MAGA influencers are "losing their damn minds" as Gavin Newsom takes on Donald Trump using the president's own tactics, according to conservative strategist Rick Wilson.
Wilson, a conservative anti-Trump activist who co-founded the Lincoln Project and hosts the group's podcast, wrote on Friday about the California Democrat who is taking Trump on.
According to Wilson, Newsom is taking the fight to where it is.
"Say what you will about his West Coast aura, but he’s figured something out: you have to fight where the fight is. Newsom’s social media campaign is not about 'elevating the discourse.' It’s about taking Trump’s carnival of idiocy and holding up a mirror so America can see just how grotesque the show really is," he wrote. "And here’s the thing: it works."
Wilson went on to say that, "Nothing punctures Trump’s aura faster than mockery."
"Policy critiques bounce off him like Nerf darts, but ridicule cuts deep. He can’t stand it. That’s why the Lincoln Project ads drive him berserk; they get under his skin, hit his insecurities, and mock him like the small, whiny man he is. Newsom’s campaign has tapped into the same vein," the strategist added. "His social team doesn’t waste time with white papers or solemn lectures. They’re built for the share button. They’re sharp, brutal, absurd mirrors of Trump’s lavish self-regard, and that of the MAGA base’s worship of Trump. They’re designed to be consumed in the attention economy where Trumpism thrives. They’re the political equivalent of The Archie Slap."
But to Wilson, it isn't about the most loyal MAGAs.
"This isn’t about persuading the dead-eyed MAGA diehards. Nothing will. They’d vote for Trump if he strangled a bald eagle on live TV. The audience here is the persuadable middle, the people who watch politics the way they watch TikToks: short, sharp, and shareable. Newsom is speaking their language, and Democrats should be taking notes," he wrote. "The MAGA social media scamfluencer crowd is losing their damn minds, and to their credit, the Newsom social team is smacking them with the same backhand."
Wilson continued:
"Trump world’s reaction, and the screeching hissy-fit of Fox News hosts over the trolling, is a sure tell: mockery of dictators, particularly their dictator, is their kryptonite. Fox hosts like Dana Perino and the odious Greg Gutfeld have spent hours this week howling with rage in long, exasperated struggle sessions over Newsom’s tactics. Their towering rage, their performative high dudgeon, isn’t because they’re offended by Newsom."
He concluded, "It’s because they’ve finally been forced to look into the mirror."