Young conservatives are mocking their own political team for offering up weak, compromised leadership...

It’s one of the strangest political trends of the summer: young conservatives online are posting compliments about Gavin Newsom. They’re not suddenly embracing left-wing policy but when forced to choose between what appears to be a neocon puppet and a slick, confident Democrat, they’d rather meme Newsom into relevance than pretend someone like JD Vance inspires anyone.

Think about how pathetic that is: Republicans are memeing Gavin Newsom into relevance because their own guy struggles to carry a room.

On X, clips of Newsom’s recent troll-style posts have been circulated widely by a variety of accounts, where he took shots at Trump, mocked MAGA figures, and leaned into an online presence eerily similar to that of President Trump.

The Daily Beast ran a piece about Fox News hosts losing their cool over Newsom’s online trolling, especially as his engagement numbers continue to soar. And boy are his numbers soaring. To Gen Z, seeing Newsom play the game and use Trump’s own tactics against him is both entertaining and effective.

Newsom, who is no traditionalist by any means, embodies an aesthetic that resonates with parts of the online right. He’s a straight white man with a white family.

Gavin Newsom even reposted one post with the caption “Gavin Newsom vs JD Vance in high school.” 

He’s tall, good-looking, confident, and smooth-talking. In other words, he looks the part of a leader, even if his politics are opposed to many things that conservatives claim to want.

What currently matters more in this online war is optics, and Newsom knows it. He understands that if he wants to have a shot in 2028 that he has to take away supporters from all opposition, and he’s doing it. When the Minnesota Vikings announced their male cheerleaders, for instance, conservatives flooded X mocking it as an attack on masculinity. At the same time, posts praising Newsom’s confidence and traditional optics – his family photos, his sharp speeches, and his quick wit (i.e. his virility) –  circulated widely. The subtext was clear: conservatives are starved for leaders who look like leaders. 

Compare that to JD Vance, who has tried to reinvent himself as a Catholic nationalist. 

To many young traditionalists, that comes across as fake. His rhetoric feels forced, his faith opportunistic, his mannerisms awkward. Online, the label that sticks is “race-mixing fake Catholic.” Just look at the thousands of JD Vance memes. The choice being offered to young people is a Catholic who is married to a practicing Hindu, or a straight white guy who looks the part. It’s no surprise who’s slowly gaining support in early polls. 

A recent Signal and Noise poll showed that Gen Z’s youngest voters are trending Republican in raw numbers, but Vance’s personal favorability with young men sits at a staggering -30 points. That means even when the party’s message is resonating, Vance isn’t. The brand feels hollow, and for Gen Z, authenticity matters. Newsom might be a liberal elitist, but he doesn’t feel like a poser. 

This is why so many young conservatives are willing to share Newsom clips, even ironically. It isn’t that they’ve suddenly embraced California liberalism — it’s that they’re laughing at their own side for putting up someone who looks weak, awkward, and inauthentic. In a generation where everything is about image and online presence, the right’s candidate looks like the afterthought in a meme, while Newsom looks like the guy who belongs on the stage. That’s the point. It's a mockery, but it’s also a warning. 

The new guard isn’t afraid to burn it all down. They know Newsom is no savior. They know he’s a liberal elitist, maybe even a phony himself. But in a world where everything feels like theater, they’d rather promote a polished enemy than be disappointed by rallying around a hollow fraud on their own team. The status quo is too corrupt, too perverted, and too incompetent to salvage. If the “authentic” candidate the right puts forward is a poser, then the instinct is simple: torch the whole stage. Better to pick the less-authentic enemy than the obvious poser.

If conservatives can’t produce leaders who look, sound, and act like leaders, then even their own base will fill the void with the enemy, if only to rub it in. Optics aren’t everything, but they matter more than ever, and right now, the online battlefield makes it clear: JD Vance is losing that war. Gavin Newsom, whether conservatives like it or not, is winning it.