How many more websites and podcasts will Newsom launch before he does his job?

Gov. Gavin Newsom launched a website recently combating what he calls disinformation.

No, this is not the website he launched earlier this year that also purportedly combats disinformation. That one was about the Los Angeles wildfires and though it was a big deal to Newsom at the time it appears to have been abandoned months ago.

I’m referring to another new website, which includes mostly alleged fact checks of all kinds of claims. Important claims, like whether or not the Los Angeles wildfires were merely a ruse to hide pedophiles. You know, the questions that are on the minds of everyone.

“This site is for everyone sick of the BS about California,” Newsom told Politico last week. “We’re done letting the MAGA trolls define the Golden State. We’re going on the offense and fighting back — with facts.”

Californians can rest easy knowing the BS fighter in chief has arrived, though it feels like we’ve heard this before. It seems like a few times a year Newsom stomps his feet and says he’s had enough. And then he takes a campaign swing through southern states or builds websites, but certainly nothing that improves life in California.

Most of the home page is just stale, alleged fact checks carried over from the wildfire page. But Newsom brought in some new stuff too, like a debate over whether California’s population is shrinking.

Republican gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton posted on X: “One-party rule has ruined California. Prices are skyrocketing and people are leaving the state at a record pace. Yet, Democrats still won’t claim any accountability for the problems they created.”

And here comes Newsom with the fact-check smackdown: “False Claim: People are fleeing California. In fact, our population is growing.”

It’s true that there was an uptick last year, but it’s also true that California’s population is down from 2020, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, and the rate of growth is dramatically lower than in the past, according to the Public Policy Institute of California.

Newsom should be troubled either way, but he’s too busy dealing three-card monte, hoping no one finds the red card. First, Newsom cites data that was published a month or so after Hilton’s post, proving that he’s fine with BS when it’s his own. But second, Hilton never said anything about population shrinking. He said people are leaving California and he’s right.

California’s population has been rescued by immigration, but it leads the nation in domestic outmigration. This means that California is attractive to people who don’t live here and not to people who have been here for a while.

A majority of Californians, 56%, said they had considered leaving the state due to the high cost of living, which should be alarming for Newsom. But Newsom has no time for such trifles, he’s building websites and taking a hard look at the veracity of the LA wildfire/pedo connection.

All of this, including the point of Hilton’s post, should trouble Newsom greatly. But to hear him tell it, everything is great. California has the fourth largest economy and leads the nation in venture capital and initial public offerings (which he often says) and you are a MAGA troll if you bring up California’s high cost of living, domestic outmigration, illiteracy, failing public schools, high taxes, homelessness, and so on.

But for all his interest in policing social media comments, Newsom spends a lot of time trying to rub elbows with the red America he so desperately aims to best. He is now hosting two podcasts (one hasn’t published a new episode in months, but a Newsom spokesperson swears it’s not cancelled). His latest, This is Gavin Newsom, bears a sharp contrast with the websites by platforming some of the very California skeptics he wants to defeat.

In fact, Newsom was surprisingly friendly in person with people like Charlie Kirk and Steve Bannon, and while I’m all for civility, he is sending mixed signals, to say the least

With all his podcasting and web development and traveling to Republican states for photo ops, Newsom has appeared distracted. He has previously said he’s not running for president, that he has “sub-zero” interest, but has given every indication that that’s a lie. And voters have noticed.

According to a new Berkeley/IGS poll, 54% of California voters said Newsom was “doing things that might benefit him as a possible candidate for president.” This includes 40% of the voters who like him best (Democrats). Ouch!

It’s unsurprising that his approval rating has plunged to 46% since only 26% of voters said he was focused on “governing the state and helping to solve its problems.”

I want to talk to that 26% and ask them what metric they’re using to determine he’s focused on the state. It’s certainly not any success, since those are hard to find in the Newsom era, despite what his websites say.

And if Californians aren’t buying what he’s selling, he’s really bombing nationally. A recent poll has him at just 5% among possible Democratic presidential candidates, which includes former Vice President Kamala Harris, who is leading the pack with 32%.

Americans, you’re unimpressed now, but wait until you get to see the Newsom show up close!

There’s really no area of public policy showing consistent, meaningful improvement, which points right back to Newsom and is why he so often brags of the size of California’s economy, as if he had anything to do with it.

But Newsom won’t change. He’s got websites to build, podcasts to launch and very important out-of-state business to tend to. He’s sick of the BS and he’ll do anything to prove it… except fix something.

Matt Fleming is a columnist for the Southern California News Group.