JONATHAN TURLEY: Newsom thinks he can control the far-left mob, but history disagrees
On Aug. 9, California Democrat Gov. Gavin Newsom made his latest pitch to the mob by proclaiming himself "an established insurgent." It was vintage Newsom trying to be everything to everyone, part of the establishment and part of the revolution. Like a violent pacifist or a preservation arsonist, it makes no sense to anyone else. However, with the victory of radicals across the country, Newsom is trying to join other armchair revolutionaries in seeking to lead the far-left mob. He believes that he can use a class war that will spare him while destroying his enemies. Call it the Danton delusion.
In my book "Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution," I discuss the French Revolution and its decline into what the Framers called a mobocracy. What became known as "The Terror" was started not by the working class, but by educated lawyers, journalists and even aristocrats as part of the Jacobin movement. One of the central figures was a lawyer named Georges Jacques Danton, a gifted orator and writer.
Danton would become the justice minister and later a member of the infamous Committee of Public Safety. The more he facilitated the rage, the more he found himself captured by it. Achieving power at the head of a mob, Danton fed the bloodlust of revolution, sending thousands to the guillotine and allegedly masterminding atrocities such as the September Massacres. Danton secured power by calling others dangerous reactionaries, declaring, "The bell we are about to ring… sounds the charge on the enemies of our country."
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Danton struggled to stay ahead of the mob by feeding victims into the grinder of a class war. Eventually, however, the mob had finished off the aristocrats, clergy and merchants. The most radical Jacobins, led by his ally Maximilien Robespierre, then turned on their fellow Jacobins, including Danton.
Before his fall, it was dawning on Danton that there would be no end to the killings. When one supporter excitedly told him of more executions of moderates as guilty of "factionalism," Danton remarked, "We’re all factious. If they deserve to be guillotined, we all deserve so. Those men in Paris will guillotine the entire Republic."
And so they did. Danton himself would stand before the "national razor" on April 5, 1794.
Notably, the radicals today are also calling for purges of the Democratic Party of moderates and denouncing dissenters as part of "factionalism." Yet, Newsom still hopes that he can use the mob for his own ambitions, ignoring Danton’s warning, "Woe betide those who would provoke revolutions."
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Newsom wants to be one of the red aristocrats of the new Democratic Party. By calling for radical changes to our constitutional system, he is hoping that the socialists will ignore his own wealth and privilege. The same is true for California Democrat Rep. Ro Khanna, who is also offering to trash our institutions. He hopes to secure the socialist vote despite being reportedly worth at least $360 million or more thanks to his wife’s inheritance.
In Newsom’s case, the proletarian pitch still comes off as more French Laundry than French Revolution. He is trailing in the polls, with some showing him falling behind former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who has been promising his own radical changes to our system while campaigning with controversial figures such as Democrat Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan.
The loss of DSA candidate Francesca Hong this week will not change the calculation for Newsom. What he saw was an extremist who came within less than one percentage point of winning the nomination for Wisconsin governor. The far-left gubernatorial candidate Peggy Flanagan did win the primary handily in Minnesota. Other leaders, like Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison (who previously praised the violent group Antifa) celebrated the infusion of socialists into the party.
Newsom believes that there is a pocket of delusional free-market Marxists who are longing for his leadership. If so, they do not live in New Hampshire, where Newsom is being trounced by New York Democrat Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Voters can spot the real thing; AOC’s arguments are authentically bananas. That is better than a Newsom banana split that is part establishment and part insurgency.
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As former Vice President Kamala Harris and Buttigieg make their own plays for the radical wing, Newsom will likely need to find another institution to offer up other than the Supreme Court. Packing the Supreme Court has become the mere starting ante in the game. Radicals are looking for bona fides of true believers, with some calling for the scrapping of the Constitution entirely.
Newsom — "the established insurgent" — is desperately trying to be the next leader rather than the next trophy of the mob. History is not on his side. Well-coiffed hair and a hip podcast are not likely to be enough to keep the mob at bay. From New York to Colorado, the far left is taking establishment heads. In the end, Danton yielded one last time to feed the desire of the mob. When he was finally taken to the guillotine, Danton told the executioner, "Show the people my head. It is well worth seeing."