NY Magazine: San Francisco is a disaster area because Republicans have kept it from reaching its true progressive potential

So apparently San Francisco DA Chesa Boudin isn’t winning any popularity contests in his beloved city.

Just got a note from someone who just arrived in San Francisco — says these signs are all over the city ahead of Boudin's recall election tomorrow. pic.twitter.com/Qco83edwur

— Mark Hemingway (@Heminator) June 6, 2022

Go figure, right? He’s the quintessential progressive, San Francisco is the quintessential progressive city … or is it?

According to New York Magazine’s Intelligencer, San Francisco is not a progressive paradise. In fact, it’s a product of decades of Republican-led efforts to keep it from reaching its true progressive potential. Who knew?

San Francisco, governed by Republicans for most of the 20th century, doesn't rest on a New Deal foundation and increasingly lacks a working-class population to bolster progressive candidates https://t.co/1C2sg4Shto

— Justin Miller (@justinjm1) June 6, 2022

Wow!

"As he reminds me in an interview, Boudin is endangered by forces largely beyond his control."

Way to hold his feet to the fire, @NYMag!https://t.co/dHMu434rhj via @intelligencer

— Jeryl Bier (@JerylBier) June 6, 2022

“Speaking truth to power” FTW!

— The H2 (@TheH2) June 6, 2022

So much truth. So much power.

Pack it up, folks. No one is going to top this take today:

*Republicans* are to blame for San Francisco being a disaster of a city. https://t.co/PqIVbwtF0V

— Nathan Brand (@NathanBrandWA) June 6, 2022

Ross Barkan writes:

Modern San Francisco, unlike New York, does not rest on the legacy of a social-democratic state forged with New Deal largesse. There are no Fiorello
La Guardias or Robert Wagners lurking in the city’s history. From 1912 to 1963, only Republicans governed San Francisco, and they were largely backers of big business who could occasionally draw support from organized labor. The first nonwhite person to win an election in 20th-century San Francisco, Willie Brown, did not enter office until 1965. Despite San Francisco’s reputation as a liberal nirvana, proud progressive governance came and went quickly. George Moscone was assassinated along with Harvey Milk in 1978. Art Agnos, another liberal Democrat, lost his reelection bid to Frank Jordan, a Republican former police chief, in 1991.

A right-leaning, if conventional, business Establishment held great sway over San Francisco politics until tech, with its billions, subsumed much of it in the 21st century. Tech money is more formidable than anything a local developer or bank could deploy. Silicon Valley employees, drawn from across America and now fully settled into San Francisco, are an influential slice of the electorate, directly replacing working-class votes. To them, homelessness is more an aesthetic annoyance than a humanitarian catastrophe. Among wealthy San Franciscans, the indignity is tangible — if an extraordinary price is going to be paid to live in Presidio Heights or the Marina District, how can visible poverty be imposed on such a supposedly idyllic lifestyle?

Damn those damn Republicans …

The last Republican mayor in San Francisco left office nearly 60 years ago… https://t.co/RMm1icEEjW

— Jarrett Stepman (@JarrettStepman) June 6, 2022

Some quick research shows SF hasn’t had a republican mayor since 1964, not a single republican voted to the 11 member board of supervisors since 1973, and the last Republican controlled board was the 50s at the latest and maybe earlier. https://t.co/CNu7OSZ5HE

— Kyle Lamb (@kylamb8) June 6, 2022

Yeah, well, 1964 is more than halfway into the 20th century, so there!

Also, everyone realizes we're over a 5th of the way into the 21st century now, right? https://t.co/plJicyBUle pic.twitter.com/udSfnjns8V

— Carl Paulus (@CarlPaulus) June 6, 2022

Republicans are just playing the long game. The loooooongest game.

Inject this take directly into my veins and then smash out a car window, leave the syringe in the back seat, and poop on the adjacent curb. https://t.co/LUjk8kFqWQ

— Foster (@foster_type) June 6, 2022

It really is top-quality stuff:

If Boudin loses, the criminal-justice-reform movement in San Francisco and across America could be dealt a grievous blow, at least in the short term. Wealthy conservatives, emboldened in California, may hunt for ways to make recall elections legal in other states, hoping to execute an end-run around higher-turnout contests that elected progressive prosecutors in the first place. “Republicans and their police-union allies have tried and failed in traditional elections,” Boudin says. “They’re desperate to go backwards.” If he is recalled, San Francisco, inevitably, will have a more conservative replacement.

A more conservative replacement! Boy, what a shame that would be, considering how badly Republicans and conservatives managed to muck up San Francisco almost 60 years ago. How will progressivism turn San Francisco around if progressivism never gets a chance to take hold?