It is important to appreciate that California Governor Gavin Newsom’s recent flip-flop on his charge that Prime Minister Netanyahu was running and the U.S. was supporting an “apartheid state,” was as much a statement about the current state of the Democratic Party when it comes to Israel as about where Newsom was.
As we see it, a while back, when Newsom tossed out the word “apartheid” in reference to the State of Israel and also said it was time to reconsider U.S. aid to the Jewish state, it was not just a slip of the tongue. It was a highly calculated test balloon for the 2028 Democratic presidential primary. For months Newsom had been attempting to court the vocal, activist wing of his party – a faction that had grown increasingly and overtly hostile to the Jewish state and seemed to be the new face of the Democratic Party.
By employing the ultimate buzzword of the anti-Israel protest movement, Newsom was signaling to the far-left that he was willing to adopt their most radical foreign policy narrative and that he also agreed that they represented the future of the Democratic Party. Yet, his sudden, clumsy backtracking days later was encouraging. It not only revealed the fundamental cowardice of his campaign strategy but also indicated that he had come to realize that while the progressive fringe of his party cheered the slur, the vast majority of the American electorate found it toxic.
To be sure, the initial calculation behind Newsom’s rhetoric is a depressing reflection of the modern Democratic primary landscape. It is an undeniable reality that a significant and very vocal portion of the progressive base – the activists who organize rallies, dominate social media algorithms, and drive grassroots fundraising – have embraced the “apartheid” libel.
So, Newsom, desperate to outflank his potential rivals on the left, tried to feed this constituency the red meat they crave. He assumed that adopting the language of the campus encampments would secure his progressive credentials and insulate him from attacks by his party’s assertive, activist radical flank.
However, his sudden reversal suggests that he now believes that outside the progressive echo chambers of San Francisco and university faculty lounges, the median American voter disagrees with the demonization of America’s closest Middle East ally. In a word, Newsom was forced to confront the reality that while anti-Israel rhetoric might win you a primary in deeply blue districts, it is a fatal liability in a general election.
Of course, this episode should tell voters everything they need to know about Gavin Newsom’s core convictions – namely that he doesn’t have any. Yet he is also a major Democratic politician with substantial resources. Hopefully, his belief that the “apartheid” charge won’t work for him in a general election is, indeed, a window on where the American electorate – and perhaps even the Democratic Party itself – stands on Israel.