4 ms·

Isn’t this entirely the fault of the extremist politicians and the voters who put them in place? Mayor Breed has been in her position for a few years. Why speak

Isn’t this entirely the fault of the extremist politicians and the voters who put them in place? Mayor Breed has been in her position for a few years. Why speak up now, when all of this has been building up for years, and was so obvious and predictable? I know it is tough to risk reputation when the other side is framing everything in terms of race, justice, and other “risky” terms, but I feel the incumbent politicians (and extremist DA Chesa Boudin) should not get credit for reversing course now. Unfortunately the damage has been done. Restorative justice born in SF is now a widespread practice, particularly along the west coast. In many of these cities we see the same policies of treating crimes as non crimes, removing consequences, releasing criminals early, and other such practices that ultimately risk public safety. I bet other cities will see the same effects as well.

wahern 5y ago
Breed isn't extremist. In San Francisco politics, she's a tad right of center. Indeed, the Board of Supervisors "progressive" caucus replaced her as acting mayor in early 2018 with Mark Farrell in a failed effort to torpedo her campaign for the coming mayoral election. Here's the very left supervisor Hillary Ronan describing Breed in 2018: "The same rich white men that steered the policies that have created the mess we are in today are the same people who are firmly behind the candidacy of London Breed." (https://beyondchron.org/sfs-twisted-racial-politics/ https://beyondchron.org/sfs-twisted-racial-politics/) Now, the progressive left is an extremely powerful force in the city, though not quite a majority. No mayor, whatever their political views, could get anything done without understanding how to placate that group. That's how politics works--you have to compromise to get anything done. Unfortunately, like Republicans nationally, local progressives have learned how to abuse that dynamic by using obstructionism and extreme rhetoric to pull the center of debate in their preferred direction. And that's how the city ends up with some of its more extreme policies and general paralysis.
- nebula8804 5y ago
  How is Nancy Pelosi still in office if the city is so progressive? I was part of the Shahid Bhuttar campaign and was very disappointed that they chose to re-elect Pelosi after all the messes of the Trump years. I think the city is really controlled by the rich neoliberals and progressives are nothing but lip service. There is no other reason they would keep such a garbage candidate around.
  - ac29 5y ago
    Replacing incumbents is hard. Replacing ones with wide recognition is even harder (she's the speaker of the house). Replacing them with people with zero history in politics is going to be nearly impossible. Wikipedia doesn't even consider Buttar notable enough to have his own article, and he still managed to get a quarter of the vote in the last election, which should be seen a real accomplishment.
    - nebula8804 5y ago
      It gives an indication that the electorate (of which there should be ~700k people) does not care enough to even consider a different option or even bother to come out and vote.
dang 5y ago
It looks like your account is using HN primarily for political and ideological battle. Can you please not do that? It's not what this site is for, and it destroys what it is for. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html When an account crosses the 'primarily' line of doing this, that's the line at which we start banning, for reasons explained at these links: https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix=false&page=0&query=primarily%20test%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme... https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20bimodal%20accounts&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

wahern 5y ago

Breed isn't extremist. In San Francisco politics, she's a tad right of center. Indeed, the Board of Supervisors "progressive" caucus replaced her as acting mayor in early 2018 with Mark Farrell in a failed effort to torpedo her campaign for the coming mayoral election. Here's the very left supervisor Hillary Ronan describing Breed in 2018: "The same rich white men that steered the policies that have created the mess we are in today are the same people who are firmly behind the candidacy of London Breed." (https://beyondchron.org/sfs-twisted-racial-politics/ https://beyondchron.org/sfs-twisted-racial-politics/) Now, the progressive left is an extremely powerful force in the city, though not quite a majority. No mayor, whatever their political views, could get anything done without understanding how to placate that group. That's how politics works--you have to compromise to get anything done. Unfortunately, like Republicans nationally, local progressives have learned how to abuse that dynamic by using obstructionism and extreme rhetoric to pull the center of debate in their preferred direction. And that's how the city ends up with some of its more extreme policies and general paralysis.

nebula8804 5y ago
How is Nancy Pelosi still in office if the city is so progressive? I was part of the Shahid Bhuttar campaign and was very disappointed that they chose to re-elect Pelosi after all the messes of the Trump years. I think the city is really controlled by the rich neoliberals and progressives are nothing but lip service. There is no other reason they would keep such a garbage candidate around.
- ac29 5y ago
  Replacing incumbents is hard. Replacing ones with wide recognition is even harder (she's the speaker of the house). Replacing them with people with zero history in politics is going to be nearly impossible. Wikipedia doesn't even consider Buttar notable enough to have his own article, and he still managed to get a quarter of the vote in the last election, which should be seen a real accomplishment.
  - nebula8804 5y ago
    It gives an indication that the electorate (of which there should be ~700k people) does not care enough to even consider a different option or even bother to come out and vote.

dang 5y ago

It looks like your account is using HN primarily for political and ideological battle. Can you please not do that? It's not what this site is for, and it destroys what it is for. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html When an account crosses the 'primarily' line of doing this, that's the line at which we start banning, for reasons explained at these links: https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix=false&page=0&query=primarily%20test%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme... https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20bimodal%20accounts&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...