For some years, San Francisco has been trending away from the extremity of wokeism and toward a more moderate, sane policy regarding policing and homeless encampments.
With the election of London Breed, a moderate centrist, and the recall of the woke Chesa Boudin, San Francisco has pursued policies that we, at the Coalition for a Better Oakland, broadly support. The latest triumph for Breed and her city is the legal decision—apparently a final one—to clear homeless encampments, using force if necessary, if the individual campers refuse to accept public shelter.
This is a fine decision. It represents a victory over the Coalition on Homelessness, a bizarre, radical cult of encampment supporters, which for years has stymied the city’s efforts to clear the streets and make them safe and pleasant for residents.
Now that the city has permission to clear encampments, we’ll see if they do so. London Breed seems intent on cleaning up the city. But can you imagine a similar situation here in Oakland? Our government, in total contrast to San Francisco’s, is composed of leftist dead-enders whose empirical sense of reality has been eroded by their corrosive ideology. They view everything through the distorting lens of race; they are, in fact, the true racists. The rest of us are content to ignore race and get on with the business of living. Not so Fife, Thao, Kaplan, Bas, Kalb and all the other wokes, who are obsessed with race. And when I say “obsessed” I mean in the psychologically pathological sense. They need a 12-step program to de-racialize their minds.
It’s impossible to even conceive of Thao leading an effort to clean up Oakland. She could, if she wanted to: the same laws that apply to San Francisco apply to Oakland. Thao could easily order the clearing of every tent in every park in the city. She could easily send her police to clear and sanitize every freeway overpass now choked with tents and garbage. She could send teams of cops to order the removal of every tent blocking every sidewalk. Of course, this could only be done if the campers declined shelter. If campers accepted shelter, we’d be done with them. If they didn’t, Thao could have them arrested. Either way, she could clean up Oakland if she were a serious mayor. (By the way, the dubious “law” that prevents cities from clearing encampments has now been appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court by Gov. Newsom. I have no doubt SCOTUS will strike it down. Thank you, Governor!)
But Thao isn’t serious. The prom queen is in way over her head. It’s not just her lackadaisical attitude toward encampments. Thao has no plan at all for tackling our crime epidemic. She seems to spend her days going to various ethnic festivals, hanging out with Pamela Price, and posing pretty for photographers, after last-minute touchups by her stylist. Twitter is on fire with complaints about her; #RecallThao is increasingly popular.
Why is San Francisco so much more advanced than Oakland? One reason has got to be the high percentage of voters-of-color here. Sadly, people of color have proven to be easily fooled by ambitious politicians who don’t hesitate to lie. And young voters, too, are susceptible to manipulation by unscrupulous politicians. Young voters are idealistic, bless then, but not realistic: they think it’s possible for Oakland to house all the homeless because that’s “the right thing to do.” They think that the homeless should be given healthcare. They never stop to ask where the money—fantastic amounts of it--would come from. (“Oh, just tax the rich. And businesses.”) Nor do they ask themselves about the moral implications of subsidizing a permanent underclass in a welfare state that rewards indolence. For all that I love Oakland—and I do—I wish we had a mayor like London Breed and a D.A. like Brooke Jenkins.
Maybe, soon, we will.
Steve Heimoff