Gov. Gavin Newsom’s sudden conversion to socialism is a naked act of political opportunism.

After pretending for months to oppose the so-called “billionaire tax,” he has endorsed it at the national level.

Like other Democrats with ambitions for higher office, Newsom is running scared — from the leftists in his own party.

It’s no longer good enough to be anti-Trump. Congressman Dan Goldman, who was Adam Schiff’s lead counsel in the first Trump impeachment, learned that the hard way in last week’s New York Democratic primary.

Goldman was targeted by ugly antisemitism in a bitter contest that was more about Israel than about bread-and-butter issues — never mind all that talk about “affordability.”

He was part of a socialist “trifecta” that has made New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani the most powerful figure in the Democratic Party.

Two years ago, he was a rabble-rouser with a bullhorn, screaming about Palestine.

Today, he is leading a hostile socialist takeover of the Democratic Party. And establishment types like Newsom are in big trouble.

But there is a deeper lesson in Newsom’s shift leftward — or, rather, an urgent question: What does the Democratic Party actually stand for anymore?

The appeal of socialism, after all, isn’t that it works. It fails, every time.

In New York City, Mamdani has already had to abandon his campaign promise for “free” buses. 

No — the appeal of socialism is that it seems more authentic than whatever it is Democrats stand for, which no one can explain anymore.

You have to go back to Bill Clinton to figure out what Democrats believe — or used to believe.

Clinton believed in free markets, and in defending the West against challenges from external threats, like Islamic terror.

He believed in law enforcement. He believed in borders.

But he also believed in the social safety net of health care and education programs. 

He believed there was a floor below which no American should fall.

And he believed that, without having to set a ceiling above which no American could rise.

That was a winning formula for Democrats.

But then Barack Obama came, with his promises of “fundamentally transforming” America.

He refused, for many years, to wear a flag pin. Patriotism was not part of the formula.

Obama set the stage for Mamdani. Now Democrats can’t remember who they are anymore.

We will never be a socialist country. But you can’t defend what you can’t define.

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