THE SINKING SHIP OF GAVIN NEWSOM:

If you’re a Democrat, you’ve had the cheapest, easiest applause line imaginable for the past four (really five or six) years, some variation of “Donald Trump stinks.” Opposition to Trump was the one giant issue that united the center-left, the woke, economic liberals, social liberals, the Democratic establishment, Bernie Bros, you name it. Among the Democrats, Trump was and is the worst villain imaginable, the cause of all troubles, the ultimate scapegoat.

And later this month . . . Trump’s gone, at least from public office. Being “not Trump” or opposed to Trump won’t be enough anymore; over time, an officeholder’s opposition to Trump will become less and less relevant. The fights of this presidency will fade. (Remember that the Democratic Senate nominee in Kansas didn’t know what the Patriot Act was.) In 2009, Jon Corzine and Creigh Deeds spent a lot of time bashing George W. Bush on the campaign trail. They both lost in November.

Without Trump as a punching bag, governors such as Gavin Newsom will need to build public support on their own merits. Judging from the vaccine rollout in many states, that’s going to be a lot more difficult.

Perhaps that explains why Andrew Cuomo is finally re-opening the state economy he’s battered for many months. And how will Michigan’s Gretchen Whitmer be judged when she can no longer do government as performative art? Betsy DeVos resigns, Gretchen Whitmer lets a t-shirt do her talking. Which is a repeat of the same stunt from April: Michigan’s Governor Beclowns Herself by Trying to Troll Trump With a T-Shirt.

As Glenn noted in May, “Trump’s wrecking a whole generation of Democratic governors who might otherwise have been presidential or vice-presidential timber, simply by letting them run things as they see fit.”