Authoritarians target wives and children because it works. Trump is no different
In this dangerous age when the presidency increasingly turns to appease the desires of the old man in the Oval Office, the Trump Justice Department going after those who anger or even upset the president is nothing new.
Leticia James, James Comey, Adam Schiff. Lately, E. Jean CarrollThe person who personally sued President Trump and won a huge settlement for allegedly sexually assaulting her. Now, Department of Justice is investigating him for potential perjury.
It would be easy to think of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s announcement Monday that the U.S. Department of Justice is now targeting his wife, Jennifer Siebel Newsom, as a new addition to that list.
But this attack on Siebel Newsom (at least the alleged attack — the Justice Department has not confirmed that she was the target) is something much darker in our descent into authoritarianism. While the details of what’s being investigated are unclear and the president hasn’t stepped in yet, it appears the Trump administration is trying to stop a political rival who has a real shot at unseating MAGA from the top office.
“The investigation of the wife of a major presidential candidate is not just random or coincidental,” Steven Levitsky, a professor of politics at Harvard University, told me Monday. “This is the nature of selective prosecution, and this is the fundamental pillar of authoritarian rule.”
Levitsky is an expert on authoritarian regimes and how they acquire and maintain power. His view that Newsom is a valid opponent may seem obvious; Newsom himself is already fundraising on the issue. But this alleged investigation requires a momentary pause, because what we are witnessing so far is not an orderly miscarriage of justice.
“This is different,” he said. “This is forward-looking cruelty.”
By now, Levistky notes, Trump has been screaming and yelling for the prosecution of those who wronged him in the past, sometimes even in the distant past. Yes, he humiliated the Justice Department by demanding that the Justice Department function as his personal avenger, even enlisting his own personal lawyer, Todd Blanche, when Pam Bondi wasn’t conciliatory or successful enough to crush perceived enemies and quash the Epstein files.
However, these investigations were largely complaint-based and did not aim to maintain power.
Going after Siebel Newsom seems more like a proactive, preemptive strike that targets Newsom through the Achilles heel of every decent man and his family ahead of the 2028 election.
In fact, right-wing media, closely tied to the whims of the White House, have been targeting Siebel Newsom for months.
Siebel Newsom, in particular, has been attacked for her work as a documentary filmmaker focusing on women’s empowerment and analyzing how and why we have the gender norms we do when it comes to masculinity and femininity. I’ll let you understand how popular this is in the MAGA world where real women make sandwiches.
Conservative commentator Sean Hannity goes after Siebel Newsom Because he said that when he reads books to his children, he sometimes changes the gender of the character in the book to “woman” instead of “he”. Fox News attacked him for daring to give boys dolls to play with and leading some of them MAGA influencers will label him “psychotic” or “abusive”. right wing icon Megyn Kelly called him “crazy” Siebel Newsom for sharing the tragic story of her sister’s death when she was 6 years old.
And other media focused on the fact that some of the films he was involved in were approved for use in California schools; which led to conspiracies that Newsom was using his influence to push his wife’s “woke” agenda on the children; In this way, apparently, we are talking about the evils of liberal morality and participation.
In recent weeks, investigators from the FBI and IRS have contacted the family’s relatives, friends and business associates, Newsom’s office said. Siebel Newsom also works on online safety for kids, but it looks like all the attention will be focused on these movies, the nonprofits involved, and the ever-popular MAGA bogeyman of schools pushing ideologies on kids. If you factor in how Siebel Newsom’s company makes even a dollar and how the IRS finds problems with any tax return, you get about 10,000 hours of right-wing propaganda.
So whether or not the pressure to target Siebel Newsom comes from the White House, Newsom’s statement raises the troubling specter that this administration is becoming more serious about remaining in control by bucking in before their potential replacements become too powerful.
In his video on Monday, Newsom, with great bravado, urged Trump to come after him all he wants, but leave his wife and family out of it. But I also wouldn’t disparage Siebel Newsom, who showed her power by testifying against disgraced Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein by going public with a private, painful story.
Siebel Newsom’s office told me it would be OK for him to be part of any fight against Trump.
“There are no limits to what Donald Trump will do to get his way or challenge those who stand in his way,” Siebel Newsom said in a statement.
“The Governor and I will continue to speak truth to power because the American people deserve so much more.”
By arriving ahead of any official announcement by the Justice Department of an investigation, Siebel Newsom and her husband can take control of the narrative, something Trump loathes.
This pushback is critical not only for them, but more importantly for all of us, Levitsky said. After last year, when so many institutions and individuals collapsed in the face of Trump’s power, the strength of our democracy has become increasingly dependent on the political capital standing against him.
Going out with a punch first does just that.
