The big news today obviously is the recall of those three School Board members in San Francisco, which I predicted the other day. By overwhelming majorities, San Franciscans voted to kick them out of office, thus demonstrating that they’ve had it with woke, obsessed politicians who care more about pushing their warped ideologies than about real families and kids.
The most offensive thing about opponents of the recall is how they continue to describe it as an effort by “billionaires,” presumably with ties to Trump, to overturn the will of the people. Nothing could be farther from the truth! It was the common-sense voters of San Francisco, with their decency and integrity, who threw the bums out. They were sick and tired of the Board’s shenanigans, which included keeping schools shut down, renaming schools, ending Lowell’s elite status, and Alison Collins’s racist tweets. In fact, you can see the three disgraced School Board members--Collins, Gabriela Lopez, and Faauuga Moliga-- as San Francisco’s political equivalent of our own Fife, Kaplan and Bas. (Incidentally, Kaplan just announced she’s running for Alameda County Supervisor, which presumably means she’ll be stepping down as an Oakland City Council member. We’ll be watching her replacement candidates closely; this is our opportunity to elect a moderate who represents all the people.)
This news will resonate across the country. The message is clear: Even liberal San Franciscans have their limits when it comes to so-called “progressivism.” (I say “so-called” because there’s nothing “progressive” about anything the School Board did. If anything, they acted in the fascist, tyrannical ways of a banana republic.) Incidentally, as if this message needs further emphasis, yesterday’s vote comes a day after a new Los Angeles Times poll showing that “[California] voters are growing more dissatisfied with the governor [Gavin Newsom]” as “concerns about rising crime and California’s seemingly intractable homelessness crisis emerged as the top political undercurrents driving voter dissatisfaction.”
This is grim news for the Governor, who is running for re-election this November. The poll, and yesterday’s election, show that the electorate is more conservative than many Democratic analysts had previously thought. History will show, I believe, that in 2021-2022, the far left lost much of its national support; the Defund the Police movement was the proximate cause that turned so many Americans off, but that dissatisfaction mounted in individual cities and locales, as far-left politicians did really stupid stuff that puzzled and annoyed people. Even liberal New Yorkers elected a former cop as Mayor, a man who promises to make the NYPD stronger.
This is a national movement. I don’t think it’s “pro-Republican” so much as it is anti-woke. The Democratic Party still has an excellent chance of persuading voters that it stands for them and their families—but the party is going to have to get tough with its own left-wing extremists, and banish them to the outer fringes. Let them wail, rant and complain all the want, but let’s clip their tail feathers and keep them neutered.
Steve Heimoff