I knew I had to write this piece when my politically disaffected sister said she thought Gavin Newsom was funny. I turned to her and politely asked, “What?” She showed me an Instagram reel she had seen of him trolling Trump set to Taylor Swift music. I’ll admit, I chuckled. These days, Newsom is doing more things to raise his public profile, from feuding with the president to leading the redistricting push in California, and even comparing himself to Patrick Bateman for some reason. The thing is, I don’t always disagree with him: I agree that gerrymandering is bad (Shout out to Texas!), but this is a man clearly trying to be the next President of the United States. He may act coy, but it’s undeniably true. The question is: What would his presidency look like? What does he stand for? I’d argue that Gavin Newsom stands for nothing — other than being elected, that is.

Gavin Newsom would be far from the worst guy to become president. Any Republican chucklehead like JD “Killed the Pope” Vance, or even a supposedly more moderate Marco “I love regime change” Rubio, would be worse. But right now, I’m not contending with the general election where we have to vote blue no matter who (unless they condemn Israel, apparently). All sorts of Democratic candidates are angling for the 2028 primary, making their cases for what the party should look like moving forward. Cory Booker is a perfect encapsulation of establishment democrats: Stand around and talk for hours, get nothing meaningful done, and then personally profit from the publicity. Pete Buttigieg is just a younger, gayer Biden. Other potential candidates, such as Ro Khanna and AOC, are trying to push the party in a more progressive direction, but where is Gavin Newsom trying to take things? Right now, he’s in a love affair, not with his staffer like in 2006, but with centrism.

The issue with courting the center, as Gavin Newsom and many other Democrats do, is that moving closer to the center, or more accurately to the right, as the shifting of America’s Overton Window means the “center” already consists of right-leaning ideas, requires acceptance of the flawed premises that conservatism is built on. In doing this, we just validate their worldview, which is often blatantly incorrect. If we argue that we should make sure that ICE isn’t hurting U.S. Citizens in its drag nets across American cities, that inadvertently validates the viewpoint that ICE is somehow necessary for immigration enforcement. We must reject the entire basis of their arguments. We don’t need a militarized ICE across the country; we need comprehensive immigration reform. We need to present a meaningful alternative that actually improves people’s lives, instead of just a moderated position based on the far-right standpoint.

If the Democratic party starts running on things like getting trans kids out of sports, gun rights, and stricter immigration, then they’re basically just Republicans Lite™. When given the choice between Republicans Lite™ and regular Republicans, why settle for diet? If these are the issues that both parties deem important, Democrats will never win over voters by being a toned-down version of their opposition without offering meaningful policies of their own.

What frustrates me most is that we’ve already tried this. We had a candidate who talked about owning a Glock, being tougher on immigration, and campaigned with Republicans; her name was Kamala Harris, and she lost the election in a landslide. We had a candidate with a more progressive past, who heavily moderated herself in the general election in an attempt to win, then lost to a man who publicly stated that Haitian immigrants in Ohio were eating cats and dogs. Now, Gavin Newsom comes in and thinks he can do the same thing, with the only difference being that he’s a Straight White Man without any of that pesky diversity weighing him down. A sexy white boy like him shouldn’t have any trouble courting the center, since he’s, y’know, white… right?

Gavin Newsom, for his part, is working hard to shift to the center. In front of Californians, he believes in LGBTQ+ protections, but then he goes on a conservative podcast and repeats far-right talking points about trans girls in sports. He will correctly label Israel as an apartheid state, but when asked he’ll publicly say that “[he] revere[s] the state of Israel.” Personally, I find it hard to support apartheid states, but get that AIPAC bag, Gavin! The worst part is that he’s always been like this. He claims to be from a working-class family, which is true, but fails to mention his billionaire family friend. He told Californians to lock down during the pandemic, then went out for dinner at a restaurant. Newsom has always had a situationship with centrism, and now he’s flaunting his date for all to see, hoping that enough people will elect him as prom king of the country.

But centrism doesn’t work, regardless of the candidate. I’m not invalidating the idea entirely, but it’s proving not to be viable at a national level since conservatives are no longer willing to cooperate in good faith. We cannot reach a middle ground with fascists. We can’t moderate their positions because their premises are no longer anchored in reality. From the “stolen” election to the misinformation about vaccines, their beliefs are now rooted in fiction. There is no compromise with someone who rejects the evidence of their eyes and ears, claims vaccines cause autism, global warming isn’t real, Muslims can’t integrate into society, and illegal immigrants are taking our jobs.

People will say that the left needs to stop caring about ideological purity, and I agree to an extent, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t demand more from the people who want to lead us. I admit that we’ll probably never get a perfect candidate, but we still have to try to elect someone who is good. We’ll never be a perfect Union, but I still believe we can form a more perfect Union. We need a candidate who’ll do more than just placate the right; we need someone who will defeat them in the marketplace of ideas. We need to prove that compassion and understanding can be an effective basis for policy, and that these new ideas can make America a better place for everyone. We need better than Gavin Newsom.