Governor Newsom's Radical Left Strategy: The Danton Delusion

On August 9, California Governor Gavin Newsom offered his latest appeal to the radical left by labeling himself an established insurgent. This move feels like a contradiction. He tries to be part of the system while simultaneously leading a revolution against it. It is confusing logic that makes no sense to anyone outside the movement. With radicals winning power across the nation, Newsom hopes to join these armchair revolutionaries and lead the far-left mob himself. He thinks he can use a class war to protect his own position while destroying his enemies. Call this strategy the Danton delusion.

My book, Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution, explores how the French Revolution declined into what our founders called a mobocracy. What became known as The Terror did not start with the working class. Instead, educated lawyers, journalists, and even aristocrats joined the Jacobin movement to drive it forward. One central figure was Georges Jacques Danton, a talented lawyer and writer who spoke with great power.

Danton eventually served as justice minister before joining the infamous Committee of Public Safety. The more he fueled the rage, the more he found himself trapped by it. Once he reached the head of a mob, he fed its bloodlust for revolution. He sent thousands to the guillotine and allegedly masterminded atrocities like the September Massacres. Danton gained power by branding others as dangerous reactionaries. He declared that the bell we are about to ring sounds the charge on the enemies of our country.

Danton struggled to stay ahead of the mob by feeding victims into a grinder of class war. Eventually, however, the mob finished off the aristocrats, clergy members, and merchants. The most radical Jacobins, led by his ally Maximilien Robespierre, then turned on their fellow Jacobins, including Danton himself. Before his fall, it became clear to Danton that the killings would never end. When a supporter excitedly told him of more executions against moderates labeled guilty of factionalism, Danton remarked we are all factious. If they deserve to be guillotined, so do we. Those men in Paris will guillotine the entire Republic.

And so they did. Danton himself stood before the national razor on April 5, 1794. Notably, radicals today also call for purges of the Democratic Party against moderates and denounce dissenters as part of factionalism. Yet Newsom still hopes to use the mob for his own ambitions. He ignores Danton's warning that woe betide those who would provoke revolutions.

Newsom wants to be one of the red aristocrats in the new Democratic Party. By calling for radical changes to our constitutional system, he hopes socialists will ignore his wealth and privilege. The same is true for California Democrat Representative Ro Khanna. He offers to trash our institutions while hoping 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 trails in the polls with some showing him falling behind former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. Buttigieg has been promising his own radical changes to our system while campaigning with controversial figures like 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.

Keith Ellison of Minnesota joined other leaders in cheering for a surge of socialists within the party. Ellison had once praised Antifa before celebrating this shift. Gavin Newsom thinks there is a group of delusional free-market Marxists who crave his guidance. If such people exist, they are not found in New Hampshire. There, Gavin Newsom is getting beaten badly by Democrat Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez from New York. Voters can tell the difference. AOC's claims ring true with a kind of wild energy that looks better than a Newsom banana split mixing establishment power and radical insurgency.

While Kamala Harris and Pete Buttigieg court the far left on their own, Gavin Newsom will likely have to find another way forward since packing the Supreme Court is just the opening move now. Radicals want proof of deep belief from true followers. Some are even asking for the total abolition of the Constitution.

Newsom aims to become a red aristocrat in this new Democratic Party. He calls for sweeping changes to our constitutional system hoping that socialists will overlook his money and high status. History does not favor him. A perfect hairstyle and a trendy podcast probably cannot stop the mob well enough. From New York to Colorado, the far left is removing establishment leaders from power. In the end, Danton gave way one last time to satisfy the mob's hunger. When the executioner finally took his head, Danton said, "Show the people my head. It is well worth seeing.