Many years ago, I was gifted a ticket to a San Francisco Opera Company presentation of “La Traviata,” my first non-Bugs Bunny local opera experience. So, when things seemed to have wrapped up, I wandered down the 97 flights of stairs and into the bright, early afternoon sun of Van Ness Avenue. But something felt off. I asked a staffer in a vest if the opera was finished.
“No, no, no!” he replied in horror. “She still has to die!”
The point here is that things can change a bit between Acts II and III. Sometimes, it helps to stick around and see how stuff goes before describing the meaning of it all.
This practice has, sadly, become a bit antiquated during election coverage. The first headlines following the March 5 election blared that progressivism was dead in San Francisco. Then, subsequent arguments were made that, actually, the billionaire-backed candidates and measures reducing police oversight and subjecting welfare recipients to drug-screening were the real progressives.
The debate as to whether San Francisco can still be considered liberal or progressive is, to borrow the Monty Python line, rather silly. It harks back to AM sports radio arguments or disputes over which superhero would win a fight, and requires adopting reductive and superficial views of what constitutes liberalism or progressivism on a municipal level.
Let’s be frank: Reducing police oversight and use-of-force reporting, and making welfare payments subject to dope-screening and testing (a position strongly advocated by Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz) are not moderate positions. They are conservative positions. But — presto! — this month’s election is now being branded as a progressive victory.
And that works, if you believe that voters’ liberal views begin and ends with their positions on social issues or federal/state matters. So, yes, San Franciscans voted nearly 13 to 1 for Joe Biden against Donald Trump in this month’s primary, but it’s not like that earned us the equivalent of a papal indulgence from the chair of the Democratic National Committee regarding city voters’ positions on municipal issues.
The truth of the matter is that San Francisco contains multitudes. Your positions on issues like gun control or LGBTQ rights do not predict — nor override, nor ameliorate — your positions on municipal land use or local public-safety issues.
In the 45 years since Mayor George Moscone was assassinated, San Franciscans have never elected a progressive mayoral candidate, other than Art Agnos in 1987 — and voters hastily gave him the boot in ’91, in large part because he supported razing the Embarcadero and Central Freeways, and refused to punitively sweep homeless people off of Civic Center Plaza. As we wrote in January, San Francisco hasn’t elected a Republican mayor since 1959, but most every mayor since that time has generally favored less regulation and taxation on businesses, a police-oriented approach to crime and disorder, tougher sanctions on the homeless, and less bountiful general city services.
You don’t find liberal Republicans so much anymore, even in California. But people holding many of their views are hardly at a disadvantage in winning citywide office in San Francisco. By and large, almost no one else has.
This is something to consider when you’re pondering if this city has lost its “liberal soul.”
Mea culpa: There was an oversight in my recent coverage.
I would’ve done well to point out that San Francisco voters, and their elected leaders, are far more sympathetic to some forms of taxation and municipal bonds than Red State voters or elected leaders. Even San Francisco’s more conservative politicians aren’t across-the-board fiscal conservatives; they’re the ones proposing things like sugary-beverage taxes.
But this leads to even more situations that defy blanket statements about this city’s liberal or progressive politics, or whatever term we’d wish to self-apply. In this city, voters have, with regularity, approved exacting measures on poor and homeless people. We’ve passed anti-panhandling laws, restricted people’s ability to sit or lie on the street, and voted to give the city greater power to yank homeless campers’ tents.
We did all that, and more. But we also voted to tax the city’s most lucrative companies in order to fund homeless and housing programs — a tax that has, to date, amassed the better part of a billion dollars. You could say San Francisco voters are ideologically incoherent. But that’s not entirely fair — most voters do not adhere to coherent and consistent ideological belief systems. Perhaps it’s just better to say that San Francisco voters are harder to pin down than you’d think.
The latest example of this is the passage of the $300 million affordable housing bond, Prop. A, which was one of the real surprises of the March election. Nobody had high hopes for the bond, which didn’t raise nearly as much money as previous victorious affordable housing bonds. The mayor did not talk much about it on the campaign trail and, until very late in the game, her fundraising emails only mentioned her own Propositions, C, E and F.
And yet, Prop. A won, with 70.1 percent of the vote (it required 66.67 percent). Both liberal and moderate housing backers told me, prior to the election, that they feared voters heading to the polls to support the mayor’s police measure and homeless dope-testing measure would sink the affordable housing bond. An analysis from Mission Local’s Will Jarrett reveals they would have, if not for around eight of every 10 voters who spurned the mayor’s measures going for the housing bond. So, it was progressives who dragged this measure across the finish line.
Two incumbent judges also won comfortably this month, despite megadonors showering their law-and-order challengers with funds.
Any assessment of how “progressives” did on election day should probably include those races, too. But let’s not sugarcoat it: There is little future political gain from winning Prop. A and the judge races, whereas there certainly is much to gain from, say, controlling the local Democratic party. And here, progressives were swamped.
79% of voters against Prop. E supported Prop. A.
Only 63% of voters for Prop. E supported Prop. A.
21.2%
No
on A
No
on E
78.8%
37.4%
Yes
on A
Yes
on E
62.6%
79% of voters against Prop. E
supported Prop. A. Only 63% of
voters for Prop. E supported A.
21.2%
No
on A
No
on E
78.8%
37.4%
Yes
on A
Yes
on E
62.6%
82% of voters against Prop. F supported Prop. A.
Only 61% of voters for Prop. F supported Prop. A.
17.9%
No
on A
No
on F
82.1%
38.6%
Yes
on A
Yes
on F
61.4%
82% of voters against Prop. F
supported Prop. A. Only 61% of
voters for Prop. F supported A.
17.9%
No
on A
No
on F
82.1%
38.6%
Yes
on A
Yes
on F
61.4%
Data from the Department of Elections as of March 12, 2024. Charts by Will Jarrett.
Have years of Doom Loop rhetoric and grim overdose tolls — and decades of ongoing, maddening property crime — moved liberal San Francisco voters on public safety issues? It does feel that way; perhaps you could say that the Overton Window has been bipped.
As such, it’s difficult to imagine 62 percent of the electorate rejecting a police Taser measure, as we did in just 2019. But it’s also difficult to imagine the powers that be putting just $493,000 behind it, as was the case a scant five years ago. This year’s Prop. E pulled in more than $2.1 million, and outspent the opposition by a factor of 10.
Money matters. A great deal. But campaigns matter, too. Five years ago, we wrote that it was uncertain if San Franciscans were moved by District Attorney candidate Chesa Boudin’s liberal ideology, or just rewarded the best-run campaign. And this year, (almost) all the candidates and measures backed by billionaires didn’t just outspend the competition — they outorganized, outstrategized and outworked the other side. And, in the end, outperformed them, too.
That happened. But it’s still hard to say that voters rejected progressive policies and solutions because progressives, by and large, did not offer any policies or solutions.
Along with grotesque amounts of money flooding into the March primary portending so much more in November, this is the major takeaway from this month’s election: Candidates backed by coteries of free-spending billionaires offered solutions to the issues voters want to see addressed, including drug use, homelessness and public safety. So did the measures the megadonors backed heavily. You could argue that these were facile, non-workable and even cynical solutions, but they were the only solutions being proffered. As we’ve noted before, liberal campaigns saying “Look who’s donating to our opponents” and essentially leaving it at that, has, once again, not worked out as a viable electioneering strategy.
In March’s contest of something vs. nothing, something won. Voters were offered a Hobson’s choice. They took it.
November’s election, hopefully, will feature something more closely resembling a robust battle of ideas. For good or ill, it will make March’s primary resemble a child’s experiment. San Francisco’s Act III would figure to be quite the killer.
For a number of complicated reasons, the assassination of Harvey Milk marked the beginning of the end of true progressive reforms in San Francisco.
What followed has been endless squabbling among the more affluent pseudo-progressives: not to eliminate privileges and inequalities, but to gain influence and more favorable access to wealth and privilege.
Art Agnos was a politician cursed for being a human being. I liked him for two reasons: first, he rewarded immigrant Allan Fong with a TCBY yogurt stand at SFO (which Fong and his wife slaved to make a success– their commute and schedule left them few hours of sleep for many years), and second, he paternalistically advised Matt Gonzalez to wear a suit in his race for mayor against the scion of the Getty fortune, Gavin Newsom.
You are totally right on Milk’s assassination marking the beginning of the end of progressive reforms in SF. Every time a pro-business moderate trots out Milk’s legacy, it’s like when right wingers talk about MLK. Sorry it’s just true.
Gonzalez was never seen not wearing a suit when he was supervisor. Agnos wore the same size suit as Gonzalez, and having accumulated a wardrobe, shared his garb with the candidate.
Even during the campaign, it was 90F one day and there was to be a bicycle parade for Matt, Gonzalez wore a full suit while cycling.
“and voters hastily gave him the boot in ’91 in large part because he supported the razing of the Embarcadero and Central Freeways and refused to punitively sweep homeless people off Civic Center Plaza”
We got two of those and we’re still fighting over the last one… so not horrible progress in 3 decades I guess.
Genuine, non-trolly q, Joe: have you seen any indications in your conversations or reporting that indicates a willingness of the progressive leadership to grapple with your observations?
The questions left uninvestigated here are:
– WHY has the “progressive agenda” been condensed to funding a handful of politically connected nonprofits and running revenue measures for use by conservative Democrat mayors to screw progressive priorities?
– WHO are the compensated progressive grandees that have constricted the project to this losing state?
– WHAT is this tight control of the progressive political agenda supposed to accomplish?
This would inform people as to HOW we can take action to reassert popular control over this privatized operation that acts in our name.
Joe, as your previous article on this subject quoted Walter from the Big Lebowski, “it’s an ethos”. Granted, we have voted for progressive ideas in the past and in this election but the great majority of people and ideas that San Francisco votes for have been and are conservative. Other than a blip on the radar that happened in the late 60’s, majority of young people in this town or at least those that show up to vote have been mostly conservative and I say that not because of the few progressive propositions that were passed but because of who got elected to office.
True, when it comes to city-wide races, the progressives don’t offer much of a choice and when it comes to mobilizing people, the progressives “are no show and no work”. Who knows, maybe our progressives are just centrist liberals whose ideas of progress is just sloganeering and blaming the “dark money” for everything, including their lack of legislating prowess but at the end of the day, there is no alternative to these right-wing reactionary ideas because there is no viable opposition in this town.
We have one of the most vile politicians, Scott Wiener who’s running for another 4-year term with zero opposition. Sure, people are pissed off about his land use policies and that includes even the folks in affluent and conservative neighborhoods but there’s no one else on the ballot and that is the failure of the opposition and progressives in particular.
How is Scott Weiner “vile”?
SF Greens used to do report cards for supervisors based on their votes. About a decade ago, the supes just quit voting on controversial, i.e. progressive measures that enraged corporate San Francisco and the wealthy.
Why did this happen?
I saw this coming more than a decade ago and warned the professional progressives that they were severing ties to residents, getting blamed for increasingly squalorific homeless, and a focus on poverty nonprofit would not win elections in an increasingly wealthy city.
Marcos: You all need to get ahead of the encampment thing because the normies are getting grossed out by public squalor
Progressives: Why do you hate poor people and want a crackdown?
Marcos: We can either do this the easy way or the hard way.
Progressives: Block
There is a progressive agenda that appeals across income levels. But the poverty progressives have decided that any voter who is of a demographic to which the progressives have developed a prejudiced against can’t be trusted and will never vote progressive.
That’s put progs out of contention, they realize this, and they’ve made a separate peace with the conservative Democrats, leaving most San Franciscans unrepresented politically, to keep their funding going and cosplay progressive electoralism.
I could not believe with the housing policy Scott Wiener is force feeding SF he is in essence running without opposition. Just another example of termed out Pols, not getting in the way of those seeking to stay in some form of political employment.
it really is preposterous to consider ML’s reporting on the arrest and abuse of dozens of children by SFPD while the SFPD ignored attacks on our elderly residents and burglarized businesses as a story that doesn’t matter.
just keep reporting on these unimportant stories…
Very true!!
I voted for Bernie before. But San Francisco progressives have turned me against the very concept of being “progressive.” Endlessly arguing about things that don’t matter — the hill bomb arrests come to mind, or Mission Local’s weird ongoing support for illegal street vendors — while refusing to take steps about things that do.
So I hope San Francisco is not “progressive” any more in the San Francisco sense of the world. We need to be smarter and more pragmatic than that. We need to be an “intelligent” city, not one that can’t even build a public toilet.
Shane —
I’m sorry this paper’s nonexistent support for illegal street vendors turned you against the notion of progressivism. You seem well-informed.
JE
“progressives, by and large, did not offer any policies or solutions”
This isn’t really true. Jackie Fielder did (finally) put up an issues page and it’s jam packed with ideas: declare a mental health emergency, define substance abuse as a public health crisis, build better mental health infrastructure, provide free narcan and fentanyl testing, expand mobile clinics, increase government-funded housing, increase supportive housing, deploy unarmed staff for nonviolent incidents, cut the police budget, reduce police overtime spending, hire more medics, increase community programs to prevent crime, invest in youth programs, give money to crime victims, focus on rehabilitation rather than incarceration, address open-air drug use through treatment centers. There are many more.
These are policies that are broadly supported by the major progressive stakeholders and routinely offered as solutions to the city’s problems. The real issue is that they are either 1) just more of the same policies and solutions that are already happening, or 2) not viewed as effective by the average voter.
To me, Jackie Fielder will always be a campaign bus parked in the bike lane.
As will London Breed when she was running for D5 and parked in the Valencia bike lane waddling into the Latino Democrat Club at 518 Valencia for an endorsement.
Cardinal —
Jackie Fielder was not on March’s ballot.
JE
Sure, but she will be soon, she is the frontrunner to represent the Mission, and her arguments are reflective of the arguments being made by progressive campaigns across the city.
What they need to focus on are quick fixes to address voters’ concerns. What can we do right now? What can we do in the next 3 months? Then the 6 months after that?
Cardinal – it’s not “what” Jackie Fielder stands for, which is what myself and countless progressives also believe it. It’s “how” to effectuate these ideas that is at stake. We’ve elected plenty of so called progressives who claim they stand for tenants rights and the protection of homeless, poor, and low-income folks but what have they legislated to help the cause? They keep talking about housing the homeless and keeping tenants in their homes but talk is cheap. Even if they allocate money in the budget to address these issues, the conservative mayors who have the purse string do NOT release the allocated funds to fix these problems. Why not push for reforming the City’s charter to divide the budget for these issues among the 11 districts equitably and have the district supervisors spend the funds as they see fit? That way, they can’t say, “I tried but the mayor’s office is not releasing the funds”.
So long as the CEO of this city is only focused on advancing the wishes of the moneyed class and centrist liberals, those onesie twosie progressives we elect, can’t deliver on any of their campaign promises unless they aim for a systemic change.
My point is that Fielder and progressives indeed focus on policies and offer solutions. You did so here, arguing for charter reform to help fix systemic budget inequalities. By all means, fight for that if you want it to happen! Just don’t act shocked that it’s not a particularly pressing or salient proposal in the current political climate.
Progressives need to meet voters where they are if they want to win. It’s not that complicated.
Fieldler’s agenda is constrained by the poverty nonprofits and she does not appear to be going out of her comfort zone to connect with voters by knocking on doors.
Progressives won in the 2000s by building broad coalitions that could withstand the assault of concentrated capital. Daly mobilized the City to beat Rob Black by 10 points in 2006 in the same election where Heather Hiles was shown the door.
Progressives began to lose when poverty nonprofit funding became the main agenda item, and residents could not be trusted to direct public dollars into the “correct” progressive private nonprofit corporate pockets so we were voted off of the island.
The only way to beat concentrated capital is with large numbers of organized residents, connecting with the voters one by one. There are no shortcuts.
Sorry, Hiles was ousted in 2004, not 2006.
> Jackie Fielder did (finally) put up an issues page and it’s jam packed with ideas: declare a mental health emergency
Third times the charm!
San Francisco, a couple of generations ago, was a unique metropolitan
enclave. Eastern tradition and Western vitality. A kindred bond existed
among government and commerce. Wells Fargo, for instance, funded
many cultural happenings. Standard Oil, Dean Whitter, et al, likewise.
Now, so called “Progressives”, who bastardized traditional liberalism,
have the zeitgeist known as WOKE. The population has decreased
by almost 10 %. The SFUSD, whose Board members were the poster
children for WOKEness, has seen the student population decline
below 49,000, which is a decline from the 1970 student population
of over 92,000, when the City had 720,000 population.
So, indeed, with the population decrease in total residences
and the alarming decrease in the SFUSD, San Franciscans,
at least those who have not fled or relocated, has a lot of soul
searching to do, sooner or later. Now is later