When I moved to Adams Point, in 1987, the Reagan era was drawing to a close. America had moved further to the right than it had ever been in my lifetime, and Republicans were hungry for more. Their party had already been taken over by the Moral Majority, with its racism, homophobia and religious crankiness. Democrats were enfeebled; the best they could come up with in the 1988 Presidential election was poor Michael Dukakis.
Here in Oakland, Democrats had long ruled, but they were a weak, ineffective bunch. You have only to look at the Mayors of that era—Lionel Wilson, Elihu Harris—to see how inconsequential they were. Jerry Brown (1999-2007) was the highpoint, with his focus on downtown development, but he was followed by non-entities (Ron Dellums, Jean Quan, Libby Schaaf) who got nothing done. Whatever economic momentum Oakland enjoyed was due to the greater Bay Area’s burgeoning economy, which dragged Oakland upward along with it.
All the while, Oakland’s political left never stopped organizing. They managed to elect increasingly “progressive” City Council members. Oakland had become a destination for younger San Franciscans who could no longer afford to live there, and our population swelled with these idealistic, naïve voters, who responded to leftwing politicians the way Pavlov’s dogs reacted to bells. The culmination of this was Carroll Fife’s election to the City Council in 2020. In that year, we saw the takeover of Oakland politics by “progressives,” a movement that was cemented by the 2022 election that saw Sheng Thao as Mayor and Pamela Price as District Attorney elected by slim margins.
Between 1987 and today, we’ve seen both national parties—Democrats and Republicans—taken over by extremists. Republicans seized control of the red states and districts; Democrats found strongholds in the cities. Here in Oakland, we don’t have to worry about rightwing Republican religious nutjobs, thank goodness. But we have another pest we do have to worry about: Leftwing Democratic socialists. I’m talking about people like Carroll Fife, Cat Brooks, Nikki Bas and Sheng Thao. In the long run they won’t matter, any more than Ron Dellums or Jean Quan matter today. They will be consigned to the dustbin of History. But in the short run, which is where we live, they can do a lot of damage.
I loathe the extremists on both sides of the political spectrum. Our country, and our city, have only succeeded when we’ve worked together, with all sides compromising a little here, a little there, in order to do big things. Sadly, in Oakland, and in the Alameda County D.A.’s office, we have pigheaded extremists who do not want to compromise. They believe History will be kind to them; you have only to look at the things Pamela Price and Cat Brooks say to understand how shallow, how flawed and sterile their thinking is. It’s as if we’ve allowed four-year olds to run the government. I don’t like crime any more than you do, but a part of me hopes that it will spiral out of control; that may be the only stimulant strong enough to jolt the public into becoming truly woke, by which I mean conscious of the damage the current progressive regime is inflicting on us.
Steve Heimoff