Newsom won’t stop quoting this ancient Greek historian. It’s a telling reference |
Thanks to Gov. Gavin Newsom, an ancient Greek historian Plutarch might figure prominently in the 2028 U.S. presidential race.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom delivers his State of the State Address at the State Capitol in Sacramento on Jan. 8, 2026.
Desert Gate, California’s leading 3-year-old racehorse, was the favorite at Santa Anita Park on Feb. 7.
But Plutarch, an unheralded colt who had never won a stakes race, won easily and overnight became a top contender in the 2026 Kentucky Derby
The thoroughbred colt isn’t the only Plutarch making news in California. The ancient Greek historian for whom the horse is named is showing up in the 2028 Democratic presidential primary.
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Plutarch, who lived from around A.D. 50 to around 120, was famous for biographies that examined the inner struggles of great leaders. The most important figures, Plutarch argued, are deeply flawed people who tame their own ambitions to serve the people.
That vision of humanity and its leaders, offered 2,000 years ago, feels very modern.
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“To make no mistakes is not in the power of man,” Plutarch wrote, “but from their errors and mistakes the wise and good learn wisdom for the future.”
So, it is no wonder that Gavin Newsom, a man with more than his share of ambition and flaws, is a major fan. The governor has a longtime habit of quoting Plutarch in private — so much so that aides asked him to cut back.
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Instead, the governor is now making his Plutarch preoccupation in public plain, including in this year’s State of the State speech.
Newsom specifically invoked Plutarch in criticizing President Donald Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill for putting millions of Californians at risk of losing health insurance and food aid.
“All to benefit the top 10% of this country,” Newsom said, “people who already own two-thirds of the household wealth. Plutarch was right when he warned us 2,000 years ago that this imbalance of the rich and the poor ‘is the oldest and most fatal ailment of all republics.’”
Newsom followed that speech with an intimate autobiography, “Young Man in a Hurry,” beautifully ghostwritten by my former Los Angeles Times colleague, Mark Arax, that owes a considerable debt to Plutarch’s classic, “Parallel Lives.”
In that work, Plutarch compares 46 figures — pairing 23 Greeks and 23 Romans — on how they balanced personal ambition and service. Plutarch, who spent much of his life in his Greek hometown of Chaeronea, even serving as mayor, often favors the Greeks and their devotion to their own city-states, in contrast to the more imperially ambitious Romans.
Newsom’s book, in this Plutarchian tradition, pairs two different Gavins. There are two children: one Gavin spent weeknights at home in front of the TV while his single mother worked three jobs, and the other spent weekends and summers with the obscenely wealthy Getty family, for whom his father was a friend and fixer. Then there are the two adult politician Gavins: the ambitious leader who wants to reach the top in San Francisco and California politics, and the risk-taker who pursues unpopular policies (like marrying same-sex couples in 2004) in the cause of justice.
Now, outside the book, which ends with Newsom’s election as governor in 2018, there’s an internationally famous politician who tries reconcile his duties to defend his home state with his all-but-declared campaign to win America’s authoritarian presidency, with all its terrible and imperial power.
Plutarch’s warnings about leaders quite obviously apply in this age of Trump. “Corrupt souls cannot contain power, but leak out in acts of desire, anger, imposture, and bad taste,” Plutarch wrote in his classic essay, “To an Uneducated Ruler.”
What’s striking about Newsom’s invocation of Plutarch is how it telegraphs the governor’s willingness to reckon publicly with his inner conflict. In a recent text exchange, after I congratulated Newsom on bringing Plutarch back to prominence and asked whether we should expect more, he replied: “We could all use a reminder about civic virtue over personal ambition!”
Among those who could use the reminder are the many politicians running to succeed Newsom. The candidates constantly talk about their resumes and repeat the same tired lines about “affordability,” but offer few thoughts on civic life, democracy, or California’s future.
After sitting through a dull gubernatorial debate in the Bay Area, I found myself thinking this bit of heresy: As much as we Californians like to complain about Gavin Christopher Newsom, we may well miss him, and all his ideas and dramas, when he’s gone.
For all his flaws, Newsom is still maturing — not unlike Plutarch the horse. Failures, after all, are reliable teachers for politicians and other racehorses. Just as Newsom’s first two years in office were full of mistakes and relied too much on outside committees and task forces, Plutarch lost his first four races, as his trainer tried different jockeys and strategies. The problem for the horse, as it was for Newsom, was that he often lost focus mid-race.
Facing recall in 2021 made Newsom tougher and more resilient, while switching Plutarch temporarily from dirt tracks to turf finally produced a breakthrough race at Del Mar in November.
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Of course, with growth comes setbacks. As Newsom was taking political hits on his national book tour, doctors found that Plutarch was experiencing soreness, leading his trainer to take him off the Kentucky Derby trail.
Both man and horse will have to recover and outrun themselves.
Joe Mathews writes the Connecting California column for Zócalo Public Square.