California Governor Gavin Newsom Poses With Books And Incidentally Creates A Perfect Meme Opportunity

California Governor Gavin Newsom posted a photo of himself on Twitter today reading five books that he alleged have been banned in various places in the United States, taking a shot at conservative states that have sought to limit school reading lists while incidentally creating a new meme format.

Newsom held Beloved and appeared to be reading its first few pages, while Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, George Orwell’s 1984, Art Spiegelman’s Maus and another title that can’t be seen clearly sat in a stack on the table beside him. Many online mocked his posture, in which he appeared to be deeply contemplating the words in front of him.

All of the books Newsom included in the photograph are on The American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom list of frequently challenged books. Challenges against Beloved, in particular, came to prominence during last year’s Virginia gubernatorial election, in which Republican candidate Glenn Youngkin cut an ad that included a parent advocating for the authority to let her child opt out of reading the book. The reasons given included the book’s treatment of sexuality.

Many Democrats like Newsom sprung to the defense of Beloved, which is a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel and an established classic in the American literary canon. The discussion about banning books or seeking to control what children read in school happens in the light of the eternally ongoing debate about free speech in the U.S. Newsom's framing of the controversy as a dispute between himself and conservative "states," rather than politicians or activists positions California against GOP-controlled states like Texas and Florida.

The Governor’s latest photo-op offered an irresistible platform for memers, who quickly took advantage of the opportunity to do book cover edits with photoshop of what he was reading.

Some commentators on the right pointed out that a liberal-leaning school board in California attempted to remove To Kill a Mockingbird from curricula, accusing Newsom of hypocrisy, despite the Governor of California having little authority over what the state’s local school boards choose to do. This angle of the discussion was used as the description and framing of the trending topic on Twitter’s main page earlier today.

Some commentators on the left praised Governor Newsom’s activism as a counter to those on the right.

Governor Newsom: Thank you for highlighting the absurd book-bans public schools in states like Texas are dealing with and many of us are fighting back against. Knowledge is power. That’s what the #GQP is so afraid of, IMO. https://t.co/imAIoHDWAF

— Scott Uhl (@ScottUhlTX) March 31, 2022

Others speculated about Newsom’s rumored presidential ambitions and compared him to a past president who wrote about flexing with classic books in his memoir, albeit in a different context.

Gavin Newsom has tweeted three times in the past three days. All three tweets are about out-of-state happenings https://t.co/USdbrcBTwI

— Eric Ting (@_ericting) March 31, 2022

Virgin Gavin Newsom pose with five books on IG to own the conservatives VS Chad Barack Obama pretend to read different types of Marxist scholars to (unsuccessfully) pick up different types of women at Columbia

— Edward Ongweso Jr (@bigblackjacobin) March 31, 2022

Reading the first few pages of Toni Morrison’s Beloved may be an attempt to make him appear as a "literary man," but it is likely that Newsom will have to do more to convince voters. Featuring in a prominent meme format would, presumably, help to get his name and image out there in the public consciousness — though whether that's in a positive or negative light is in the hands of memers.