San Francisco is known to most Americans as a reliably liberal city, but a Los Angeles Times editor believes there are signs the City by the Bay is leaning more toward the center as voters grow weary of rising crime rates and increasing drug use and remain reeling from COVID-era shutdowns.
LA Times Published the work Thursday's article began with the headline, “San Francisco has shifted to the center. Can progressivism still compete there?”, with The Times' reader engagement editor Defne Karabatour asking the question, “Has famously liberal San Francisco moved too far to the right to have a traditional progressive as mayor?”
The Los Angeles newspaper noted that the presidential election was coming up and that “anger over progressive policies was erupting in an unlikely place: the San Francisco mayoral election.”
“My colleague Hannah Wylie tracked the race this week and found that of the five candidates, only San Francisco City Council Speaker Aaron Peskin is running on a progressive platform — and he's losing,” Karabatour wrote, worrying further, “What does this mean? Is San Francisco no longer a stronghold of progressive politics? And what does progressivism even mean?”
According to the New York Times, Aaron Peskin, who is seen as the most progressive of the Democrats running for mayor, is seen as “underdog” compared to incumbent Democratic San Francisco Mayor London Breed, former interim Mayor Mark Farrell, Levi Strauss heir Daniel Lurie and San Francisco Board of Supervisors Asha Safai.
The LA Times article noted that San Francisco is “famously a bellwether of progressive political discourse,” but that in recent years it has “tipped toward the center.” Voters' approval of ballot measures to expand police surveillance powers and to require drug testing of county welfare recipients were cited as examples of the community moving away from the far left, both of which were pushed by current Mayor Breed.
Additionally, Karabatour said, “San Francisco's slow recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic has upended the city's culture and shaken voters' trust in their city leaders.”
The article also states that San Francisco's “emerging tech class is leading the way in shifting to the right.”
“In recent decades, it has been common for San Francisco to elect a centrist Democrat as mayor, along with more progressive members of the Board of Supervisors, as tech executives and wealthy business owners pour money into the campaigns of moderate candidates, including all incumbents except for Peskin,” Karabatour wrote.
Karabatul believes “a growing number of voters,” including powerful tech moguls, want tougher measures to combat the proliferation of tent sprawl and retail and property crime that are undermining their understanding of a safe, functioning city.
Karabatour then tried to explain what “progressive” actually means today.
“Peskin says he is running to continue to be a 'beacon' for artists, creatives, immigrants and LGBTQ+ leaders that have defined San Francisco for decades, to fight for working class people and rebuild San Francisco as an affordable city,” Karabatour wrote.
“He has promised to prioritize low-income housing and expand rent control, and he says he wants to create more treatment facilities for homeless people and expand shelter capacity,” Karabatour continued. “But he's also touted 'neighborhood preservation' and resisted efforts to change zoning rules in certain areas to allow for denser housing.”
The authors write that while some residents claim Peskin is “progressive” when it comes to housing issues, others believe “his views reflect an unrealistic, even conservative, approach to the city's housing crisis.”
“Whether Peskin is a quintessential progressive is up to interpretation, as is the man himself. He told The Times he is prepared to defy that label, supporting a controversial November ballot measure that would overturn a 2014 voter-approved law that turned nonviolent drug and theft felonies into misdemeanors,” Karabatour wrote.
“This shows that as much as candidates try to fit into or avoid neat boxes, very few of them fit into them,” she added. “Policies, not labels, will define the political landscape in San Francisco for the next few years.”
