While I have no professional qualifications in the area of body language, I am pretty sure, after spending a lifetime in the media game, where I dealt with literally hundreds of politicians over the years, I can spot when they are deeply uncomfortable.
Last Monday, I spent a couple of hours I’ll never get back watching that never-ending press conference in Washington, and I rapidly came to the conclusion that most of the European leaders in attendance to support Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy absolutely despise Donald Trump.
Their body language oozed contempt – no warmth, no smiles, fake praise, ego stroking, like adults trying to keep a spoilt child in line. You could see it was all fake.
The Italian PM rolled her eyes at least twice, once when Trump claimed he had ‘solved’ six wars so far this year. France’s president Macron nearly snapped his neck when turning to look at the US president when he said something outrageously narcissistic I don’t even remember what it was now.
And Sir Keir Starmer sat like a schoolboy awaiting the bell to ring and the most hated class of the day to be over.
I saw it as a masterclass in political cowardice, and it really didn’t sit well with me.
To see them all sitting around getting lectured by Trump was nauseating. It might be unkind, but I kept thinking it was like watching the village idiot pontificating to his betters.
So, keeping that in mind, I was delighted to learn this week that one person on this planet of doormats is prepared to take on the Great Orange One at his own game.
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Gavin Newsom, the governor of California.
Let me set this bit of my tale up for you.
Back in June, Trump, uninvited, directed the National Guard and more than 700 US Marines to intervene in anti-ICE protests in Los Angeles.
Newsom, as governor of the State, was having none of it, stating the Trump move was ‘purposefully inflammatory’ and a serious breach of state sovereignty.
He later called Trump ‘a stone-cold liar’ on national broadcast media regarding comments the president alleged he (Newsom) had made during a phone call about the situation.
So, the battle lines between the two were clearly drawn almost from the off. And now it’s a full-on war.
Where others have kow-towed and tried to appease the ego-in-chief, Newsom has taken the battle to him by trolling him unmercifully.
Here’s a flavour of what he’s doing when he attacked Trump after his meeting with Russian president, Vladimir Putin, in Alaska last Saturday, written in Trump’s style of full caps and with all the usual grammatical errors:
“TINY HANDS IS OUT HERE COPYING ME- BUT WITHOUT THE STAMINA (SAD)…TOTAL BETA. TRUMP JUST FLED THE PODIUM WITH PUTIN …TOTAL LOW ENERGY…LOOKED LIKE HE’D JUST EATEN 3 BUCKETS OF KFC WITH VLAD”
And it’s striking a chord like nobody’s business.
In recent weeks, Newsom’s profile has absolutely taken off like a shooting star. CNN’s data guru Harry Enten noted that his trolling strategy has “absolutely” paid off. The Californian governor’s X account has gone up by a massive 450% since June, and TikTok/Instagram are said to have added around one million followers.
And now the Trump cult is really rattled.
Fox anchor, Trace Gallagher, said the mimicry of Trump was ‘childish’ and asked if Newsom had nothing better to do with his time. Various other Fox personalities were also baited into getting involved. It’s been their main story for several days now.
And that’s exactly what Newsom was aiming for.
Trump has normalised politics in America to little more than smears and insults on social media. The Trump cult and the folks in places like Fox News had zero issues with that when it was winning for their man but are now enraged big time when Newsom’s satire is hitting home.
What Newsom’s parodies are doing is holding up a mirror to expose the lack of media accountability around Trump’s style of communication.
Trump does press conferences that are more Barnum and Bailey circus than real news, and it’s a deliberate strategy to avoid accountability and scrutiny. And it has given him, basically, a free run on the main issues.
While claiming to be the most accountable and accessible president in history, - ‘the public can regularly see me in action’, he has said in the past - he can control the media at a big press scrum by picking and choosing who is allowed to ask questions.
Remember, to use a simple example, the guy who asked Zelenskyy about his suit back in February? He was the partner of Marjorie Taylor-Green, a rabid pro-Trump congresswoman from Georgia. In normal circumstances, her other half, a member of a minor right-wing news site, shouldn’t have been in the press corps.
It seemed for a long time that the centre ground in the most powerful country in the world had lost all hope as Trump destroyed all things liberal. It was carnage for months as he fired numerous civil servants officiating in things like food aid, cut the Medicare budget and decimated aid to poorer countries. All without any real opposition.
But now there is a rising tide of hope on the horizon for those on the more centrist and liberal wings of the American political spectrum.
Newsom’s chances in the 2028 Democratic nomination are running at a rapid rate of knots, growing from 11% to 24% in less than three months. And the trajectory is expected to keep rising.
So, maybe, at last, the absolute absurdity of Trump’s presidential style of diktat by insults on his Truth Social website is starting to hit home with a growing number of Americans.
Here’s hoping.
