INNOVATE2016: Gavin Newsom Calls For Systemic Change In American Politics

So how does American politics get genuinely disrupted? According to Gavin Newsom, California’s current Lieutenant Governor and a leading candidate for Californian Governor in 2018, we need to change the game itself.

Rather than relying on populist politicians like Donald Trump, Newsom told me, America needs what he’s calls the “systemic change” in which Silicon Valley specializes. And the 2016 Presidential candidate who most appreciates this, Newsom insists, is Hillary Clinton. Marco Rubio, in contrast, Newsom argues, “claims” to understand systemic change, but doesn’t really get it.

As a lifelong Democrat, it’s probably no great surprise to learn that Newsom is super confident about 2016 delivering a Democratic candidate.

More surprising, however, is Newsom’s nostalgia for a competitive Republican party that isn’t into what he calls “self-destruction”. The Republican party’s xenophobic ideology, Newsom, insists, has undermined its long-term political viability. And this is bad for American democracy, he argues, because it’s in everyone’s interest – both Democrats and Republicans – to have a healthy two party system.


Many thanks to San Francisco’s Innovation Hangar for hosting this interview with the Lieutenant Governor. And thanks again to CALinnovates for helping produce this interview.