Could Gavin Newsom be America's Justin Trudeau...

American conservatives are laughing at Gavin Newsom, Trudeau shows why they shouldn't.

Justin Trudeau and Gavin Newsom in 2023.

Right now, Justin Trudeau is off skiing and snowboarding with Katy Perry in northern Italy after stopping in for a quick speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Trudeau is mostly a political punchline now, but for nearly 10 years he was the prime minister of a G7 country and his policies caused a lot of damage and problems that still persist.

He was a 43 year-old, attractive, well spoken progressive heartthrob when he was first elected in 2015.

Trudeau was taken as a joke by many when he was first running, but he was able to convince the electorate that he was the right man to take over from Stephen Harper. Sadly, what we got was out of control government spending, deteriorating government services, higher taxes and a lot of virtue signalling.

This is why Justin Trudeau is the warning for Americans who are laughing at Gavin Newsom and his plan to leave his position as Governor of California and run for president in 2028.

Newsom is ridiculous and showed up at Davos with kneepads…

Gavin Newsom showing up with kneepads at Davos was kinda weird. When I heard people talking about this online and on TV, I was sure it was people throwing them at him in some homophobic slur.

Nope, it was Newsom invoking the homophobic slur by implying that European leaders were on their knees and fellating Donald Trump. He had a pair of the kneepads thrown up on stage while he was being interviewed.

He’s also selling them on his own website.

Speaking of making jokes about why men need kneepads, Trump’s Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who is an openly gay man, said maybe Newsom brought the kneepads for his meeting with donor and benefactor Alex Soros.

On Fox News they are in full mocking mode…

It’s easy to laugh at Newsom and the kneepads. It’s easy to point to problems in California like the high taxes, the ridiculous regulations, his failure and the failure of local officials in dealing with the Palisades fire in Los Angeles.

And of course, people love to point to the exodus from California over the past number of years.

According to the liberal leaning Public Policy Institute of California, the state has been seeing a net migration out of the state for most of the last quarter century. Newsom has been Governor of California since 2019 and was Lieutenant Governor of California from 2011 to 2019.

According to PPIC, California lost about 10 million people and gained about 7 million between 2010 and 2024. That’s a net out migration of about 3 million people and at least half of those have been since Newsom became Governor.

People are voting with their feet.

It’s true that not everyone who is leaving California is leaving due to bad policy, high taxes and regulation. Yet, that’s the story that the American conservative movement tells itself, people are fleeing California.

Yes, some are leaving due to the policies that Newsom supports, others for other reasons that have nothing to do with politics.

The point here is that it’s easy to laugh and mock, but voters may not see things the same way you do.

Trudeau messed with Canadian conservatives for nearly a decade…

Justin Trudeau was born on December 25, 1971 when his father, Pierre Trudeau, was a few years into being Canada’s Prime Minister. He grew up in the lap of luxury, wasn’t taken seriously about anything having ben a part-time teacher, a snowboard instructor and a motivational speaker before becoming a Member of Parliament in 2008.

He was a backbencher in the opposition meaning the Liberals weren’t in power and he had no official role in government.

Trudeau, like Newsom though was seen as attractive, a dreamboat.

In 2012, before becoming leader of the Liberal Party, he took part in a charity boxing match to support cancer research. His participation elevated this annual event from a sleepy affair to a nationally televised event.

I was there, one of the ringside announcers calling the boxing match on live TV for the now defunct Sun News Network as Trudeau beat up a native man, a sitting Senator and then cut off his hair - all moves that elevated him to the leadership of the Liberal Party.

Trudeau at the weigh in for his boxing match against Senator Patrick Brazeau in 2012.

Trudeau had been mocked, by my co-host as the Shiny Pony, that he just had nice hair - a line the Conservative Party would later use in a failing ad campaign in 2015. There were so many jokes to make about Trudeau and supporters of Canada’s Conservative Party loved to share them.

When the election started in the summer of 2015, Trudeau and his Liberal Party were in third place in a three way national race, but he won.

Not only did he win in 2015, he won in 2019 and in 2021. Supporters of the Conservative Party were pulling out there hair. They couldn’t figure out how anyone could vote for him.

Yet, he kept winning.

Newsom is a threat to the Republicans, not the butt of a joke…

Republicans would be making a major mistake to dismiss Gavin Newsom in 2028. Canada’s Conservatives dismissed Trudeau for a decade and couldn’t figure out why voters didn’t hate him the way they did.

Eventually, voters did hate Trudeau but it took a long time and by that point his policies had destroyed the country’s economy.

The point here is that Newsom could end up winning in 2028. Laugh if you want but the man needs to be taken seriously.

A poll on Newsom’s approval rating by the Public Policy Institute of California shows that as he takes on Trump in a very public way, voters in California are liking it. A poll by Morning Consult shows that Newsom is rising in popularity with Democrat voters and would do well in hypothetical match ups against J.D. Vance and Marco Rubio on the GOP ticket.

So laugh at Newsom if you want, mock his hair, make fun of his kneepads, but if you don’t take him seriously, he very much could become America’s Justin Trudeau.