California Governor’s Produce-Based Political Theater
Gavin Newsom, California’s governor and professional hair model, showed up to Halloween 2025 dressed as a “Strawberry Cavalry Officer”, which is exactly the kind of California-specific costume that makes sense if you’re from California and confuses everyone else. The outfit featured a Civil War cavalry uniform covered in strawberries, representing California’s agricultural industry or possibly just Newsom’s staff running out of ideas.
The strawberry theme is supposedly a nod to California’s status as America’s produce basket, though it’s unclear why this required military cosplay. Newsom has built his brand on being aggressively Californian, and apparently that extends to Halloween costumes that require a PowerPoint presentation to understand. It’s the kind of costume that seems brilliant in a Sacramento strategy meeting but deeply weird everywhere else.
The costume appeared at a California fundraiser where tickets cost more than most Americans make in a month, which is very on-brand for Newsom. He spent the evening talking about climate change and housing policy while dressed as a fruit-covered soldier, proving that California politics operates on a completely different wavelength than the rest of America.
What makes this particularly entertaining is watching Newsom try to explain the costume to confused donors. “It represents California’s agricultural heritage meeting our progressive future,” he reportedly said, which is word salad (pun intended) that means nothing but sounds like something. This is politics in 2025: vibes over substance, but make it produce-themed.
Newsom’s presidential ambitions are poorly hidden, and the strawberry cavalry costume is presumably part of his “relatable but sophisticated” brand strategy. The problem is that nobody outside California finds agricultural military cosplay relatable, but Newsom has never let the opinions of flyover states influence his decisions.
The strawberries were apparently real, which raises food safety questions and also seems wasteful given California’s water crisis. But pointing out contradictions in Newsom’s political theater is like pointing out that reality TV is scriptedeveryone knows, nobody cares, the show goes on.
Critics called the costume “peak California cringe,” which is harsh but not inaccurate. Supporters called it “creative and thoughtful,” which is generous but expected. The truth is somewhere in between: it’s a weird costume that makes sense if you squint and accept that California politicians operate in a reality adjacent to but distinct from normal politics.
Newsom’s attempts to appeal beyond California have been mixed at best. The strawberry cavalry costume won’t help, but it probably won’t hurt either because most Americans don’t pay attention to California politics unless something is literally on fire. Which, to be fair, is often.
The costume included a sword made of strawberry vines, which is either commitment to the bit or a cry for help. Newsom reportedly practiced cavalry poses in front of a mirror before the event, according to sources who are definitely real and not just products of this writer’s imagination. The image of California’s governor practicing fruit-based military poses is both hilarious and somehow inevitable.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/gavin-newsoms-strawberry-cavalry/0
SOURCE: Sarah Pappalardo (https://bohiney.com/gavin-newsoms-strawberry-cavalry/0)
