It’s an election year in California, and conservative Democrats are working to distance themselves from progressive movements with a renewed vigor for tough-on-crime policies. As a result, they’re finding themselves with some far-right bedfellows.
In San Francisco, Mayor London Breed has issued yet another police occupation of the Tenderloin District. After a high-profile looting of high-end retail spaces in Union Square last November, the mayor flooded the space with officers for three weeks, to the tune of $2.4 million in police overtime expenses. As Chronicle columnist Justin Phillips noted, officials didn’t respond with anywhere near the same fire just days before, when shootings took place in the city’s poor neighborhoods.
Rather than fund statistically promising initiatives to curb gun violence–such as Oakland’s Operation Ceasefire–conservative Democrats facing reelection throughout the state are bending to the will of affluent donors and working to bolster police forces. This comes after two years of George Floyd demonstrations urging politicians to rethink public safety.
These same Democrats find themselves in concert with far-right organizations pushing a national initiative to recall progressive officials (such as San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin) who dare to rethink public safety in the most incarcerated nation on the planet.
The result of California Democrats siphoning funds from poor, predominantly Black and brown communities, then using that money to further militarize the police force and incarcerate more impoverished people, is simple:
The contradictions of capitalism drive deeper into California, and fascists throughout the state are emboldened to make increasingly audacious plays for power.
“Third Way” Republicans like the Lincoln Project’s Mike Madrid can write all the op-eds they want about the dangers of the fascist creep in California. But when they push to increase funding for a police force known widely to work alongside white supremacists, they are very much part of the problem.
Thanks for listening, defund the police and, as always:
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