Fox Information has by no means been bothered by the Trumpian strategy to social media, with its all-caps posts and a number of exclamation factors. Its self-aggrandizing hyperbole. Its mean-girl name-calling. However this week, the MAGA community’s hosts had been triggered.
“It’s a must to cease it with the Twitter factor,” mentioned host Dana Perino. Sean Hannity bemoaned the “performative confrontational type” that solely “wins you factors with the loony radical base.” Fox Information anchor Hint Gallagher referred to the tone as “infantile.”
So why the sudden dismay and harm emotions? As a result of the taunts and boasts are coming from a Democrat, and never simply any lefty however King Snowflake himself, California Gov. Gavin Newsom.
Adopting Trump’s low-bar social media techniques, the X account of Newsom’s press workplace has spent latest weeks mimicking the president’s social media type to troll the trollers. They’ve nicknamed U.S. Secretary of Homeland Safety Kristi Noem “Commander Cosplay.” And Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) — who took that sunny Mexican trip throughout a lethal 2021 winter storm in his state — is “Cancun Cruz.” As for the commander-in-chief? “Small Palms.”
Enjoying off the doctored pictures of a virile Trump posted by the president’s account on his personal platform, Newsom’s account has generated equally delusional memes. One reveals the governor’s face carved into Mt. Rushmore, one other of him as a king on the duvet of Time journal and as a messiah-like determine worshiped by MAGAites Tucker Carlson, Child Rock and the late Hulk Hogan (the latter put up was adopted by one other that simply learn “I HATE KID ROCK!!! – GCN”).
This week on Fox Information’ “The 5,” an incredulous Perino mentioned of Newsom: “I don’t know the place his spouse is? If I had been his spouse I’d say, ‘You’re making a idiot of your self, cease it!’”
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, in a dialogue Wednesday with Fox’s Jesse Watters, mentioned that Newsom’s obsession with Trump is distracting him from doing his job as governor. “Why is he spending all this time making an attempt to be recent with President Trump?” DeSantis requested. “Why doesn’t he do his job and defend the folks?”
“Contemporary” with Trump? I don’t even know the place to go together with that apart from remedy, particularly because it was accompanied by a banner on the backside of the display screen that learn: “Dems search for Huge Daddy Vitality.”
Newsom’s account promptly tweeted: “Jesse, please cease calling me Daddy. It’s disturbing.”
Fox retains insisting Newsom’s SnarkPosting is an enormous fail, however the numbers would recommend in any other case. For the reason that starting of August, the governor’s press workplace account has gained 250,000 followers and greater than 225 million impressions.
And it’s clearly made an impression on Fox Information.
“WOW! FOX NEWS CAN’T STOP TALKING ABOUT ME (GAVIN C. NEWSOM), AMERICA’S FAVORITE GOVERNOR!!!” Newsom posted Wednesday on X. “TONIGHT THEIR ENTIRE PRIMETIME LINEUP WAS ABOUT ME! JESSE WATTERS KEPT CALLING ME ‘DADDY’ (VERY WEIRD, NOT INTERESTED, BUT THANK YOU!). SEAN HANNITY (VERY NICE GUY) NEARLY CRIED BECAUSE I WON’T TAKE HIS ‘ADVICE.’ SORRY SEAN!!!! THEN THEY DRAGGED OUT THE B-TEAM OF DUMB DUMBS: ‘MEATBALL RON,’ TOMI ‘TOILET’ LAHREN, AND TEDDY ‘CANCUN’ CRUZ (HE EVEN FLEW BACK SPECIAL FROM MEXICO!) ALL WHINING ABOUT ME, GCN! THEY HAD TO ‘PLAY THE MUSIC’ TO SHUT TED UP ABOUT MY BEAUTIFUL HAIR (I GET IT! SO JEALOUS!). TOTAL DISASTER…”
Even the granddaddy of MAGA agitators, Steve Bannon, was impressed by Newsom’s on-line lack of decorum. “For those who have a look at the Democratic Celebration, he’s a minimum of getting up there, and he’s making an attempt to mimic a Trumpian imaginative and prescient of combating, proper?” he advised Politico. “He appears like the one particular person within the Democratic Celebration who’s organizing a struggle that they really feel they’ll win.”
Fox pundits spent a lot of Thursday blaming Newsom and the “Sanctuary state of California” for a lethal Florida visitors accident involving an undocumented truck driver. It was preferable to reporting on one other put up that obtained beneath their pores and skin (see beneath) or a political victory for Newsom when a poll measure he pushed to redraw California’s electoral map was authorised by the California Legislature. It requires a November particular election asking voters to redraw the state’s electoral strains. The poll measure is in response to Texas’ proposed redrawing of its maps to favor Republicans within the 2026 midterms, presumably including 5 extra GOP-held seats to the Home.
“NOT EVEN JD ‘JUST DANCE’ VANCE CAN SAVE TRUMP FROM THE DISASTROUS MAPS ‘WAR’ HE HAS STARTED,” mentioned the Newsom press workplace put up. “NOT EVEN HIS EYELINER LINES LOOK AS PRETTY AS CALIFORNIA ‘MAP’ LINES. HE WILL FAIL, AS HE ALWAYS DOES (SAD!) AND I, THE PEACETIME GOVERNOR — OUR NATION’S FAVORITE — WILL SAVE AMERICA ONCE AGAIN. MANY ARE NOW CALLING ME GAVIN CHRISTOPHER ‘COLUMBUS’ NEWSOM (BECAUSE OF THE MAPS!). THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER. — GCN”
Fox pundits and hosts aren’t the one media people to search out Newsom’s Trump-esque communiques troubling. MSNBC host Joe Scarborough referred to as them “embarrassing.”
However as Newsom advised the media final week, if the mockery bothers you, look to the unique supply. “When you have points with what I’m placing out, you certain as hell ought to have considerations with what he’s placing out as president.” Fox Information has considerations, however they’re not about Trump.
