Some things are hard to predict. Who among us could have foreseen Republican vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance battling online rumors that he sodomized a couch?
To borrow the “Shawshank Redemption” line, “I can’t even imagine. Or maybe I just don’t want to.”
Other things, however, are not so hard to predict. When it became clear last week that Vice President Kamala Harris had consolidated the necessary support to be the Democratic presidential nominee, we wrote that her long-ago relationship with Willie Brown would likely be exhumed. And, lo, that happened.
We wrote that “Harris will likely suffer through the most toxic, misogynistic and racist campaign in American history.” And, lo, we are well on our way.
And we also wrote that we can expect “stories of San Francisco chaos, filth and disorder, already a cable TV and online staple, to reach a whole new level” — never mind that Harris hasn’t been a registered San Francisco voter since 2016.
You can sense the rumblings of this coming, like Sen. Tom Cotton using the term “San Francisco liberal” more in a brief CNN stand-up than a post-race NASCAR driver touts his sponsors. But the real shitstorm, literal and figurative, is yet to arrive. But arrive it will.
Demonizing San Francisco may play in Peoria. But it won’t play here, not coming from Trumpist outsiders. Or, in the future, from local politicians who talk like them.
Harris’ ascent “fundamentally changes our November race for mayor of San Francisco because, in an instant, the foundational messages of at least two of the leading candidates now echo Donald Trump’s key talking points,” writes veteran political consultant Eric Jaye, referring to Mark Farrell and, to a lesser extent, Daniel Lurie.
“Now, they all sound a whole lot like Donald Trump. And that’s going to be one giant political problem for the San Francisco doom loop caucus.”
You may never have heard of “negative partisanship,” but it may yet, in part, form your political worldview. What’s it all about? In short: It’s when one’s positions are fueled by dislike and opposition to the positions of disfavored politicians and/or parties. So, you could feed the names of any number of past or present San Francisco politicos into the following setup: “If Politician A came out in favor of water, Politician B would advocate for a cessation of bathing.” Same goes with the supporters of Politicians A and B.
Insofar as we can measure such things, negative partisanship in America has never been higher (they weren’t polling this in 1865). Jaye, who will helm an Independent Expenditure committee favoring Aaron Peskin for mayor, writes, “As we just witnessed in the past few days — absolutely nothing unites Democrats faster than their fear of, and loathing for, former President Donald Trump.”
With Harris now atop the Democratic ticket, there is every incentive for Trump and his gang to put San Francisco in the crosshairs, relentlessly attack this city’s values and display footage of chaos and misery at every opportunity. San Franciscans may bristle at the following sort of invective:
The Doom Loop started with London Breed’s mask mandates, vaccine mandates, and social distancing mandates during the pandemic … And then along came Defund the Police, shoplifting is okay under $950, Project Roomkey with free hotel rooms, vodka, weed and cigarettes for homeless.
So here we are today, with skyrocketing crime. Businesses leaving in droves, out-of-control housing costs. We have to flag down a clerk to unlock the toothpaste at Walgreens. We witness people defecating on the sidewalks. Open-air needle injections near schools. Retail theft gangs terrorizing stores. Sideshows burning rubber citywide.
We have devolved into an international joke of lawlessness and wokeism, rewarding laziness and punishing those who work hard. This is our last chance, folks. Another four years of London Breed and her socialist cronies will be the end of San Francisco as we know it.
Oh, wait. That wasn’t J.D. Vance or Tom Cotton or even Donald Trump. That was San Franciscan Larry Buck. And this was his intro at a recent fundraiser for Mark Farrell, as recounted today in Politico.
At that fundraiser, Farrell later said “Sometimes I go through the nasty scenarios on where we are. Honestly, I think Larry did a great job of that. I almost wanted to jump off the bridge, but I didn’t. I didn’t, Larry.”
Now, San Franciscans are not happy with the state of San Francisco. That’s why Breed herself was happy to play up this city’s chaos and dysfunction — “the bullshit that has destroyed this city” — when it was District Attorney Chesa Boudin’s name on the ballot, not hers.
But this year, she’s changed her tune: Now crime is down, down, down, and she has charts to prove it. But San Franciscans, by and large, appear to now be inured to charts or statistics or any notion of objective facts in this department. And Farrell is just fine with that. He has, repeatedly, brushed aside the declining crime rate by noting that people don’t feel safer; at the recent firefighters union debate, he said that “statistics are meaningless” because people don’t report crimes anymore — thereby assuming there was some good and fair time in the past when people reliably reported crimes while, today, they do not.
There is a distinction between “crime” and the unnerving scenes of chaos, filth and misfortune most every registered voter has seen across swaths of the city. But, as everyone in politics will tell you, when you’re explaining, you’re losing. Same goes for J.D. Vance and that couch.
So, portraying San Francisco as being a daily reenactment of “Assault on Precinct 13” was a viable mayoral campaign strategy.
Then Harris became the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee. And, barring unforeseen lunacy, Republicans will attempt to lash her to the very worst real and imagined conceptions of this city.
Maybe Jimmie Fails put it best: “You don’t get to hate San Francisco … You don’t get to hate it unless you love it.”
Clearly, every mayoral candidate loves San Francisco (or at least thinks it has a great personality). But, as another San Francisco political consultant told us, “San Franciscans will be revolted by the idea of someone hemming so close to the Trump narrative.”
For Aaron Peskin, who went to grade school with Harris, has supported her politically for two decades and has strategically chosen to denounce doom loop talk and make positivity the hallmark of his campaign, her sudden leap to the top of the ticket is a gift.
But it may be even more of a gift for the mayor. Breed indulged in shameless doom looperism before she was against it — and, as the incumbent, is the most vulnerable to it now. It would be an extreme stroke of luck for Breed to now have the power of these attacks from her mayoral challengers blunted by their similarity to GOP dogma. But, as Bay Area native Lefty Gomez put it, “I’d rather be lucky than good.”
Also, you can make your own luck: Just as Trump will attempt to tether San Francisco to Harris to sink her, Breed will attempt to tether herself to Harris to ascend.
And the doom loop caucus? Like J.D. Vance, they’ll just have to couch their positions.
Re: the article’s last paragraph
Yuk yuk.
Interesting point about how the candidates will have to tailor their criticisms.
But the fact is we still need to fix the city. Breed claiming things are fine doesn’t make them fine.
Peoria is reliably blue and a quarter Black. Harris will have no issues there.
Heads up carpet bagger candidates in supervisor races across the city: district residents ain’t buying your campaign’s doom looperism and bashing of the current incumbent supervisors. Anger spewing on social media and inciting recalls might be the trend of now but it accomplishes little. Take note GROWSF, TogetherSF, Neighbors for aBSF, Safe Clean CouchSF, SPEWSF, Elon Musk, Mark Farrell, Garry Tan and couch humping Tech bros everywhere. (Is it a venture capitalist thingee?) San Francisco voters are sick and tired of your BS and hopefully will reject candidates who campaign on rancid red meat. If you want our votes, focus on substance, policy, issues and solutions. Hope springs eternal. We are tired of your BULLSHIT. Quit it.
torch mobism will fail spectacualrly.
One of the very best yet Joe. Thanks for these thought provoking insights and for your stellar sense of humor.