Gavin Newsom’s memoir isn’t self-reflection. It’s presidential prep | Opinion
In Gov. Gavin Newsom’s new memoir, we are told by reviewers that a lot of page space and ink are spent to convince the reader that he’s just a normal guy, with Average Joe struggles.
Are we actually supposed to believe that Newsom’s connections to some of the state’s wealthiest families haven’t greatly benefited him on his way to what is now, undoubtedly, a 2028 presidential campaign?
Yeah, right.
I’ve never been one for a memoir, especially one that’s clearly trying so hard to make a sale on its subject ahead of a national election. So I fully admit that I have no plans to read “Young Man in a Hurry: A Memoir of Discovery,” the biography of Newsom’s early years that’s due to hit shelves Feb. 24. But like everyone else, I’ve been under siege of the numerous reviews that have already come out: Some fawning, some skeptical and some outright mocking.
But what I find particularly concerning about the early reports on Newsom’s self-pitying memoir is that its historical musings end in the weeks just before he takes office as California governor. Isn’t that the time period when readers would find the most relevant information about how he would govern as president?
(Perhaps he’s saving that for the sequel.)
According to published accounts, the book focuses on Newsom’s struggles in childhood with dyslexia and family instability, being called “Newscum” by youthful bullies (the same insult now used against him by President Trump) and how his family’s close connections to the billionaire Getty family would “rob me of my own hard-earned story,” Newsom writes.
And yet Newsom’s hard-earned story is what, exactly? That he once worked as a busboy in between glamorous trips with the Gettys on African safaris and to meet the King and Queen of Spain? That he got into Santa Clara University because he received a partial scholarship to play baseball? He duly omitted the part of the story where he also had letters of recommendation from former California Governor Jerry Brown and a member of the institution’s Board of Regents, according to the New York Times.
“The press’s one-dimensional portrait of me pissed me off because I knew the way I grew up, the struggles my mother had to endure, the hard times that made my life a duality that never seemed to get its due, a duality I would spend years trying to comprehend,” Newsom wrote, aided by ghostwriter Mark Arax.
I’m sure that, to him, Newsom’s life is rich and full of duality, a compelling story that will never get its full due. But to the wider public, the face he presents is that of a wealthy man who does not share in the same struggles that everyday Californians — much less every day Americans — experience. Presenting himself now as a rags-to-riches bootstrapper is not only disingenuous, it’s an insult.
Too often, Americans are told not to believe what our own eyes tell us. Believe in the alternative facts, as presented by those who tell us they know better: Don’t believe that Alex Pretti had his hands up before he was shot and killed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers. Don’t believe that the protesters were peaceful. Don’t believe that the Trump Administration is chipping away at your rights.
And don’t believe that Newsom is a privileged, wealthy man. Don’t look at him living in a $9.1 million mansion in a private Bay Area neighborhood, dining at Michelin-starred restaurants during a pandemic, benefitting every day from his connections to the state’s most elite families and backing the state’s billionaires over its everyday people in a bid for a one-time wealth tax that would fund healthcare with roughly $100 billion over five years. Don’t believe that he would choose to aid his wealthy friends over the working class, just because that’s what he’s done every time in the past.
Newsom’s new memoir appears to be just another set of alternative facts; a magician’s sleight of hand before the actual trick he intends to pull in 2028. This memoir is nothing more than a bald-faced attempt to make a presidential hopeful look good to the working class before he asks for their money, their vote and their trust.
Don’t buy it.
This story was originally published February 3, 2026 at 3:14 PM.
