I finished reading “Hella Town,” Mitchell Schwarzer’s book on the history of Oakland development. For those of us who have lived in Oakland a long time and are familiar with most of its roads and neighborhoods, it provides a fascinating glimpse into how we got our physical infrastructure.
It’s also a very sad book. Oakland had so much potential. For more than a century, it rivaled San Francisco, and for a while threatened to overtake it. With our natural harbor, the nation’s most extensive rail network, centralized freeway network, brilliant entrepreneurs and of course near-perfect weather, Oakland could have been one of the most wonderful cities in America. But the rise of “progressivism” killed off whatever potential Oakland had for greatness.
Why did progressivism develop so dangerously here? Why did it metastasize into the cancer it has become? I dealt with this briefly a few days ago, but given how urgent our problems are, it’s worth a deeper dive.
Schwarzer points out how the arrival of vast numbers of African-Americans during and after World War II changed the direction of Oakland politics, from rather conservative to decidedly liberal. Black people today remain one of the bastions of the Democratic Party, even though there’s chatter that some, especially men, are peeling away. (I don’t buy it, but we’ll see.) Today’s Democratic Party is much more “progressive” than it ever has been, which leads to the question, who moved the party to the left? Did Black people drive that movement, or did the party itself drag Black people along with it?
I don’t believe the majority of Black people are as progressive as is commonly thought. It’s true that that we’ve had mayors, such as Jean Quan, who were super-progressive, and City Council members, such as Carroll Fife, for whom the word “progressive” doesn’t even apply—they’re woke, is what they are, in the worst sense of that word. But Black people are no different from you or me in wanting economic well-being, physical security, good schools, a clean environment, pleasant neighborhoods, and honest politicians to represent them.
Unfortunately, the system we have presents Black voters, as well as the rest of us, with flawed candidates from which to choose. When the primaries are over, we’re usually left with the worst candidates; all the moderates have been weeded out by the system. As an example, take the last Mayoral election. Loren Taylor seemed ideal: thoughtful, sensitive, a centrist; while he wasn’t as tough on crime as I wished, he was moving in the right direction. His opponent, Sheng Thao, on the other hand was a mediocre hack. She actually had (and has) few ideas of her own; instead, she spews back the intellectual pablum that SEIU and radicals like Fife and Cat Brooks feed her. So why did Thao win (albeit by fewer than 700 votes)?
There may have been irregularities in the vote count. Ignacio De La Fuente in his pointless bid undoubtedly took votes away from Taylor. Had turnout been higher, Taylor could easily have won. And then there was ranked choice, which handed the win to Thao even though she actually got fewer votes than Taylor (a good reason to get rid of ranked choice). But all this begs the question: Thao did win. Why did so many people vote for her when she was such a flawed candidate?
Look at a map showing the precincts that Thao and Taylor won. Thao swept the Flatlands, while Taylor won the hills. The obvious conclusion is that wealthier, better-educated people voted for Taylor. As a political consultant who worked on the Thao campaign put it, Thao had a narrative that appealed to renters. “It’s that she came from poverty and really struggled and has gone through what a lot of folks are going through and she experienced homelessness, she experienced housing insecurity, she’s a renter.”
Well, if renters wanted someone to drive Oakland deeper and deeper into a hole, they got what they wanted in Thao. But what did they think they were going to get? Remember, the election happened in November, 2022, just a little more than a year ago. Crime was bad then, although not as bad as it is now. Why didn’t voters know that Thao had no intention of tackling crime? After all, she had already voted to defund the Oakland Police Department. A leopard can’t change its spots: why didn’t voters understand that putting Thao in charge of public safety was like making the fox mayor of the henhouse?
There can really be only one answer: the people who voted for Thao were wrong. They may have had idealistic motives, but they lacked critical thinking skills, which is a sine qua non for citizens of democracies. (To be honest, the Coalition for a Better Oakland knew exactly what Thao was and would do if elected, and we did our best to sound the alarm.) Well, we should be compassionate and forgive Thao’s supporters, for they knew not what they were doing. We have, also, to assume that today, fifteen months after the election, a sizable proportion of Thao voters realize the mistake they made and would not do so again. They might even sign the Thao recall petitions, which Seneca Scott tells me will hit the streets around March 1.
As for Black people who voted for Thao, they’ve been grievously misled by their alleged “leaders.” I sincerely hope they’re doing some serious soul searching. Is Thao seriously what they thought she was? She’s certainly given them nothing to be grateful for. On the contrary, she’s made life worse for them and their families. Maybe one bad election is the price we have to pay to wake people up to reality.
In a city as diverse and cantankerous as Oakland, it takes a lot to move public opinion. Oakland has been progressive for many decades; old habits die hard. But the situation has devolved to the point where we can either let our old habits die, or let our city die. It’s either-or; the choice is really up to the Flatlands voters who put Thao in. Hopefully, after all the deaths and agonizing crime wave, they realize that Oakland is a lot worse off than it was in November 2022, or has ever been. And Sheng Thao is a big reason why.
Steve Heimoff