4 ms·

San Francisco is extremely progressive in some ways, and extremely conservative in others. There seems to be a general assumption that because SF is very visibl

San Francisco is extremely progressive in some ways, and extremely conservative in others. There seems to be a general assumption that because SF is very visibly progressive on some high-profile social topics that it must be progressive on all topics, but it's not. More generally, the idea that Democrats cannot be conservative is incorrect, and not just in the leftist "Democrats are right wing" sort of sense. In an effective one-party state you see a lot of people who are ideologically much more aligned with the Republican party running as Democrats, and vice-versa in Republican-dominated states.

throwaway894345 4y ago
Respectfully, this seems like it’s veering toward a “no true Scotsman” argument.
- kelnos 4y ago
  I don't think that's the case. The parent's opinion lines up pretty well with what I observe in San Francisco. Our mayor calls herself a Democrat, but most of the policies she pushes feel pretty conservative to me. The Board of Supervisors (our "city council", which has quite a lot of power) is all over the place, but definitely has what I'd consider a conservative element... but of course they still call themselves "Democrats", "progressive", "liberal", whatever. I can't speak to the opposite phenomenon, where places controlled by Republicans tend to have quite a few "liberal" Republicans, but it seems plausible that would be the case as well.
  - throwaway894345 4y ago
    It’s possible that you just have an extremely left-wing view of what it means to be progressive, such that people who identify a s progressive to you and who would be called progressive by most Americans appear conservative to you. This is definitely the case with Republicans who call an insufficiently conservative Republican a “RINO” or “Republican In Name Only” (although the Trump wing which isn’t conservative has colored it to refer to Republicans which aren’t sufficiently extremist). It’s also possible that SF tried more progressive policies, but found they didn’t work in certain cases (for example, the recent DA recall). Note that I’m not trying to litigate whether conservative policies would work better than progressive policies or any such thing.

throwaway894345 4y ago

Respectfully, this seems like it’s veering toward a “no true Scotsman” argument.

kelnos 4y ago
I don't think that's the case. The parent's opinion lines up pretty well with what I observe in San Francisco. Our mayor calls herself a Democrat, but most of the policies she pushes feel pretty conservative to me. The Board of Supervisors (our "city council", which has quite a lot of power) is all over the place, but definitely has what I'd consider a conservative element... but of course they still call themselves "Democrats", "progressive", "liberal", whatever. I can't speak to the opposite phenomenon, where places controlled by Republicans tend to have quite a few "liberal" Republicans, but it seems plausible that would be the case as well.
- throwaway894345 4y ago
  It’s possible that you just have an extremely left-wing view of what it means to be progressive, such that people who identify a s progressive to you and who would be called progressive by most Americans appear conservative to you. This is definitely the case with Republicans who call an insufficiently conservative Republican a “RINO” or “Republican In Name Only” (although the Trump wing which isn’t conservative has colored it to refer to Republicans which aren’t sufficiently extremist). It’s also possible that SF tried more progressive policies, but found they didn’t work in certain cases (for example, the recent DA recall). Note that I’m not trying to litigate whether conservative policies would work better than progressive policies or any such thing.