Pity poor Gavin Newsom, trapped between his ambition and the needs of his radicalized party.

While Rome — excuse me, Los Angeles — burns, California's Democrat governor is out there cosplaying for the cameras like the tough-guy he isn't. In his latest pair of ham-fisted maneuvers, Newsom says he'll see President Donald Trump in court, unless he sees him in jail first.

Saint Gavin, anyone?

Here he is on Sunday, all but daring White House border czar Tom Homan to make a martyr of him over immigration law.

Nevertheless, dinosaur legacy news outlets continue to play up the non-threat with headlines like this one: 'Arrest me': California's governor unfazed by threats of arrest from Trump administration official. Even NBC News can't maintain the charade past the first paragraph. In the second, NBC admitted that Homan "threatened arrest for anyone who obstructs the immigration enforcement effort, including Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass — though he acknowledged that neither yet had 'crossed the line.'"

Not much of a threat, is it? But Newsom is happy to play along with non-existent arrest threats because, really, what else does he have? 

If Newsom doesn't get arrested, he looks like the marginally talented B.S. artist he is. If he does? MAGA country gets that long-awaited image of a lawbreaking Democrat in handcuffs. Maybe he and L.A. Mayor Karen Bass could be cellmates. 

Call it a win-win for sanity.

But that's only the start of Newsom's troubles.

We might have a second win-win here, courtesy of Newsom's threat to sue the administration for nationalizing the California National Guard.

The Supreme Court held in Martin v. Mott (1827) that, under the Insurrection Act, "[T]he authority to decide whether [an] exigency has arisen... belongs exclusively to the President, and... his decision is conclusive upon all other persons."

The courts don't have anything to say about the president nationalizing a state's Guard units in an emergency. That said, there are complicating factors — Posse Comitatus, for starters, which bars federal troops from enforcing domestic laws, and likely requires Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act.

But politically speaking, the important thing is that today's Democrat-appointed judges (and a few GOPers, sad to say) wouldn't hesitate to order Trump to de-nationalize the California National Guard.

That's our second potential win-win.

If Trump uses the Guard to successfully put down the riots — or "insurrection," if we use the Democrats' Jan. 6 definition — he's a hero. 

The glimmer of hope for Newsom is that he wins in court and then, but only then, the lefty NGOs funding these riots flick the Off switch and make Newsom look like the hero. But these things do tend to take on a life of their own, and Newsom the Court Victor quickly turns into Nero, the emperor who fiddled with lawsuits while Rome burned.

I suspect that, if Newsom sues, he'll slow-walk it in an attempt to ride the line until the riots either fizzle out or are put down.

I'd prefer that Trump gets these riots under control, mostly because I don't like watching American cities burn. But if Los Angelenos end up getting what they voted for, good and hard, I certainly wouldn't lose any sleep over it.

But martyr or not, it's going to be another long night for Saint Gavin, Patron of Ashes and Ambition.

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