That's a strawman. Competency and belief systems are orthogonal concepts. One can be very passionate about a cause and not posses the management skills to achie

That's a strawman. Competency and belief systems are orthogonal concepts. One can be very passionate about a cause and not posses the management skills to achieve a successful or desire outcome regarding that cause. Democratic Mayor Art Agnos developed a comprehensive program to deal with the homeless problem back in 1989/90 called "Project Shelter"[1] so yes he very much believed in helping the homeless. Unfortunately the Loma Prieta earthquake strikes. He's defeated in the following Mayoral election by another Democrat, Frank Jordan, who shelved the Agnos plan and created his own task force to try to address the homeless problem. So clearly he believed in helping the homeless as well. However at that same time you had NIMBYs who were upset about the encampment across from City Hall and it was cleared. And you also have have a Republican Governor, Pete Wilson cutting welfare grants. And it goes way beyond this - the rapid decline in federal public housing development began under Nixon in the early 1970s[2]. The underfunding of the Napa State Mental Hospital was a state issue. So yes there have been no great successes racked up by Democratic mayors but the problem far more complex and nuanced to lay at the feet of one particular political party and at only the city level. And again my original comment was not about left vs right, it was about the OPs assertion that a lack of interest in social welfare programs was a "general American thing." [1] https://www.nytimes.com/1990/07/19/us/san-francisco-treating-ex-squatters-as-guests.html https://www.nytimes.com/1990/07/19/us/san-francisco-treating... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_housing_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_housing_in_the_United_S...