Podcast listeners should pay attention to what Newsom does, not what he says

OPINION:

California’s governor has launched another podcast, this one called “This is Gavin Newsom.”

Listeners who haven’t followed Mr. Newsom much should beware. Although you may like what you hear, what he does is far more important than what he says.

Take the buzz over Mr. Newsom’s statement in a chat with political provocateur Charlie Kirk that he “completely agrees” with him on transgender athletes in school competition.

“It is an issue of fairness,” Mr. Newsom says.

Media pundits and California liberals howled. An SFGate columnist called the Newsom podcast “genuinely humiliating,” and state Sen. Scott Wiener of San Francisco said it was “profoundly disturbing” for Mr. Newsom to stand with “vile bigot” Mr. Kirk.

Mr. Kirk cheered Mr. Newsom’s apparent conversion, telling Los Angeles’ Fox 11 that Mr. Newsom “wants to move to the middle.”

Mr. Newsom’s record, however, tells a different story.  In recent years, he signed legislation preventing parental notification in schools and called the issue “one of the greatest distractions.”

Yet it is just the distraction he seeks in preparing for a 2028 presidential campaign. Liberals attack him, a “conservative” validates his electability and Mr. Newsom sides with the 80% on an “80-20 issue.”

It’s part of what Mr. Newsom calls “the California Way,” the policies and strategies serving what he and the narrow interests that support him want over what is best for most Californians.

While crime and homelessness increase and state test scores decline, the California Way turns a blind eye while dictating what kind of car you drive and what appliances you use and thwarting entrepreneurship to push everyone to become a union employee.

It’s an attitude as much as an agenda. Team Newsom knows better than Californians how to raise your children, run your business and live your life.

As his new podcast shows, the California Way is more about feelings and creating vibes than solving problems.

Mr. Newsom brags, for example, of spending $24 billion and counting to address California’s homeless problem. Yet taxpayers living under rising homelessness in their communities wonder what we’re getting for that money. The answer, as the latest two audits show, isn’t much.

That’s the California Way: presenting oversized checks and donning his trademark cute California bear ball cap while picking up trash before TV cameras is more important than delivering results.

Southern California wildfire victims, surely annoyed that Mr. Newsom feels that he has sufficiently rebuilt Los Angeles to find time to record yet another podcast, shudder at Mr. Newsom’s plan to “rebuild and reimagine” the area in his urbanist, public-transit-oriented, dense housing vision. He conveniently disappears from the scene when residents complain about how long it takes to clear debris, thanks to state and local bureaucracy.

Although Mr. Newsom was right to waive state environmental bureaucracy to speed cleanup and rebuilding, one can’t help but think he acted just because cameras were present. Yet when homeowners show up at the city’s “one-stop” centers, they are met with a dozen state and local bureaucracies and myriad rules and regulations to navigate despite Mr. Newsom’s waivers.

Meanwhile, victims of past fires that wiped the town of Paradise in Northern California off the map and destroyed communities in the Yosemite area never got an environmental exemption.

That was the vibe Mr. Newsom wanted during the first Trump administration. Lecturing about climate change was more important than rebuilding communities.

That’s the California Way: The problems you incurred living a freedom-filled life in the Palisades or Paradise happened because you didn’t follow Mr. Newsom’s way. Had you, for example, lived in a high-rise building in downtown Los Angeles and biked to work instead of living in a big house with a big yard, driving a gas-guzzling SUV, or cooking with gas appliances, you wouldn’t have to rebuild right now.

So, when podcast listeners tune in, they should look beyond the man wearing a fitted denim shirt having a good time with his Republican cousins.

As those of us who have lived through Mr. Newsom’s tenure can attest, beware the relatable-sounding politician with good hair. When it comes to the California Way, actions speak louder than words.

• Tim Anaya is the Pacific Research Institute’s vice president of marketing and communications and co-author of “The California Left Coast Survivor’s Guide.”