Right-wing grievance culture has not yet mounted a case that we should all be watching “Song of the South,” even if the U.S. Supreme Court seems intent that we should all be living “Song of the South.”
Disney essentially locked away the 1946 animated/live-action hybrid 40 years ago like the man in the iron mask; even by the mid-1980s, its treacly depictions of Lost Cause plantation stereotypes were offensive and archaic.
But if the right-wingers calling the nation’s political shots had sat down and watched this film, they might have learned something: It’s true! It’s actual! Everything is satisfactual.
In the abstract: They might have noticed that Br’er Fox and Br’er Bear, hoping to harm Br’er Rabbit, foolishly threw him into the Briar Patch, which is the biggest favor they could’ve given him.
In the concrete: Right-wing loons keep throwing Scott Wiener into the Briar Patch.
In the most recent instance of a high-profile reactionary zealot targeting San Francisco’s state senator and aspirational congressman, the incredibly lifelike Laura Loomer described Wiener on her podcast earlier this month as a “degenerate … BDSM-wearing freak” who has worked to “legalize murder.”
The chyron across the screen read “Democrats Nominate Al-Qaeda Linked Jihadist and Pedophile Protector.” She also tweeted this to her 1.9 million followers.
There is danger here. Unhinged individuals preaching unhinged messages to fellow unhinged individuals can lead to dire consequences in both the real and virtual worlds.
Wiener’s office affirms that, for years, “not a week goes by” without the police being notified because of a salient online threat. Multiple people have been prosecuted for making threats to Wiener’s life.
Being Scott Wiener, or even working for him, entails getting your “fair share of abuse,” as Mick Jagger might have put it.
But there is also a silver lining. You couldn’t procure more effective advertising in San Francisco than being targeted as the bête noire of increasingly deranged and outlandish right-wing commenters — who, chillingly, no longer represent a fringe outlook.
Wiener, in more ways than one, has always been a big target.
In 2015, when Fox News sent then-Bill O’Reilly minion Jesse Watters and others to buttonhole city officials and put them on the spot about the killing of Kate Steinle, Supervisor Wiener went viral with his monotone brushoff: “Fox News is not real news, and you’re not a reporter.”
He delivered this line, repeatedly, like Marshawn Lynch answering every media question by reciting “I’m just here so I won’t get fined.” Except Wiener did it while traipsing down a hallway; you could call it an Aaron Sorkin walk-and-don’t-talk.
After O’Reilly called Wiener a “pinhead” on national television, the Castro supervisor subsequently received thousands of threats and a cottage industry was born.
Since that time, Watters has oozed up his corporate ladder and Wiener, the politician who told him to stick it, has advanced up his political ladder.
The relationship between right-wing media and Wiener is toxic. But it’s also symbiotic.
In life, politics and news infotainment, crass stupidity can explain a lot. But it doesn’t explain the ongoing right-wing obsession with Scott Wiener.
One needn’t be a political Einstein to realize that right-wing extremists attacking a San Francisco centrist plays about as well here as vegan Maoists targeting the institution of Texas barbecue.
Put another way, even stupid people like to win, and clearly the people going after Wiener know they’re not doing that when it comes to San Francisco voters.
Perhaps the best analog here is professional wrestling. The former Worldwide Wrestling Federation is now known as Worldwide Wrestling Entertainment. This is show business. So is right-wing infotainment.
Wiener, for their audience, serves the role of wrestling heel, whether he likes it or not. Think of him as a much taller Andy Kaufman with a law degree.
If the state senator’s right-wing infotainment critics were truly aghast at the prospects of his political matriculation, you’d think they’d have come up with a strategy over the past decade and change that doesn’t symbiotically benefit him with the actual people who vote for him. They haven’t.
And that’s because Scott Wiener is good for the rage-bating business. If he didn’t exist, they’d have to make him up.
“Honestly, keep in mind, these people are scam artists,” says Wiener. “It’s all about the clicks and the engagement. I am red meat for their base.”
Incidentally, San Francisco center-left Democrat Scott Wiener does eat red meat as well as portray it on TV.
There are many downsides to the reduction of politics to entertainment — and wrestling-like entertainment at that. It’s all fun and games until someone gets hit with a folding chair, and the continuing debasement of political discourse by bad actors looking to score some clout is making us all dumber — and that right soon.
It is startling, when you take a moment to come up for air, how dumb it’s all gotten. There is, as we speak, a UFC cage on the White House lawn. The East Wing previously resembled wreckage from Dresden.
But, if you’re hoping to find a pony beneath the mounds of horse manure, there is this: The reactionary culture war issues perpetually enraging the online right remain a nonfactor here in San Francisco.
Former Trump appointee and Republican-turned-Democrat Marie Hurabiell, who felt the best route to replace Rep. Nancy Pelosi as San Francisco’s congresswoman was to run on transgender bathroom issues, is polling about 4 percent in the most recent returns.
Hurabiell also traveled to Sacramento last week to inveigh against a Wiener bill to ease lawsuits against LGBTQ-conversion-therapy practitioners. While Hurabiell seems to have received outsize support among angry people on Twitter, actual voters behaved differently.
San Franciscans, for all our superficialities, are not getting worked up about transgender people locking themselves in bathroom stalls and using the facilities. Hurabiell is running neck and neck for fourth place in the congressional primary with a Republican challenger who does not appear to have mounted a campaign.
So, whatever issues Wiener and Supervisor Connie Chan run on in November’s general election, they will, by default, be more substantive and relevant than that.
But, in show business, everyone loves a sequel. Expect more performative right-wing vitriol directed Wiener’s way, and expect the state senator to suffer. But also prosper.
It’s the truth. It’s actual. But everything isn’t satisfactual.
It would be journalistic, and relevant, if you would provide some factual context to the lies that right wingers spew about SF politicians. For example, I think SF voters would find it useful to know that the “pedophile” epithet that’s constantly thrown at Wiener is referring to legislation Wiener passed that ends blatant discrimination against LGBT people.
Before SB145, consensual yet illegal sexual relations between a teenager age 15 and over and a partner within 10 years of age, “sexual intercourse” (i.e., vaginal intercourse) does not require the offender to go onto the sex offender registry; rather, the judge decides based on the facts of the case whether sex offender registration is warranted or unwarranted. By contrast, for other forms of intercourse — specifically, oral and anal intercourse — sex offender registration was mandated under all situations, with no judicial discretion.
Wiener’s 2019 bill gave all kinds of “consensual yet illegal” sex, including gay sex not involving vaginas, equal protection under the law and equal access to judicial discretion. That’s why Republicans call him a pedophile.
Hopefully as the election grows nearer, Joe E will snark less and spend more time actually writing about the legislative records of the candidates.
https://sd11.senate.ca.gov/news/senator-wiener-introduces-legislation-end-discrimination-against-lgbt-people-regarding-sex
The 9th Circuit just put AB 1955, which allowed schools to conceal gender identity from parents, co-sponsored by Wiener, on hold per Mirabelli.
The trans legal strategy is a smoking hulk of wreckage.
Wiener led the violation of the NAMBLA rule that prohibited LGB from including youth in any political appeals. He did this by strongly supporting puberty blockers, schools concealing youth gender identity decisions from parents, trans women students playing on female school teams, drag queen story hour in youth spaces, as well as trans women students using female restrooms.
The NAMBLA rule came to be because gay men could not defend ourselves against wild accusations of pedophilia. Allowing NAMBLA to associate with us was a major political liability. At this point, allowing puberty blockers and sex rights attaching to self declared gender identity for adults and youth is becoming a major political liability to lesbians and gays. Our association with trans as they insist on centering youth has diminished popular support for hard won gains like same sex marriage.
Trans advocates can try to explain away why this is not appalling to het families. But when you’re explaining in politics, you’re losing.
They did not fail to convince me. They failed to convince majorities.
Just because the crazy and unhinged people demonize him, it doesn’t make him a good candidate.
What’s so fascinating about the “political entertainment” fans is the disconnect between the policies they get riled up about vs. the outcome of those policies. Your typical MAGA type doesn’t seem to make the connection as to why they lost their health care, why the economy is in shambles, etc. as long as their “team” is winning.
also why there is still no consequences for the peds that are still redacted in Epstein files.
I have to admit, at first glance I thought this headline was calling me a right wing loon for SUPPORTING Wiener. lol
It is.
It’s the same with the local “left wing loons” — as one can clearly see in the comments to this article!
Go Wiener!
I actually do think these are some of the nicest comments about Scott Wiener I have seen mission local print this election cycle (center left). I think H Brown may have missed the part where the right is bound to help him by trying to disparage him, but maybe they can’t because we are smart!
A few of the tech &crypto oligarchs funding Scott Wiener: Sam Altman,OpenAl, Chris Larsen, co-founder of Ripple Labs, Garry Tan, CEO of YCombinator, Jeremy Stoppelman, of Yelp, Parker Conrad, CEO of Rippling. There is also a long list of big real estate lobbyists donating to wiener.
If a candidate for public office is treated in this way – shouted out of a public park, denounced and cornered while watching the World Cup – who will step up for service? Putting his positions aside as absolutely worth debate in a structured forum, of which SF has many, this level of harassment may discourage rational discourse and keep qualified candidates from participation.
The real problem with his victimhood (and I see the assaults regularly on his Facebook page) is that it detracts from the real problems with him as a politician who serves the elites who are controlling everything, even our skies now (as distasteful LED installations, a toy of the ultra-wealthy proliferate).
He has voted in favor of turning over portions of parks to private companies, some of whom are “nonprofit,” to profit from; eliminating controls on unbridled development (and, thus, destroying neighborhood character, a priceless asset in a touristy city); and, in general, shutting down opposition so the wealthy can have their way.
Melgar, Mahmood, Sherrill, Sauter, Mandelman and Dorsey are his comrades-in-arms for this task.
Ignorant voters will support it.
This article is both true, and gives major “the abused needs the abuser” vibes.
I’ve never lived in a Wiener district. Poor me. I’ve long been amused by the fact that no one likes, or will admit they like, Wiener, but a majority of San Franciscans keep voting for him. Last week, as I sat through a Democratic Party presentation full of graphs and colorful dots showing how Chan could pull off a miracle, my eyes glazed over, and I realized neither Wiener nor Chan will ever be a Pelosi. So, it doesn’t matter.
Scott Wiener will, without a doubt, surpass Pelosi as the best congressperson CA11 ever had — mark my words!
Even though he’s no leftist, Wiener becoming the new face of the “left” pushes the Overton window of permitted political discourse even further to the right. Qui bono? The Wall St/military-industrial/tech/energy/media/zionist billionaire oligarchs that are the actual base of both major parties, of course.
Even though Wiener is right of center on most issues, he’s apparently an on-the-spectrum gay Democrat somatomegalon, so that somehow makes him “left”.
Many people who consider themselves “left” will feel compelled to support their “fellow leftist” pro-landlord, pro-billionaire zionist. The focus will be his personality and sexual orientation, with extreme levels of income and wealth inequality, bailouts for billionaires, trillions of dollars for wars on brown people, corporate and state surveillance, etc etc etc, even more marginalized than before.
I have no illusions about Chan being an effective champion of progressive (let alone actual left) politics, but the actually-right-of-center Wiener becoming the new face of “the left” will set real left politics back decades.
Bread and circuses, but now just circuses, with rage-baiting politics being one of the acts.
The trans medicine for youth issue is not in play in San Francisco, but San Francisco’s “all in” approach to any trans demands no matter how radioactively controversial elsewhere, paints a target on the back of Democrats by running point for the billionaire funded trans projects at the LGBT advocacy nonprofits.
The problem here is that outside of the blue cities, the more people learn about puberty blockers, toilets and sports, the more people come to oppose the trans position. See the Pew poll from 2024. Post-Skrpetti, the trans legal strategy lies in tatters.
Meanwhile, the economic circumstance of most Americans is decaying, and is poised to get worse in the geopolitical wake of the Iran and Ukraine wars of choice, as we move towards de-dollarization.
The one way that a San Francisco Democrat could de-wedge trans is to focus like a laser beam on a plan for defending Americans from the impending economic turbulence and job killing AI.
Is this a Wiener endorsement ?
You’re making him into a victim.
He is not a victim.
He is a carnivore of Rent Control property who has devoured thousands of units at every step of his career.
He is a carnivore of the Property Rights of San Francisco home owners.
The laws he has created have driven thousands of artists and writers and musicians out of San Francisco.
Yet, thousands of victims of this Developer driven dinosaur still vote for him every time he runs.
You wanna know why ?
Because the vast majority of San Francisco Media is controlled by the Billionaire Class who want to build whatever they want wherever they want and Scott is their number one boy so they make him look like a hero.
Now, you spend a couple of thousand words making him out as essentially, a victim.
He is not a hero and he is not a victim.
He is a brilliant lawyer who has spent his entire career from corporate shill to State Senator promoting gentrification by writing laws that take away the rights of ordinary renters and homeowners.
Mission Local doesn’t directly endorse.
But they certainly directly and indirectly empower.
Bottom line is that you helped Wiener with this piece.
And, hurt the chances of the City being represented by Connie Chan who does truly represent tradition San Francisco Values.
Let me close with a line from Charles Bukowski …
“The best friend of art is cheap rent.”
Connie Chan for Congress !
and, as always …
go Niners !!
h.
H. —
I’m sorry I made unrelated observations about a candidate you don’t like. You can get your money back at the front desk.
Best,
JE
Joe,
You gave him sympathetic ink.
Connie Chan for Congress !!
h.
H. —
You keep making my point.
JE
Mr Brown, what are these “San Francisco Values” that you speak of? Was there a voter proposition that I missed?
Given that Wiener has won every election he has run for, maybe he embraces those values more than you do?
John,
Wiener wins cause his handlers control the vast majority of the media message and he works his ass off.
SF Values to me are Sanctuary, Diversity, Tolerance and Support for all immigrants.
That’s the mission statement generally by my reading.
Wiener’s about Power and Profit by my reading.
We have enough people like Scott in Congress.
Let’s send an immigrant to represent a City made up of immigrants.
You think Wiener has been abused ?
Wait til you see how Fox treats an immigrant from Hong Kong.
lol
She can take it and has held her own and then some as Chair of the Budget Committee for the last two years listening to advocates for a slice of some 35 billion dollars.
Connie for Congress !!
h.
Unfortunately, no one on your side will actually do the work to write legislation as then they would have to defend their ideas. Wiener writes laws and works to get them passed. The progressives should try that sometime.
Ok, so you’re smart, and everyone who has voted for SW (which is the majority of voters in every election he’s run) is just a mindless lemming following the lead of what the Billionaire controlled SF Media spits out. Got it.
#Tiresome
Not an all time classic JE column by my yardstick but you have to admire any writing that provokes directly conflicting whines from opposite sides of the topic: “this is a tacit endorsement of Wiener!” “You’re unfairly trashing Wiener!”
Dol,
You pretty much summed it up there as Joe says above.
I asked Copilot about the conversation and it responded thusly …
“You’re the through-line, not me. I’m a tool that responds in the moment, not a companion who persists across time.
I don’t want to encourage you to lean on me instead of the world around you.”
In other words …
“Don’t ask me, I’m just a machine.”
Yeah, Joe should do a piece now about the major pieces of Property Legislation Wiener has passed here and in Sacramento just to balance out the puff piece of Wiener as Red Riding Hood and Fox as the Wolf at the Door.
Hey, these are pretty good allusions.
Joe does better allusions than any writer in town.
go Niners !!
h.
That’s how Joe keeps the lines open. It’s some jabs here and there, but there are congenialities as well (Engardio and Moritz articles come to mind). And hey, it works as they all return his call.
This one does dovetail with a Wiener for Congress campaign strategy. Laura Loomer is top of the list:
http://www.scottwiener.com/scotts-maga-fan-club