox.com
#. It’s a demonado whipped up by a dysfunctional AI. The good news is the US doesn’t exist in hell-o. ☺. No, Mr. Obama, you’ll not ever be president of the United States no matter how big the dreams of your father. 😂.
So the US has year round elections now. 😂 adieu
It’s not necessary to go back to the French Revolution, when a more current example is the Islamic Revolution in Iran: https://x.com/i/status/2081772083952902626
After viewing this touching 1978 CBS 60 Minutes interview with Ayatollah Khomeini, even I naively was a supporter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pAD-XpO1SQ
“. . . Gavin Newsom made his latest pitch . . .”
I think he’ll be the D’s 2028 presidential candidate — precisely because he is a smarmy pretty boy.
The DSA power lusters (from Sanders on down), stung by the D’s rejection of Hong and flight from El-Sayed, finally realize that socialism/communism play in NYC and other Leftist enclaves, but not in Des Moines. To capture the White House, they need a pliable figure head — someone many regard as harmless who they can control.
Enter Newsom.
Newsom is too “plastic-fantastic” to be anything else but a Plastic-Fantastic Fantasy. Bottom line: No real-world accomplishments in his entire career.
“… Danton would become the Justice Minister and later a member of the infamous Committee of Public Safety. The more he facilitated the rage, the more he found himself captured by it. Achieving power at the head of a mob, Danton fed the bloodlust of revolution, sending thousands to the guillotine and allegedly masterminding atrocities such as the September Massacres. Danton secured power by declaring others to be dangerous reactionaries, declaring, “The bell we are about to ring . . . sounds the charge on the enemies of our country.” …” – JT
I suggest a re-write:
Newsom would become the Justice Governor of California and later a member of the infamous Committee of the Democratic National Committee (DNC). The more he facilitats the rage, the more he found himself seduced & captured by it. Achieving power at the head of the People’s mob, Newsom fed the bloodlust of revolution, sending thousands of Califorinan Citizes to the economic guillotine and allegedly masterminding atrocities such as the November 2028 Election GOP Massacres. Newsom secured power by declaring others to be dangerous reactionaries, declaring, “The hell we are about to bring . . . sounds the charge on the enemies of ‘My’ country.”
If I only read your last paragraph, I might think it was over the top, but then there’s this: https://x.com/libsoftiktok/status/1958620879056937328
And Maximilien Robespierre was guillotined on July 28th, 1794. As Talleyrand said of the Bourbons, the progressives “have learned nothing and forgotten nothing.” America’s Napoleon awaits. I wonder who he might be.
Sayed or similar?
All of the worst criminals must become Moslems. Most likely a Moslem ultimately for a brief period.
I think that’s how the story goes 😏. Last stop before the Congo.
And just in case anyone has forgotten, and the modern left sure wish we would, this is what we got in just four years the last time dems were in power:
Covid
Inflation
Open borders
DEI, CRT
FBI as the leftist police
Defund the police
‘Cancellation’
Dangerous and false rhetoric
Massive spending bills
NGOs
Massive fraud
Lawfare
Riots
Afghanistan withdrawal
Ukraine
Iran deal
Student loans
Ministry of truth
Election engineering
Installing candidates without elections
A neutered military
Further declining schools
Reckless climate initiatives
Men in women’s spaces
Transitioning children
Full-term abortion
Censorship, attacks on free speech
Appliances that don’t work
Non-existent amendments to the Constitution being declared
And from Justine Bateman’s X on why we do not want this to happen again:
‘It was the pressing down of any disagreement or question, it was the constant threat of violence, it was the destruction of the careers and lives of countless people (and the consequent evisceration of the entertainment industry), it was the the removal of choice for vaccines, it was the inflamation of racism, it was the neutering of law enforcement, it was the numbing of meritocracy, it was the dismantling of the spirit of quite a few cities (and the accompanying declining property values), it was the collapse of a political party, it was the crushing of common sense (particularly in the young), it was the ruin of university value, it was the end of trust in the media, it was the fostering of the most selfish era in modern society.
It was fascism, intolerance, and decidedly un-American. It was shameful and despicable.’
Just four years.
“Justine Bateman”
Working in the malicious tribalism of Hollywood, she is very, very courageous.
I think it was more like five years, starting in 2020 before the election, and you left out eviction moratoria.
Trump can’t get a liner in a pool or deal with Iran and win.
It would behoove Gavin Newsom NOT to run for President. If he does, AOC will make him look like the ‘establishment stooge’ candidate that Obama turned Hillary into in 2008 and Trump turned Jeb Bush into in 2016 as she waltzes to the nomination and the White House.
That’s a good one! AOC in the White House 🤣
That skank is too stupid to be in Congress let alone CIC. I’m sure she’ll try and in the debates she will be exposed for her stupidity…again. She’s a bartender and can’t even make a Cuba Libre’!
I wonder how AOC would fare on the debate stage.
Why do the polls always, and I mean always, err on the side of the more left leaning candidate?
Why do election glitches, delays and questionable events always, and I mean always, result in the more leftist candidate gaining?
Liberals seem to want total power over all of us. Reminds me of a young man coming up to an old lady to get across the street, when in fact she didn’t want to cross the street.
I suppose I am a liberal and I want no power over you at all. None. I also don’t want conservatives to have power over everyone, yet conservatives are pushing to fondle little girls to be sure they are in the right bathroom.
Love the historical perspective, no one can claim this is anything new, and we do not need to destroy anymore generations with the poison of communism no matter how their idiotic and underdeveloped minds think they want it, thank you Professor, for the piece.
Nothing has changed. The elite still think they should rule over the rest of us, and it’s that simple. This country as it was founded is seemingly the one place on earth where that is no easy task. I was thrilled that Hong lost the primary, for example, even though I doubt her ‘traditional’ forebears are much better these days. We need to shut this juvenile idiocy down, and right now. There is no room to even entertain it. None, not anymore. Send these kids back to their parents’ estates and let the rot there while the rest of us live free and productive lives. Let them be the lost and utterly foolish generation they are, and let them sort it out on their own without involving the rest of us who do not share their twisted visions of eternal personal comfort brought about by force.
The oligarchs already rule over you. They are enlisting you to help them be subservient to them.
There was a glitch in the ballot counting in Milwaukee. The thumb drive went back to HQ and when it reemerged Crowley surged ahead. How about that.
@Daniel
They will do anything to win. They know how unpopular these candidates are, and ethics are no obstacle to them. Do not trust them any farther than you can throw them, the Biden years showed us there is little difference between any of them intrinsically. Prepare yourself for the dems to pretend they are moderate and salt of the earth and then remember Spanberger and do not be swayed.
Daniel,
I do find that rather interesting. Various polls had Hong ahead of Crowley by as much as 30 points.
Very interesting.
The last time I checked the US still has laws against communism “on the books”! Why are the former “democrat” party & its leaders not being charged & tried for their heinous treason against our nation?
They were – but Trump pardoned them all and is hell bent on getting them paid reparations.
When you have nothing to offer, any straw looks like a rope to bring you to the top.
I think I have a glimmer of understanding of how we suddenly got to this point. It’s the internet. The immature but fairly intelligent were after the war self-selected to go on in education. Once there they were subjected to the thought not of idealists who never faced any situation in which they were wanting for anything material, but of veterans, first of all, of the defining period of modern American life, the Depression, and then of the most horrible experience any man could ever have: World War. The the hollow ideas of children soon vanished in the cauldron of reality. Today not only are the children not subjected to anything remotely similar but their teachers are the sons and grandsons of those now nearly banished victors of market capitalism over socialism, fascism, communism. Those economic systems were employed by vicious dictators in their attempt to take over the world. Now once again the cycle begins. Hopefully though there are enough people satisfied with their life to not fall into the trap of listening to children who never grow up. I note in my own life that if you stop watching television and stop getting your picture of the world from a screen of any kind, you’ll find that life in America is pretty good. If you know anything about history at all, you know that you’re living in the best of times, not the worst of times.
Newsom is doing his best to maintain a foothold as he traverses the side of the cliff. Feeling himself loosing his grip on a government paycheck he now flails about pounding the socialist spike into any crevice in the rock. After at first claiming himself to be a moderate Democrat the true colors of the snake slither from beneath the log. He has broken the first law of his party. Never tell them what your real philosophy is and has been all along. Listen to them baying at the moon. Sly wolfs in sheep’s clothing desperate for a yummy bite of mutton. Irrelevance falls bitter on the Newsom palette.
“The loss of DSA candidate Francesca Hong . . .”
Not really important to JT’s post (which is excellent), but what happened to the polls showing that loon +20 in the polls? At least for a time, Thanksgiving, Halloween and fireworks are safe. And criminals will remain where they belong — in prison.
Sam, the polls you say? The socialist polls are just a branch of the propaganda department of the Democratic party.
The telephone calls from the politburo go out and presto a new poll appears shortly thereafter proclaiming the leadership of their future star in the race. There just a bunch of polls—t.
Again, the media!!
California gets Billions in FRAUDLENT Aid
End that!
The Federal Government paid for the high speed trains….democrats go the money, stole it…never bought trains!
Democrats are FASCISTS…they will eat their own for power
The Democrat Party needs to be DESTROYED!
The method is to depower DC and DEFUND the endless flow of money for failure!
End Federal Aid to cities, states, non-profits and colleges
outlaw public unions the democrat army.
DESTROY THE DEMOCRAT Party!
Is there any package that Gavin Newsom will not try to fit himself into. Once, while traveling in London, I heard a Labor voter, who was helping out our tour, refer to John Major (Conservative Leader at the time) as a rubber man who could move almost seamlessly into any desired position. I have not yet determined if Gavin Newsom is the American version of the Rubber Man or a pretzel. Each can slide into different positions but the rubber man does it seamlessly and the pretzel seems to do it with less grace, more sharp angles and some fragility and breakage. Time will tell, I suppose.
GEB,
Reminds me of a shockingly honest NPR article I heard during the 2016 election: How many times can they (the DNC) re-introduce Hillary Clinton. They would conduct a internal poll, when if found she was weak with a given group, they would trot her out like she was a new candidate who favored that particular group.
And I think that is why she lost. She came up as fake.
https://x.com/GovPressOffice/status/1997120402569810317
Free Market Marxist….
Come On Man! This is the WAY OF THE DEMOCRATIC COMMUNIST (aka SOCIALIST) AMERICAN CULT! The orthodoxy demands scalps for any perceived error in judgment – of course judgment is based on the Cults Definition Du Jour! This is what America gets by failing to ‘teach’ REAL Civics and fact based History to its Public Holding Pen (oops, I mean School) Inmates for decades. Socialism thrives in a low IQ environment and Communism excels when idiots follow a Mob Mentality until they realize it is too late to get your freedom back. Oh well – YOU CAN”T FIX STUPID BUT DARWINISM WILL.