Brahmin Left Vs. Populist Right

[Sympthsical]

9. SF's interesting

Mayor Breed has been doing some backpedaling and making a lot of anti-crime sounds. She's been moderating, but that's still fairly progressive in this city.

However, what does really interest me is what's going on within the AAPI community in the city. They're just kind of tired of a lot. Tired of the crime. Tired of a school board that is worried more about activism than education (the school board recalls should've been a wake up call). Tired of billions going to combat homelessness, yet the money always mysteriously disappears into various connected organizations (and friends and relatives) and nothing much changes. They're getting ready to flex their political muscle, and that'll be some shit.

There's a lot of grumbling. Even in Oakland there's a sense that something's up, that the populace is getting close to done with the way things are being run.

You can get elected on ideology in many places, but you can't run a city on ideology for very long before things invariably go south. Eventually effective policy must reign. I think because we're so liberal in the Bay Area, we've let ideology run wild for a lot longer than many other places would've tolerated. But Covid started shifting things. It's in the air.

Ideologues don't sense it, because they never sense anything beyond their own beliefs. People online don't sense it, because they never have to live with it.

But as someone who does live here, something's up. I'll be interested to see how next year's mayoral election in S.F. goes. Thing is, I don't love any of the other candidates, so if Breed makes the right noises, should could very well remain. But her shift away from ideology is clear and notable.