Guest Post by Robert Bridge
Residents are fleeing the Democratic-controlled city, many of them heading for Republican lands Robert Bridge is an American writer and journalist. He is the author of ‘Midnight in the American Empire,’ How Corporations and Their Political Servants are Destroying the American Dream.
A homeless man sleeps on the sidewalk in San Francisco, California © JUSTIN SULLIVAN / GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA / GETTY IMAGES VIA AFP
Once the calling card of America’s most populous state, San Francisco today is showing the bruises of political mismanagement as residents flee for the emergency exits. Can anything save the famed city of seven hills?
In 1879, the American poet Ina Coolbrith attempted to capture the beauty and grandeur of the fabled US coastal city, which continues to serve as host for thousands of artists, writers and progressive thinkers, with her poem ‘To San Francisco’.
Fair on your hills, my City,
Fair as the Queen of old,
Supreme in her seven-hilled splendor
You, from your Gate of Gold,
Facing the orient sunburst,
Swathed in the sunset gleams,
Throned in an ultimate glory,
City of mists and of dreams!
Coolbrith would most likely be appalled by what has become of her beloved city today: intractable poverty, homelessness, drug abuse, and shuttered storefronts are just some of the problems now plaguing California’s once exquisite cultural gem.
A friend of mine, Mark, who is employed in San Francisco’s tech industry, described the situation he is confronted with on his daily commute to work by bicycle.
“In the past, I’d be able to make the ride into the city in about 20 minutes, but I’m constantly forced to change my route due to the sidewalks being taken over by makeshift shelters and drug addicts,” he said.
When I asked if he changes his route out of fear his answer surprised me.
“To be honest, the druggies are so out of their minds that they really only present a danger to themselves. I avoid the areas where they congregate because passing through these zombie wastelands is just too depressing.”
But there is more to San Fran’s current woes than just tent cities playing host to assorted fentanyl abusers and homeless people, two social ailments in the US that now seem to occur concomitantly. Many long-term locals are being forced to give up their beloved city due to high rental costs, runaway inflation, a downturn in the tech industry, and big box stores as well as small retailers who are being driven out of town by roaming mobs that act with impunity. It is getting so bad that San Francisco may actually go broke considering that almost a third of its lucrative commercial property is now standing empty.
The situation should give local leaders, not least of all California Governor Gavin Newsom, tremendous pause as it appears that even the Biden administration is slowly unfurling the white flag of defeat over the trashed landscape. Earlier this month, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) advised its hundreds of federal employees in San Francisco to work from home “for the foreseeable future” due to rampant crime and safety concerns.
“In light of the conditions at the Federal Building we recommend employees maximize the use of telework for the foreseeable future,” the memo warned.
What is doubly embarrassing for the Democratic Party, which largely controls San Francisco, as well as the majority of prime California voting estates, is that the office complex in question, until just recently, was known as the ‘Speaker Nancy Pelosi Federal Building.’ Inside the hollowed-out shell of this 18-story ‘green-building’ disaster is the office of former Speaker Pelosi, manned by five dutiful employees, who said they would hold down the fort and not shift to remote work, in what we can be sure was an absolutely personal decision on their part.
“SoMa [‘South of Market,’ where the federal building is located] is one of those places in the city where I have a hard time getting my employees to go to for jobs, because they just don’t feel safe going there,” Frank Ma, who works as a security advisor for the city, told the California Globe. “They can park their car in a secure lot and they still worry that it might get broken in to.”
While San Francisco’s liberal residents were once willing to blame the surge in crime on overzealous (white) police carrying out too many arrests, the situation is no longer so simple, especially as the evidence of rampant criminal activity is easily captured by CCTV cameras and citizens armed with smartphones.
So who’s to blame for San Francisco’s ongoing plight? One needn’t dabble in conspiracy theories to suggest that George Soros, the billionaire philanthropist and financier who has a soft spot in his 93-year-old heart for progressive politicians who promise to go easy on criminals, played a part.
Last year, The Law Enforcement Legal Defense Fund (LELDF) released a shocking report that showed there were 75 Soros-backed “social justice” prosecutors overseeing half of America’s 50 most populous cities. To put that figure another way, about 1 in 5 Americans are represented by a prosecutor who either received direct financial contributions from Soros or through his vast empire of philanthropic organizations, many of which are exceedingly hard to trace.
The uproar over the findings was enough to start a grassroots movement to recall these Soros-funded district attorneys, which led to a recall campaign against former San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin. His replacement was Brooke Jenkins, whose one-year stint in office has seen a closer alignment by the DA’s office and the local police force, which has resulted in a crackdown on drug dealers and other criminals.
“It is not progressive to allow our residents to die out on our streets,” Jenkins said, as she expressed her candid views on the Democratic Party’s reputation for leniency against the criminal-minded. “It does not further reform or the reform movement to allow repeat offenders to continuously offend without any consequence.”
Despite the much-needed changing of the guard, however, this has not translated into a dramatic difference in crime stats, nor the ghost-town appearance that California’s fourth-largest city has acquired of late. And it seems that the average resident is getting tired of waiting, as San Francisco ranks among the urban centers that are witnessing unprecedented declines. From 2020 to 2021, its population dropped to its lowest level since 2010, negating a decade worth of population growth in one fell swoop. Many other Democratic-controlled cities and states have witnessed a similar decline, notably New York, Washington DC, and Boston.
More worrisome, however, at least for the political prospects of the Democrats, is where the average disaffected San Franciscan is escaping to. If you guessed to Republican Country, you are right. Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties, where Republican governor and wannabe Trump terminator Ron DeSantis holds court, saw the biggest surge in the number of S.F. out-migrants, increasing by 120% and 107%, respectively, from the yearly averages over the previous five years.
Commenting on that statistic, my friend, a diehard liberal, could only respond with black humor: “The only thing that can save our city now is another earthquake,” referencing the 1906 disaster that left 80% of the city in smoldering ruins. Hopefully the situation won’t reach that point before the great city of San Francisco can see results of the new legal arrangement now taking root. This California gem deserves a second chance.
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Had to travel to Oakland for the first time about a month ago, spoke with two locals, they both told me they stopped taking their families and visitors to SF, both said parking a car there will have a high chance of getting broken in. Also the homeless and filth is very bad. Have to admit very surprised by their answers. They told me there are pockets of ‘red’ in a sea of ‘blue’. A third person told me when he gets enough money saved up, he’s moving his family east.
Sorry. What was the question again?
I think the correlation between a city of street shitters and a giant turd would be obvious.
A wise man would look at this and ask this question;
How is it that you cannot see that emptying the city was the purpose, not an unexpected outcome?
If what everyone says about the 2030 plan/smart cities/WEF is true, then how is this not obvious?
You come up with a cause that unleashes righteous anger in the population, you allow it to play out without trying to stop it, you give businesses a reason to abandon the city, you remove the resources that sustain people living in that city, you facilitate criminality and lawlessness in order to get rid of the remainder and drive down property values, then you sweep in, buy it all up at below market value with money you’ve reated out of thin air and then you establish your “smart cities” plan. The you pretend you’re going to crackdown on llawlessness and use it as an excuse to round up whoever you want for any reason you can come up with and sentence them to live there. All the budings and infrastructure are there and now you’ve got a huge open air prison.
Never listen too narratives, always pay attention to outcomes.
Maybe I’m just stupid, but isn’t the objective to get everyone INTO these shit holes and not out?
Maybe they just want us all dead. THAT would make more sense to me.
Did you even read his comment?
They want to get everyone who’s not a criminal drug addict OUT first, so they can swoop in and buy up the real estate on the cheap, then they will try to force everyone back IN under the “smart cities/15 minute cities” plan.
That’s just fucking retarded. Still living down to expectations I see.
You can’t buy on the cheap if you’re at the top of the market, can you?
You also can’t entice the rich and elite into a known toilet. You do know SF is built on a mountain of 19th century garbage, right? I’m saying there is a simpler explanation than greed.
You’ll argue that they’ll “build back better”. I say they have no such intention and even if they did it would STILL turn into a 3rd world shithole AGAIN…because that’s all Liberal idiots can do…wreck everything they put their hand to. What are they gonna do? Call the cops?!? Because that’s workin’ so well for them now, right?
I guess we’ll see.
Truly. And upon further thought I’m guessing the truth is slap in the middle of our respective opinions. One thing I DO know for a fact is this…neither of us will find out through first hand knowledge because neither of us is stupid enough to move there for ANY reason.
Just cracked muh first Heinie of the day, so I’m a let this percolate until tomorrow. Be well and enjoy your cool weather. It is sultry down south today!
Stacked concrete blocks with my youngest son long enough to throw in the towel for the day. Picked about two pounds of green beans, made a salad from some kale my friend dropped off and warmed up some leftover roast pork we made the other day for our lunch.
’round here, life is good.
I trust that whatever is going to come around is coming around whether we understand it or not. It’s just hard not to try and figure it out, especially since most of it is man-made. It’s a lot like a crossword puzzle, if someone made it, then you should be able to figure it out if you put your mind to it.
good song to tack onto your msg., HSF.
Hey, do you offer your home made kimchi for sale?
Their intention is for those people left there to die there. They don’t want anyone but the elites and a few slaves to serve them.
Thumbs up for originality. I don’t fully comprehend it, but I always think you may be onto something.
As do I, which is precisely why I’m scratching muh head this morning.
HSF,
I think you’re on to something. I’ll throw this in…
After “they” buy and create the 15 minute city at a very cheap price, SF then becomes a place that the rich will fight over to buy back into. These people will do this because they will expect to become rich through RE appreciation.
Glock- How many times have I posted that the usual suspects set up the destruction of properties with ghetto rats , then buy on the cheap? They doze down, rebuild and sell it back as expensive new construction while the banksters finance it for you. If they get it free through war, even better. This has been going on for hundreds of years.
I guess we don’t have to ask (((who))) runs San Fran, per usual it is the usual suspects. Real estate has always been the tribe’s number one money maker.
BL,
We must be in agreement.
You mean kind of like Maui?
And THEN turn it into a 15 minute city and refill it with drug addicts and street shitters? You actually believe that?
You think that they care about the dysfunctional, drug addited and poor?
They do care about their votes, though. Those 3 categories cover about 80% of their base.
They don’t have to worry about their votes– $20 to sign a pre-filled out absentee ballot per dreg or simply print fake ballots or rig the counting machines. They don’t give a chit about who these homeless and addled support, they’ll get their vote in some way.
They better. They’ll be living wherever the handouts issue from. That would be the place you’re describing. As more and more people become homeless, they’ll be overrun by the very problem they sought to “solve”. It is inevitable.
100% correct, HSF.
I cringe when people attribute ANYTHING currently happening, from the destruction of US cities to the ridiculous Ukulele war shenanigans, to “incompetence.”
These people have a plan and are following it. They may be a lot of things – evil, ugly, psychopathic, perverted – but one thing they aren’t is STUPID.
i generally concur with many of your observations Mr. Scrabble. but not this one. yours is the evil genius inference. if you bat 500 in the majors you’re the greatest ever.
i know these peepul, i used to live there. they are anything but geniuses. actually they are more like the set in high school who thought they were cool. to stay in with the cool crowd, you must conform … diversity is conformity, Dear George.
i was in high school when i first heard the snark, “ We get the government we deserve “.
here’s a snark i made up before i fled commiefornia
A Culture Too Stupid To Survive, Won’t
https://gaiusbaltar.substack.com/p/why-is-the-west-so-weak-and-russia
This should explain it in detail.
This is how soros made his billions. destroy and devalue lands and businesses, then buy them on the cheap and sell for top dollar afterwards. He just brought what he learned doing this in other countries and repatriated the process on usausa shores. Of course he enlists the help of the bought and paid for traitorous politicals.
Also made a handsome profit off of the Pound Sterling. Moneychangers always seem to get the best deals.
Want to guess whether he’s made similar bets against the dollar?
You have part of the picture, but not all. They do want to buy up these nice places they are destroying, but not for prisons for plebs, but for sanctuaries for the wealthy. The 15min cities will be set up in shithole places like Baltimore and Scranton.
California and Hawaii are for the wealthy. Places with nice climates and beautiful scenery are for the wealthy class, while the shitty places will be for the serfs who will under the yoke of UBI and will take the subsidized housing they are offered.
What you are witnessing, is the perfection of feudalism, by way of technology. We are looking at a future where the wealthy will not even occupy the same cities or States as the poor.
They’ll still be prisons.
The people running this show care about the 1% the same way you and I care about transsexuals and fentanyl addicts.
That is not accurate. The 1% in most cases are the employees or the agents of the .01%. They are the ones who do the day to day tasks that keep the .01% in power and safe to do what they do.
Precisely.
Ever hear the term bird in a gilded cage?
Tis easy to monkey wrench these sanctuaries for the elite.
On a side note,why is the pic of homeless person showing them what seems to be fenced in,waiting for the Soylent Scoop?
You are basically saying the same thing as Catherine Austin Fitts, who I already agreed with.
The destruction of the US is not an accident, or the result of bad judgement. It is a carefully thought out and executed plan. The so called progressives are traitors, and until the average person realizes that, we will continue to deteriorate as a country.
yep
San Francisco. The capitol of satanism. The Capitol of homosexuality. Postcard city for the drug culture and the counterculture generally. Gee, maybe being counter to culture has deleterious effects. Maybe the country’s culture – straight and Christian – had something going for it.
The parasite cannot build anything, other than systems for its own self-preservation and propagation. It destroys everything else. But it requires a strong host, into which it sneaks by covert and/or nefarious means, and slowly weakens it and takes it over, until it dies. And the funny part is the parasite dies, too.
Where’s Dirty Harry Callahan when you need him?
Gingrich is part of the problem, too:
Thanks, opposition party.
There’s two kinds of people in this country: Those who want to preserve it and build it up, and those who want to tear it down. There are rocket scientists and ass clowns in BOTH groups.
Do you REALLY think it wise to shit on an ass clown just because he’s on your side?
Maybe that’s WHY you’re fucking losing? You’d rather ridicule and dismiss instead of having a reasoned discussion. From that perspective, you look like a shitheel who wants to tear it all down. That makes you my enemy.
Langleyglow misses sarcasm.
…says the ass hat quoting a Commie rag like Taki’s.
Thanks for the CONfirmation, Langley.
“Poor little rich boy” Taki, is a commie. Gotcha.
Intelligent cultures understand the corrosive effects of depravity and put in place mechanisms to discourage it. San Francisco, on the other hand, has chosen the alternate path, where all kinds depravity are celebrated. The end of San Francisco began during the fabled “Summer of Love” in 1967.
What we need is another earthquake the evil idiot said. Be careful what you wish for. There are recent prophecies of just that happening in Steve Quayle’s site
Murphy’s law says everything east of the San Andreas fault will slide off in the Atlantic Ocean.
Now THAT is funny! And frankly I wouldn’t be that surprised. Maybe it’s just the day I’m having but that sounds like it makes a lot of sense!
For years now, I have been saying that the destruction of our cities and our nation is DELIBERATE!
The destruction of our country is not because our “leaders” are incompetent, naïve, stupid, senile, or inexperienced, the destruction of our Republic is being done consciously, knowingly, purposefully, and willfully.
Our “leaders” already KNOW what will happen to our nation (or to any nation), when they open borders, legalize drugs, legalize criminality, criminalize any action taken by police, dumb down the population, destroy the family, destroy Judeo-Christianity and all morality, and keep people occupied with meaningless and nonsensical pursuits.
Agenda 2030/Agenda 21 (the United Nations), the Council On Foreign Relations (CFR), the WEF, Young Global Leaders, the Trilateral Commission, the Bilderbergers, the Federal Reserve (NOT a Federal bank, but a privately owned bank that controls our money supply), the Rockefeller Foundation, the Clinton Global Initiative, etc… the list of governmental and non governmental groups, whose only goal is the complete and total surveillance of humanity, population reduction, and global governance abound.
Judeo-Christianity, huh? Pick one and choose wisely if you value your soul.
The argument against incompetence theory is that they never lose control of the reins. They always gain more power, institute more controls, promote themselves, continue to acrete greater wealth, build larger consortiums, and evade accountability.
Incompetence cannot do that.
Thus the Counter Hanlon’s Razor.
Never ascribe to incompetence what can be demonstrated to be malicious.
Well, “Father ‘nature'” flushed the toilet on SoCal but I think it’s going to take a double flush to catch the floaters. It missed it’s mark to clear the streets of SanFran though.
A massive earthquake would certainly cause the city to “Build Back Better” from the rubble, but given the federal and state response to the disaster in Hawaii, I wouldn’t bet on any competent federal or state assistance there either – Blue State or not. The debacle in Hawaii needs a thorough investigation, but who to do it? If the next (2024) election even occurs, EVERY incumbent needs to be thrown out of office – from dog-catcher to POTUS. (Of course, good-luck with that.) We are close to a Hunger Games Part Two movie moment…
Never been there, but one time had a desire to visit.
-Even have a long-time; no-see cousin living there.
But, you couldn’t pay me to go to San Fran in this present day clown world run amok.
Ditto, for visiting or relocating to:
-Chicago;
-Seattle or Portland;
-Los Angeles;
-Baltimore;
-NYC;
-Toronto;
-Philly;
See a pattern?
And brother, that’s saying something, by someone in close proximity to Detroit.
No proclamations here, of touting a rebuttal to its internationally known bad rap.
Done, trying to convince outsiders that it’s not as bad as reported or assumed.
But you can park a car in downtown for a few hours, without coming back to it after a dinner there,
or, a ballgame, a Pop / Rock concert, Orchestra Hall featuring the D.S.O., or a walk along
the riverfront on a sunny morning just across from Windsor,
and you won’t find a brick through the window.
~Unless you’re stupid enough to leave valuables in plain sight inside.
There’s the occasional juicehead or pothead or junkie wandering around,
and you might see one tapping a kidney by a building or a dumpster, but
there aren’t legions of homeless dropping deuces on the sidewalk in broad daylight.
And the Governor here, and whoever Alex Soros pays to get installed after Wretched Shitsmore
is gone makes the mitten an unviable destination for the future, unless you head to northern MI, where the Blues haven’t turned towns into shitholes. Yet.
Progressive Libs and their policies have consequences that are not helping.
R’s are spineless, but D’s are no better than pond scum.
Don’t give a shit about San Fran. I just want the people who created it to stay there and enjoy it.
Is Mr Soros a resident of San Francisco? I think not. So why is it legal for him to make monetary donations that affect the outcome of San Francisco elections?
White flag of defeat?!?………no,this is all by design!!! You’re giving incompetent cover to the evil and corrupt……one of them are you????!!!……