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    Unhinged tweets and absurd self-promotion? Two can play at that game | Margaret Sullivan

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    Just when you thought Donald Trump was parody-proof, Gavin Newsom comes along to prove you wrong.Unhinged all-caps tweets with nonsensical punctuation? Insulting nicknames for political enemies? Self-promotional merchandise for sale?This will all sound familiar unless you have been living in a bubble for the past decade. But if the description conjures an orange-toned Republican in a golf cart – a wannabe dictator in a red tie down to his hefty thighs – your system needs an update.Because it turns out that Trump is not the only one who can play that game.The California governor has spent the last few weeks mercilessly trolling Trump and his Maga followers by flipping the script. His press office is blasting out long, illogical social media posts, depicting Newsom as a muscular Adonis ready to save the world and suggesting his image should be carved in stone on Mount Rushmore or grace the cover of Time magazine wearing a crown and a grin.It’s been a master class in flipping the script – and maybe in political gamesmanship, too. With his social media profile soaring and political coffers filling up, these moves could even help Newsom gain access to the very White House that Trump has tackily transformed into a miniature Mar-a-Lago.Newsom’s counterpunching has earned the approval of everyone from the former president Barack Obama to Steve Bannon, the disreputable architect of some of Trump’s worst moves.“He’s no Trump but … he’s at least getting up there,” Bannon told Politico. “He looks like the only person in the Democratic party who is organizing a fight that they feel they can win.”Obama endorsed the more serious side of what Newsom is up to – praising as “smart, measured, responsible” the governor’s plan to counter the recent Republican gerrymandering of Texas congressional districts with a redistricting measure in California to benefit Democrats.But Newsom’s newfound prominence isn’t pleasing everyone. The pro-Trump commenters on Fox News are disapproving, as if they haven’t spent a decade cheering the same techniques. Sean Hannity, the network’s chief Trump whisperer, trashed the trolling as a “performative confrontational style” that only works with “the loony radical base”.If that sounds familiar, so did the all-caps response from Newsom’s press office: “FOX HATES THAT I AM AMERICA’S FAVORITE GOVERNOR (‘RATINGS KING’) SAVING AMERICA – WHILE TRUMP CAN’T EVEN CONQUER THE ‘BIG’ STAIRS ON AIR FORCE ONE ANY MORE!!! … FOX IS LOSING IT BECAUSE WHEN I TYPE, AMERICA NOW WINS!!! THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER.”And Trump himself is clearly triggered. Weeks ago, he suggested Newsom should be arrested. More recently he dusted off an old nickname: “Newscum”.But here, too, Newsom’s team punched back, posting a simple diss – three snowflake emojis.The script-switching is clever, and often downright funny; the humor is effective partly because Newsom’s real-life persona stands in stark contrast to Trump’s.Newsom is the California pretty boy – he looks like he eats only kale and quinoa, with an occasional helping of asparagus. His politics are progressive, if not sharply defined, and he is married to a woman of career accomplishment, Jennifer Siebel Newsom. She’s a documentary film-maker and actor, who (cover your ears, woke-fearing Magaworld!) has updated the role of first lady with a more gender neutral title: “First Partner.”The Democrats’ old aspiration, expressed by Michelle Obama, was “when they go low, we go high”. Too often that has translated into passivity and ineptitude. But since the low-high approach has failed – the Democrats are powerless on the national level – Newsom’s moves are energizing.It’s too bad, of course, that insults and absurd memes have become the American way. But at least Newsom, and his social media team, are awfully good at it.As for where it all leads, maybe the answer is nowhere. Newsom’s counterpunch may be just another distraction as the nation falls into authoritarianism right before our eyes.The historian and author Garrett Graff wrote this week in his Doomsday Scenario newsletter that we’re already there: “The United States, just months before its 250th birthday as the world’s leading democracy, has tipped over the edge into authoritarianism and fascism … faster than I imagined possible.”Can strong leadership and a decisive, blue-wave vote in 2026’s midterms and 2028’s presidential election yank America back up?If so, radical change is necessary. Newsom’s approach – if combined with a strong, clear message of economic populism – could be a part of that.It could end up being not just funny but crucially important.Given where things stand, it’s worth a try.

    Margaret Sullivan is a Guardian US columnist writing on media, politics and culture More

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      What the Democrats can learn from Gavin Newsom’s Trump mockery | Katrina vanden Heuvel

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      Gavin Newsom’s recent mockery of Donald Trump proves that imitation isn’t always the sincerest form of flattery. Amid the ongoing battle over congressional redistricting, Newsom’s pitch-perfect posts about Trump’s “TINY HANDS” and California’s “PERFECT MAPS” have been wildly entertaining, and, at least by one measure, wildly successful – the posts have garnered millions of views and counting.While it’s refreshing to see a prominent Democrat unapologetically standing up to the current administration, Newsom’s jabs also reinforce the staying power of Trump’s blustery and incoherent style. And they reveal the degree to which the attention economy has disrupted our focus and degraded our language.Trump continues to benefit from the steady decline in the American attention span driven by social media. His style of short, punchy, inflammatory language – and his strategy of flooding the zone with a new federal freak show day after day – is engineered to succeed in this chaotic environment. But some recent online victories seem to indicate that progressives can also win on this battlefield if they deploy the right combination of profane style and policy substance.It’s possible the Trump era would never have been inaugurated without the concurrent smartphone era reshaping attention spans and media habits. One survey has found that Americans check their phones an astonishing 144 times daily, and about 40% of adults report being “almost constantly online”. As a result, Americans are reading less. In 2024, less than half of adults said they had picked up a book in the past year, continuing a consistent downward trend.The MSNBC journalist Chris Hayes has analyzed this regression in his book, The Sirens’ Call: How Attention Became the World’s Most Endangered Resource (a story that millions of Americans could benefit from understanding, if only they were still reading). He argues that the relentless competition for attention erodes thoughtful discourse while incentivizing the most thoughtless voices. It has contributed to mental health crises, the decline of journalism, and political polarization. It also fueled the rise of Donald Trump, who long ago proved himself to be a malignant savant of attention manipulation.Trump’s understanding of the new media ecosystem propelled all three of his presidential campaigns. In 2016, he received an estimated $5.6bn worth of free media. By that September, the word Americans associated the most with Hillary Clinton was “email”, while they connected Trump with “speech”, “president” and “immigration”.Fast forward to 2024, and he kept courting online attention with stunts such as working a choreographed 30-minute “shift” at McDonald’s. He dominated news media with mendacity which demanded journalistic coverage, such as his promotion of the xenophobic falsehood that Haitian migrants were eating Ohio pets. As Hayes wrote, Trump’s approach to politics over the last decade has been the “equivalent of running naked through the neighborhood: repellent but transfixing”.Now, Trump is not just benefiting from but intentionally accelerating these reversals. He has defunded and harassed leading research universities, censored historical exhibits at museums, and created Truth Social – an imitation of Twitter that has emerged as a playground for conspiracy theorists.He is attempting the governmental equivalent of a lobotomy.These setbacks have led progressives to increasingly understand that electoral victory requires digital dominance. And squaring up with Trump on social media appears a prerequisite for rallying the public around any political vision. As one strategist put it while praising Newsom’s Trump impersonation: “Democrats are over being the ‘nice guy’ party.”Already, there is some delightful needling of the right easily found in the proverbial social media haystack. The streamer Hasan Piker has been described as a “gateway drug” for progressive politics, while his engaging brand of explicit quips led GQ to name him “the hottest left-wing political commentator online”. When Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez streamed herself playing the game Among Us with Piker before the 2020 election, she almost broke a livestreaming record on the Twitch platform, drawing about 440,000 concurrent viewers.Elected Democrats are also taking off their virtual gloves. The Illinois governor, JB Pritzker, responded to Trump’s renaming of the Gulf of Mexico by threatening to rechristen Lake Michigan “Lake Illinois”. In an example of game respecting game, Zohran Mamdani’s strategy of speaking directly to voters through social media received unlikely praise from Tucker Carlson and Marjorie Taylor Greene. Greene is less a fan of the Texas representative Jasmine Crockett, who went viral for describing Greene as having a “bleach blond, bad-built, butch body”. And in Maine, the oysterman and Democratic US Senate candidate Graham Platner is drawing headlines for a pugnacious campaign launch video in which he declares: “The difference between Susan Collins and Ted Cruz is at least Ted Cruz is honest about selling us out and not giving a damn.”Still, talking the talk also requires walking the walk by implementing bold, authentically progressive initiatives. One of Newsom’s Trump-mocking posts announced an aggressive redistricting plan to counter Republican gerrymandering in Texas. Bernie Sanders has endorsed that move, just as he endorsed Mamdani, whose affordability agenda represents another ambitious stance to match pugilistic rhetoric.Otherwise, adhering to the philosophy of “when they go low, we go high” risks failing to meet voters where they are. It seems Americans seek a fighter on their behalf and at their side.“THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER.” More

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      US to ‘root out anti-Americanism’ in reviewing immigration applications

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      The Trump administration said on Tuesday that it will look for “anti-American” views, including on social media, when assessing the applications of people wanting to live in the United States.In an announcement, US Citizenship and Immigration Services, which handles requests to stay in the United States or become a citizen, said it would expand vetting of the social media postings of applicants and that “reviews for anti-American activity will be added to that vetting”.“America’s benefits should not be given to those who despise the country and promote anti-American ideologies,” said agency spokesperson Matthew Tragesser. “US Citizenship and Immigration Services is committed to implementing policies and procedures that root out anti-Americanism and supporting the enforcement of rigorous screening and vetting measures to the fullest extent possible. Immigration benefits – including to live and work in the United States – remain a privilege, not a right.”The US Immigration and Nationality Act, which dates back to 1952, defines anti-Americanism, which at the time primarily focused on communists.Since taking office in January, the Trump administration has moved aggressively to deny or rescind short-term visas for people deemed to go against US foreign policy interests, especially on Israel.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe latest guidance on immigration decisions said that authorities will also look at whether applicants “promote anti-Semitic ideologies”.The Trump administration has accused students and universities of antisemitism over protests against Israel’s war in the Gaza Strip, charges denied by the activists.In April, the administration revoked or changed the legal status of hundreds of international students, only to reinstate them several weeks later. In May, student visa interviews were temporarily halted, and then, in June, new social media vetting measures were introduced for international students applying to study in the US.Under the new measures, US diplomats are directed to review applicants’ social media profiles to look for “any indications of hostility toward the citizens, culture, government, institutions, or founding principles of the United States” before issuing visas.On Monday, the state department said it had revoked 6,000 student visas since the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, took office in January. It said that 4,000 of the cases involved violations of the law – “the vast majority being assault, DUI, burglary and support for terrorism” a state department official said. More

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      The Trump administration has decided coal is female – here’s why | Arwa Mahdawi

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      Have you ever tossed and turned at night wondering what the correct pronouns are for a lump of coal? No, me neither. However, it seems someone at the US Department of Energy has devoted a few spare brain cells to this matter and decided that coal is a she/her.Co-opting a phrase adopted by the LGBTQ+ community, the official energy department X account tweeted on 31 July: “She’s an icon. She’s a legend. And she is the moment,” alongside a sparkling picture of coal. This comes as the Trump administration devotes considerable energy to making fossil fuels great again. The president has signed numerous executive orders aimed at “Reinvigorating America’s Beautiful Clean Coal Industry” and reversed Biden-era pollution regulations on coal-fired power plants. These plants, according to a 2023 report, killed at least 460,000 Americans over the past two decades. Deaths declined when the environmental regulations that Donald Trump is so scornful of were put in place.Why is the Trump administration, which seems to think women are objects, so keen on personifying coal? Is it for poetic effect? Or are they trying to sanitise the deadly impact of coal pollution and associate it with mother nature? I suspect the second motive. Ships, for example, have traditionally been referred to as “she”, possibly because sailors saw them as a maternal protector. Countries can also be classified as female – particularly when a man thinks their violent actions need to be defended. In 2023, shortly after the 7 October attacks, at a time when Gaza was being bombed and blockaded by Israel, Keir Starmer said Israel had “the right to defend herself”.Then again, sometimes the short answer to why things are unnecessarily gendered is simply “lazy sexism”. For a long time, Atlantic hurricanes were given only female names. When feminists started to challenge this in the 1980s, some people argued that storms would be taken seriously only if they evoked female fury. Years after meteorologists finally changed the policy, a 1986 Washington Post editorial lamented: “Somehow many of the male names don’t convey either the romance or the urgency that circumstances might warrant.” This has been much debated and it’s not clear whether gendering a storm makes any difference to public safety. As for the weird social media post gendering coal? It feels like a smokescreen to get people chattering online as the world burns. Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist More

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      Jess Glynne feels ‘sick’ over use of Jet2 song to promote US deportations

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      It is the internet meme of the summer, sparking laughter and thousands of wry smiles at the pitfalls of a British summer holiday.But the journey of the viral Jet2 holiday advert – with its promotional voiceover played out over cheerless summer holiday footage, including water-slide disasters and images of pouring rain – took a darker turn this week when it was used by the White House in a post on X to promote Ice (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) deportations.Jess Glynne – whose 2015 single Hold My Hand accompanies the advert – responded to the post on Wednesday, saying she felt “sick” that her music was being used to spread “division and hate”.She told the Guardian on Thursday: “I’m devastated to see my song used in this way. Hold My Hand was written about love, support, and standing by someone through everything – it’s meant to offer hope and empowerment. Using it to promote something I fundamentally disagree with goes completely against the message of the song.”On Thursday afternoon Jet2 also condemned the post, saying it was “disappointed to see our brand being used to promote government policy such as this”.The official White House account posted a clip on X on Wednesday evening showing people wearing handcuffs and being taken out of cars and on to planes, captioned: “When Ice books you a one-way Jet2 holiday to deportation. Nothing beats it!”In the six months since Donald Trump took office, the US president has supercharged the country’s immigration enforcement, overseeing a sweeping mass arrest and incarceration scheme, which resulted in a record number of arrests by immigration officers in June, according to Guardian analysis.The post delighted Trump supporters but was decried as disgusting, embarrassing and unchristian by critics. Glynne, who has previously joined in with the fun spirit of the Jet2 holidays meme by posting a TikTok video miming the voiceover, expressed her disapproval of the White House’s appropriation of the trend on Instagram.“This post honestly makes me sick,” she wrote. “My music is about love, unity and spreading positivity – never about division or hate.”Jet2 had previously appeared to welcome the extra publicity generated by the meme, launching a challenge that offered a £1,000 holiday voucher as a prize.A spokesperson said the company welcomed the “good humour” of the viral phenomenon, but not the White House’s contribution. “We are of course aware of a post from the White House social media account,” they said. “This is not endorsed by us in any way, and we are very disappointed to see our brand being used to promote government policy such as this.”The advert’s voiceover actor, Zoë Lister, said she would never condone her voiceover “being used in promotion with Trump and his abhorrent policies”.She told the BBC: “The Jet2 meme has spread a lot of joy and humour around the world, but the White House video shows that Trump has neither.”The White House Ice deportation post is the latest example of an unorthodox digital communications strategy that has veered away from previous administrations’ traditional – and relatively sedate – use of social media platforms.In February, the White House used X to promote Trump’s congestion pricing policy, posting a fake Time magazine front cover portraying the president as a monarch, along with the phrase: “CONGESTION PRICING IS DEAD. Manhattan, and all of New York, is SAVED. LONG LIVE THE KING!”The post was described as “revoltingly un-American” by Adam Keiper, the executive editor of the conservative Bulwark news site, while New York state’s Democratic governor, Kathy Hochul, said: “New York hasn’t laboured under a king in over 250 years and we sure as hell are not going to start now.”The administration also faced criticism after Trump shared an AI-generated video that showed him in a transformed, glittering Gaza, topless and sipping a cocktail with Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. After criticism, the administration recently posted on X: “Nowhere in the constitution does it say we can’t post banger memes.”Last month the Trump administration appeared to be on track to oversee one of the deadliest years for immigrant detention after the deaths of two men – one from Cuba and another from Canada – while in federal custody.Human rights experts have raised concerns about the detention of children with their parents at the newly recommissioned “family detention centres” in Texas, and while Trump has repeatedly claimed his administration is trying to arrest and deport “dangerous criminals”, analysis shows that most of the people Ice is now arresting have never been convicted of a crime. More

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      in Elections

      What the ‘Exhausted Majority’ Really Wants

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      It’s probably not Elon Musk’s new party.It’s probably not Elon Musk’s new party.The New York TimesThe New York Times columnists Michelle Cottle and David French discuss whether the moment might be right for a third party. And French tells the story of the time he briefly considered a run for president as a third-party candidate.What the ‘Exhausted Majority’ Really WantsIt’s probably not Elon Musk’s new party.Below is a transcript of an episode of “The Opinions.” We recommend listening to it in its original form for the full effect. You can do so using the player above or on the NYT Audio app, Apple, Spotify, Amazon Music, YouTube, iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts.The transcript has been lightly edited for length and clarity.Michelle Cottle: I’m Michelle Cottle, and I cover national politics for New York Times Opinion, and I am here with the Opinion columnist David French today. David, hello.David French: Michelle, it’s great to be with you. And it’s just the two of us.Cottle: I know, which means we get to get extra juicy digging into Elon Musk. This week he announced he wants to launch a new national political party.Now, there is a long history of — how do I put this gently? — underwhelming third-party attempts in this country. Does anybody even remember that there is a Forward Party at this point?We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Why is the media paying millions to Trump? – podcast

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      Archive: CBS News, PBS, NBC News, WHAS11, CNN, Fox 5 New York
      Read Edward Helmore’s piece on Trump’s war on the media
      Listen to Science Weekly’s episode on the Texas floods
      Listen to Season 10 of Comfort Eating with Grace Dent
      Send your questions and feedback to politicsweeklyamerica@theguardian.com
      Help support the Guardian. Go to theguardian.com/politicspodus More

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      in Elections

      What Democrats Can Learn From Mamdani’s Victory

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      Beyond his social media talent and approaches on affordability and Israel, Democratic voters have been inching to the left for years.Zohran Mamdani is more than a viral video star. Shuran Huang for The New York TimesUsually, there isn’t much to learn from a single idiosyncratic primary election.In the case of the recent New York mayoral contest, most candidates will not be able to replicate Zohran Mamdani’s viral campaign, and not many candidates will have Andrew Cuomo’s heavy baggage.Such a superficial analysis of the candidates might be enough to tell the tale for many primaries. But not this one. The New York Democratic mayoral primary was about much more than the strengths and weaknesses of the two candidates, and as a consequence there’s a lot more to learn.Just consider how many political, demographic, economic and technological changes over the last decade helped make Mr. Mamdani’s victory possible. There was the Bernie Sanders campaign and the rise of a new democratic socialist left, along with a growing number of young millennial and Gen Z voters. There was the founding of TikTok and the rise of vertical video, #MeToo, Israel’s war in Gaza, the rising cost of housing and even halalflation.There’s room to debate the relative contributions of these and other factors to Mr. Mamdani’s victory. What can’t be disputed is that these developments helped him enormously, but even on the day of the election it was not obvious that these changes would be enough to put him over the top.Of all these changes, the most obvious one is that the Democratic electorate has simply moved farther to the left. Over the last few years, this hasn’t always been obvious. To many, the last presidential election seemed to mark a new rightward turn in the culture, including among the young voters who had powered the ascent of progressives. Looking even further back, progressives mostly seemed to stall after Mr. Sanders’s breakthrough in 2016, including in New York City.Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton in a 2015 debate.Josh Haner/The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      How Social Media Videos Fueled Zohran Mamdani’s Success

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      As a millennial politician, Zohran Mamdani is a digital native, at ease on both sides of a camera and well versed in the slangy “terminally online” lingo of those with active social media accounts. He is also the son of an Oscar-nominated filmmaker, with a sharp eye for aesthetics and moving images.So it is perhaps not surprising that Mr. Mamdani’s campaign for mayor of New York City has relied heavily on engaging social media posts. But during the Democratic primary, his high-energy videos also inspired his supporters to create their own clips, which encouraged others to respond with even more videos. Before long, Mr. Mamdani, a 33-year-old assemblyman, was not just a politician. He was a vibe. He was a meme.Among the factors in Mr. Mamdani’s stunning lead in the primary last week was his ability to translate his campaign message about making New York City more affordable to TikTok and Instagram, where clips by and about him had been going viral for months.He was on the internet talk shows Subway Takes and Gaydar. The comedians Ilana Glazer, Marybeth Barone and Sarah Sherman made videos asking voters to rank Mr. Mamdani first on their primary ballots. There were clips that used N.B.A. highlights to explain his campaign. And a video in which he spelled his name, M-a-m-d-a-n-i, set to the track “Hollaback Girl” by Gwen Stefani. There was even a clip set to a Japanese pop song in the style of a “fansub,” a phenomenon that only the extremely online would understand.

      @zohranchan ZOHRAN KWAME MAMDANI FOR NYC MAYOR!! JUNE 14-JUNE 24!! •original creds to: zohran_fansubs on insta #nycmayor #mayorzohran #zohranmamdani #princess #girlypop #princessaesthetic #voting #senpai #mayor ♬ original sound – votezahrank The more Mr. Mamdani posted, the more people posted about him, and soon, whether or not you were following the New York City mayoral race, there were Mamdani videos in your feed.

      @astorwalk Replying to @ornerybeagle253 this my mayor #mamdani #zohranmamdani #newyorkmayor #gwenstefani #hollabackgirl #edit #foryou ♬ the name is MAMDANI – lester

      @ofromqueens please go out to the polls!! the election is so tight that your vote could be the one to help us take it home. resources are in my bio love you ❤️ #nyc #newyork #nyclife #ofromqueens #queensnyc #manhattannewyork #brooklynnyc #brooklyn #statenisland #zohranmamdani #andrewcuomo ♬ magic – Medasin & MAE.SUN

      @vivienmaskara3 GO OUT AND VOTE ZOHRAN @Zohran Mamdani #zohran #nyc #zohranmamdani #nycpoles #nycapartment ♬ original sound – Vivienmaskara

      @balkanbitch420 #zohranfornyc ♬ original sound – balkanbitch420

      @chinita.paisa Y’all better vote for Zohran today you know he had the green metro card, polls are open from 6AM-9PM. ✨��️ • • • #zohran #zohranmamdani #nycvotes #nycvoting #mayor #nycmayor #nycelections #elections2025 #newyorkertest #newyorkers #nychighschool ♬ New York – Album Version (Edited) – Ja Rule

      @fleuririva feel so free but only with him as mayor #zohranmamdani #newyorkcity #mayor #edit #edits #addisonrae ♬ original sound – m We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More