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I was thinking of 2018, but I don't remember Ellen Lee Zhou being Republican, only Richie Greenberg. Four unaffiliated-but-Democratic candidates ranked higher,

I was thinking of 2018, but I don't remember Ellen Lee Zhou being Republican, only Richie Greenberg. Four unaffiliated-but-Democratic candidates ranked higher, Ellen and Richie were next both with less than 5% of the vote. Mark Leno and Jane Kim were the two I recall banding together; they were #2 and #3 respectively after London. > But San Francisco has 316k registered Democrats, 137K registered with no party preference, 33K registered Republicans, and 15K registered with other parties. Expecting symmetry between the nationally major parties in San Francisco is silly. SF is extremely unbalanced. See: https://www.bestplaces.net/voting/city/california/san_francisco https://www.bestplaces.net/voting/city/california/san_franci.... Why is it silly to expect it to be less extreme?

sagarm 5y ago
It's up to Republicans to find a way to appeal to San Franciscans. The bottom line is that they're deeply out of step with the city on culture war issues they themselves whipped up. Forcing women to give birth to corpses, legalizing discrimination based on sexual orientation, opposing all pandemic mitigations, etc. Even if an individual politician doesn't support these positions,they define the brand.
- amitkgupta84 5y ago
  I think the problem is San Franciscans are out of touch with reality. The root problem is not the GOP brand; despite the flaws in the GOP brand that is not the bottom line.
  - zepto 5y ago
    Both can be true. Even if there are many San Franciscans who are out of touch with reality, the GOP is not providing a good option for those who aren’t.
    - amitkgupta84 5y ago
      Both problems may be present, but I think one of them is the bottom line/root cause. It’s a numbers game. I don’t think there are enough who are in touch with reality to influence election results.
      - zepto 5y ago
        Perhaps not in a single election, but over time they would.
        amitkgupta84 5y ago
        Yeah, it's a matter of whether you want to address problems proactively (nip them in the bud), or reactively after you have a crisis on your hands. If you live in reality, you can see problems and growing trends, and take action (or at least demand of politicians) to do something about it. People SF instead are so deeply mired in a cult-like ideology that they'd rather stick their head in the sand for a very long time denying there's a problem, in fact castigating anyone who points out there's a problem, and instead vote for people who will further an agenda while exacerbating the problem. Read some of the comments on Breed's Medium post: https://londonbreed.medium.com/a-safer-san-francisco-eb40d9d502e4 https://londonbreed.medium.com/a-safer-san-francisco-eb40d9d.... You can't help people who won't help themselves.
  - sagarm 5y ago
    Telling San Franciscans they're out of touch with reality probably won't convince them to vote for Republicans, but you do you.
    - BrazzVuvuzela 5y ago
      [flagged]
dragonwriter 5y ago
> Why is it silly to expect it to be less extreme? It's silly to expect that national distribution of political thought to be approximated in every geographic subdivision. It has never been even approximately, the case. Structurally, the US electoral system encourages coalition building and dividing so that factions that nationally are roughly balanced form the major national parties, but there is no reason that that's even a privileged frame to decide what is “balanced”.
- amitkgupta84 5y ago
  No one is saying every geographical subdivision needs to reflect exactly the aggregate distribution at the national level. I expect the split in individual cities to deviate from the national mean split. Based on my subjective experience living in SF, and based on the data, SF’s deviation is too extreme. Sure, we can regress to a form of solipsism and just say there’s no possible discussion to be had about whether SF is too extreme. Yes, God has not written down a cosmological constant of what threshold determines too extreme vs not too extreme. I think it’s pointless for us to gaslight ourselves into this belief. If we can’t say SF is too extreme, how can we say crime is too high, or persecution of LGBTQ is too high, or anything else? In the link I shared above, SF deviates as far left as the scale can go. If you think it is possible to have an inter-subjective conversation about whether SF is too extreme, but think SF isn’t, what would need to be true for you to declare SF past the threshold?
  - dragonwriter 5y ago
    > Based on my subjective experience living in SF, and based on the data, SF’s deviation is too extreme. What data? What data could even support the idea of a threshold of acceptable deviation from the national average distribution of political thought? Honestly, I think that while there is a problem, you have conceptualized it entirely incorrectly. The problem is not with the diversity of distribution of political thought, the problem is national political duopoly and the electoral systems that support it, among the many manifestations of which (and far from the most important) is an absence of partisan competition in jurisdictions whose political center isn't very close to the national political center. > If you think it is possible to have an inter-subjective conversation about whether SF is too extreme It's not (and I think obviously not), unless you specific for what. If you specify that, it's may be that such a discussion is possible (and even, though less likely, possible that it is meaningful and not a distraction from more important considerations for that purpose.) But I’m not optimistic.

sagarm 5y ago

It's up to Republicans to find a way to appeal to San Franciscans. The bottom line is that they're deeply out of step with the city on culture war issues they themselves whipped up. Forcing women to give birth to corpses, legalizing discrimination based on sexual orientation, opposing all pandemic mitigations, etc. Even if an individual politician doesn't support these positions,they define the brand.

amitkgupta84 5y ago
I think the problem is San Franciscans are out of touch with reality. The root problem is not the GOP brand; despite the flaws in the GOP brand that is not the bottom line.
- zepto 5y ago
  Both can be true. Even if there are many San Franciscans who are out of touch with reality, the GOP is not providing a good option for those who aren’t.
  - amitkgupta84 5y ago
    Both problems may be present, but I think one of them is the bottom line/root cause. It’s a numbers game. I don’t think there are enough who are in touch with reality to influence election results.
    - zepto 5y ago
      Perhaps not in a single election, but over time they would.
      - amitkgupta84 5y ago
        Yeah, it's a matter of whether you want to address problems proactively (nip them in the bud), or reactively after you have a crisis on your hands. If you live in reality, you can see problems and growing trends, and take action (or at least demand of politicians) to do something about it. People SF instead are so deeply mired in a cult-like ideology that they'd rather stick their head in the sand for a very long time denying there's a problem, in fact castigating anyone who points out there's a problem, and instead vote for people who will further an agenda while exacerbating the problem. Read some of the comments on Breed's Medium post: https://londonbreed.medium.com/a-safer-san-francisco-eb40d9d502e4 https://londonbreed.medium.com/a-safer-san-francisco-eb40d9d.... You can't help people who won't help themselves.
- sagarm 5y ago
  Telling San Franciscans they're out of touch with reality probably won't convince them to vote for Republicans, but you do you.
  - BrazzVuvuzela 5y ago
    [flagged]

dragonwriter 5y ago

> Why is it silly to expect it to be less extreme? It's silly to expect that national distribution of political thought to be approximated in every geographic subdivision. It has never been even approximately, the case. Structurally, the US electoral system encourages coalition building and dividing so that factions that nationally are roughly balanced form the major national parties, but there is no reason that that's even a privileged frame to decide what is “balanced”.

amitkgupta84 5y ago
No one is saying every geographical subdivision needs to reflect exactly the aggregate distribution at the national level. I expect the split in individual cities to deviate from the national mean split. Based on my subjective experience living in SF, and based on the data, SF’s deviation is too extreme. Sure, we can regress to a form of solipsism and just say there’s no possible discussion to be had about whether SF is too extreme. Yes, God has not written down a cosmological constant of what threshold determines too extreme vs not too extreme. I think it’s pointless for us to gaslight ourselves into this belief. If we can’t say SF is too extreme, how can we say crime is too high, or persecution of LGBTQ is too high, or anything else? In the link I shared above, SF deviates as far left as the scale can go. If you think it is possible to have an inter-subjective conversation about whether SF is too extreme, but think SF isn’t, what would need to be true for you to declare SF past the threshold?
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > Based on my subjective experience living in SF, and based on the data, SF’s deviation is too extreme. What data? What data could even support the idea of a threshold of acceptable deviation from the national average distribution of political thought? Honestly, I think that while there is a problem, you have conceptualized it entirely incorrectly. The problem is not with the diversity of distribution of political thought, the problem is national political duopoly and the electoral systems that support it, among the many manifestations of which (and far from the most important) is an absence of partisan competition in jurisdictions whose political center isn't very close to the national political center. > If you think it is possible to have an inter-subjective conversation about whether SF is too extreme It's not (and I think obviously not), unless you specific for what. If you specify that, it's may be that such a discussion is possible (and even, though less likely, possible that it is meaningful and not a distraction from more important considerations for that purpose.) But I’m not optimistic.