I've not been following it particularly closely, but I was aware that California Governor (and potential Democrat presidential candidate for 2028) Gavin Newsom has been running a series of Trump parodies on Twitter.
Posting with idiosyncratic punctuation and capitalization (or, often, all caps), scattering nasty nicknames, and dealing with some rather bizarre and random subject matter - all hallmarks of Trump's social media presence on Truth Social - Newsom is pursuing a rather high-risk strategy, and risks alienating some of his own supporters in the process. But then we are not in an election race just yet, so maybe it doesn't really matter.
The way I see it, which I think is probably close to the way Mr. Newsom sees it, is that he is trying to show Republicans the kind of thing that Trump puts out on a daily basis on Truth Social, but divorced from the personality and the mythos that Trump carries with him, in an attempt to convey just how ridiculous and puerile many of Trump's utterances really are.
What's interesting, though, is that many in the MAGA world are taking them quite seriously, calling on Newsom to grow up and be more serious, with no apparent sense of irony. Trump junky Sean Hannity from Fox News bemoans Newsom's "performative confrontational style", adding that "maybe it wins you points with the loony radical base in your party", the pastiche element apparently passing him by completely. Another Fox commentator begs, " You are making a fool of yourself. Stop it!" VP JD Vance complains that Newsom's efforts "ignores the fundamental genius of President Trump's political success, which is that he's authentic".
Mr. Newsom must be wetting himself when he reads these responses. Subtlety and irony are clearly not Republican attributes. As the Atlantic article author notes: "MAGA World is so close to getting it". But they're not quite there yet.
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