PJ Media writer Matt Margolis wrote recently about how residents of San Francisco are waking up to the fact their city has been hijacked by radical leftists and are rapidly losing patience.
That’s bad news for local politicians. Less patient voters usually mean angry voters. And angry voters are more inclined to change the status quo than not.
The rest of the nation stood by in shock as organized gangs of dozens of shoplifters stripped high-end retail stores over the Thanksgiving weekend in the city. In truth, it’s a problem that has plagued the city ever since the voters made shoplifting legal for amounts under $950 in 2019.
But the organized retail theft, the drug markets operating in full view of citizens and the police, the public defecation and urination, the homeless problem — all these and more have finally stirred city leaders to act. Mayor London Breed actually expressed anger at what the city has become.
Mayor London Breed said at a news conference attended by the police chief and other public safety personnel that she would introduce legislation to allow law enforcement real-time access to surveillance video in certain situations and to make it harder for people to sell stolen goods.
She also announced emergency intervention to improve safety in the Tenderloin, one of the poorest and most drug-infested neighborhoods in San Francisco, where parents have pleaded for protection from drug dealers and violent street behavior. The neighborhood contains several government buildings, including City Hall.
“What I’m proposing today, and what I will be proposing in the future will make a lot of people uncomfortable, and I don’t care,” said Breed. “We are past the point where what we see is even remotely acceptable.”
Got news for you, your honor. Many of your constituents passed that point years ago.
Related: Leftism Is Destroying San Francisco, AP Concedes
Breed also said it was time to start getting aggressive and “less tolerant of all the bull— that has destroyed our city.”
Why start now? How can sane, rational, civilized people put up with the unmitigated crap that residents have had to endure?
Criminal justice advocates in favor of less incarceration say the media has been drumming up fear in a city where overall crime rates have declined in recent years. Increased enforcement, they say, only ends up harming the most vulnerable, including Black and homeless residents, without improving public safety.
Similar debates are taking place across the country in liberal cities where the murder of George Floyd led to a surge of progressive activism that included calls to rethink the way cities deal with crime. Some cities where there were calls to defund the police, including Portland, Oregon, have moved in recent months to bolster police budgets.
The problem for the activists is that while some crime is decreasing, the kinds of crimes that are increasing are what urban crime experts say drastically affect the quality of life for city dwellers. Decriminalizing indecent exposure or public defecation may seem tolerant to some — but not if the homeless guy is exercising his newfound freedom on the walkway leading to your front door.
Similarly, inviting thieves to shoplift by promising not to prosecute them gives some people the idea that San Fransisco is an “open city” where anything goes as far as taking what doesn’t belong to you is concerned.
What is truly maddening about Breed’s desire to do something about the lawlessness is that she only decided to do something when the lawlessness threatened her political career. Residents should take that into account the next time they vote for mayor.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member