On Friday night something absolutely unexpected happened: progressive Gavin Newsom, Democratic governor of California, decided to not sign a bill that was going to give judges the power to take custody of children from their parents if they refused to accept their gender transition.
Of course, Newsom's decision is the right and sensible one. That parents do not “affirm” the gender of their children is not a reason to break their parental rights even in the progressive Californian dystopia.
However, it did not fail to draw attention that a progressive like Newsom has opted for common sense, moving away from the base's position and embracing, perhaps, conservatives and moderates who have not yet fallen into gender radicalism.
But this Sunday, just after midnight, everything made sense: The Washington Post published a revealing survey on its cover that placed Donald Trump victorious over Joe Biden by a whopping 9 points.
Presidential Poll 2024 by Juan Peña
The WaPo headline about the survey is, in effect, a declaration of intent: “Biden faces criticism on economy, immigration and age,” basically the talking points that conservatives have been promoting for months in the midst of the presidential campaign.
Beyond the fact that the poll in itself is great news for Trump and his campaign, honestly, it must be qualified: almost all the other polls, except the WaPo-ABC one, show a technical tie and establish that the independent vote will define next year's presidential election.
The Washington Post itself acknowledges this in its article: “A finding that shows Trump leading Biden by a wide margin does not match other recent polling, however, it suggests it is an outlier.”
So, the question arises: Why does the Democratic-leaning WaPo drop a bombshell against Joe Biden in this way if they themselves recognize that everything could be due to an isolated survey?
The answer, for many, is clear: the newspaper let go of Joe Biden's hand and is ready to promote the candidacy of Newsom who has worked silently to raise his profile at the national level and is now even taking measures that bring him closer to the key vote, the independents.
Ohhhhh shit. He’s running. https://t.co/dhoO1HTOTt
— Bridget Phetasy (@BridgetPhetasy) September 23, 2023
We must be very frank: there is not a ten-point difference between Joe Biden and Donald Trump and there will not be such an abysmal margin between any Democratic and Republican candidate next year because the country is polarized. The bases, each one, will close ranks and support their party's candidate. Be it Biden, Trump, DeSantis, Michelle Obama, Ramaswamy or Newsom.
It is a 50-50 race where the key vote will be the independent voter, in each of their tendencies since they are the ones who will define the ceiling of each candidate.
The WaPo is not the only one that has published this type of article against Biden, but other media such as The New York Times is already talking about the fact that Biden should not run next year. Most of these publications cite his age, doubts about his physical and mental fitness to govern and criticism of economic management as the main reasons.
This anomaly, of the media letting go of the president's hand, has already occurred on one occasion with the failed withdrawal from Afghanistan.
So it would be no surprise that, as Biden becomes more unpopular, less compelling to the base, and more controversial to moderates, national progressive media begin to ostracize the candidacy for a certain younger ambitious governor, who still has the ability to moderate his radically woke speech to get closer to the independent vote.
We may not be realizing it, but Newsom's time could be coming.
