Open question because this isn’t normal.
There’s general bipartisan agreement that Gov. Gavin Newsom is as fake as a California homeless bond measure. This is a man who got started in politics by watching and copying from videos of Bill Clinton speeches. (If you want to know why he used to bite his lip and look down, it’s because he was doing the Clinton.)
But these bodily movements are a whole other thing.
@Grok Is Gov. Gavin Newsom on cocaine or meth here?
Hard to tell. Grok suggested anti-depressants and anti-psychotics which would be a more legal explanation pic.twitter.com/Shm6XAvbZ7
— Daniel Greenfield – “Hang Together or Separately” (@Sultanknish) October 31, 2025
There’s talking with your hands and then there’s whatever this is, which strongly suggests an inability to hold still, uncontrollable arm movements, restlessness and twitches. The obvious answer is cocaine. Cocaine seems to be right up Newsom’s alley. He’s often hyper, over-intense and agitated. If he’d been on cocaine during his time as governor, it would explain a whole lot about how the state is run.
But a second option, especially for a politician desperately trying to build his brand by going everywhere and doing everything, is amphetamines. It would explain the bizarre arm and hand movements all too well. This is a guy who is overdoing it, not getting much sleep and spinning out of control. Sometimes he starts yelling during interviews.
A final possibility and this one may be a distant third but it’s still plausible are anti-depressants. Some of the side-effects fit.
Now a bit of important backstory with Newsom is that he blamed his adultery on substance abuse, suggested he was going to rehab and never did. Back then, Newsom blamed alcoholism. Unless he’s a severe alcoholic, that wouldn’t fit. But one reason he may not have gone to rehab is because the drug of choice wasn’t alcohol but something more politically damaging.
Either way we’re seeing a man with poor impulse control trying to pitch himself to his party and not really sticking the landing.
And yet there’s a final drug, far more addictive and uncontrollable, narcissism.
