But it's equally critical to pay attention to the fact that the betterment of life isn't the real purpose of the Newsom Maneuver. That briefly daring, legal-but-not-legal affirmation of queer matrimony was paid for with a gambit in which those among us who have the least, and suffer the most, were made even more miserable.

Gavin has his time-tested playbook. He knows - or thinks - that he can again get away with the homeless-eliminationist inhumanity that his entire career is founded on; and then, when the time is right, pull the Maneuver and slide away (on a streak of hair gel?) from paying any price for it.

And he may be right. Watch how the base of the neoliberal party rally and "gotta hand it to" abjectly amoral politicians when, once in a blue moon, they assume a position vaguely resembling an exercise of human decency.

Will the Newsom Maneuver work for Gavin again? Or will anyone remember?

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Of course, the social issue of the moment which Gavin exploited was that of gay marriage, and, needless to say, the archetypical deployment of the Newsom Maneuver was wildly successful, instantly rebranding this deeply venal beady-eyed predator into a bold, future-focused progressive.

Since then, the Newsom Maneuver has been reproduced, by Newsom and others, again and again. One memorable example occurred during the period of the Trump catastrophe, when Oakland's rightwing Democrat mayor Libby Schaff issued a press release claiming she had advance information of an impending campaign of deportation raids. She was heading into second-term election season against a progressive challenger, which she then won.

It's important to note that it's entirely possible that the Newsom Maneuver may inadvertently result in actual positive effects for society. Schaff's stunt may have derailed a real ICE raid plan, which subsequently didn't happen. And it was genuinely moving for anyone in SF during the Newsom era to see their or their friends and neighbors' love for each other affirmed in joyful celebrations at City Hall.

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It's entirely true that his cruel policy was politically unpopular with the city's residents at the time; in fact, Newsom lost the election day walk-in vote to his main challenger, a leftwing Green. However, he used his eliminationist legislation as an appeal to the city's richest and whitest, whose absentee votes he methodically extracted with an expensive data-driven focus on the old-money neighborhoods, and eked out a narrow win.

What happened next comprises an important chapter in the playbook of the modern neoliberal Democrat. After the election, Newsom, a rightist tasked with governing a leftist city, perceived an immediate need to shore up his fatally exposed left flank, and devised an approach we can now identify as the Newsom Maneuver. Let's look it up in the Devil's Dictionary.

"Newsom Maneuver (colloquial 'pulling a Gavin'): A gambit performed by a politician in which a boldly progressive stance on a single social issue is suddenly assumed, effectively distracting the polity from the unpopular and uninspiring nature of all other positions held by that politician."

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