A new network of public pressure groups is ascendant in San Francisco, what are they pushing? “A Republican agenda,' summed up one observer.
Posters on Mission Street from TogetherSF Action, reading"Smart city dumb politics" and"It's OK to want shit to work," on Wednesday, Feb. 7, 2024. Photo by Joe Rivano Barros.
“What’s new is the scale, the tone, the focus on raw politics and the, for lack of a better word, brazenness of the behavior,” he said. “You have many of the richest people in the world behaving like aggrieved and powerless activists … When the powerful begin to behave as if they’re powerless, it can heat up the conversation awfully fast.”
With one crucial difference: The spending on one side in San Francisco far eclipses the spending on the other.also backed by deep-pocketed donors and Neighbors for a Better San FranciscoThe groups in the network are organized like nested Russian dolls: Wealthy donors — often in tech — give to 501 “social welfare” organizations, which give to PACs, which give to political candidates and ballot measures.
Through the different entities, they then print up voter guides, send campaign flyers, take out billboard ads and mail checks to candidates, measures, slate mailers, other nonprofits — or each other. Since the 2022 election cycle, the biggest advocacy groups have spent upwards of $10 million on various projects attacking what they see as progressive overreach in San Francisco.
“There were 501s and political committees set up to try to capture Gavin when he was mayor — he called it the ‘silent majority’ — and literally every five years there’s new groups,” said Sutton. Another longtime moderate consultant, who is sympathetic to the groups, agreed, saying San Francisco’s special interests were historically more “downtown-centric” and focused on “taxes and the overall business environment.”
TogetherSF, Grow SF and Neighbors for a Better San Francisco did not respond to requests for comment or declined to comment. “The problem in San Francisco with politics is different from the problem you have anywhere else in the country,” said Ross. “Most places, there’s not enough money to run effective campaigns. San Francisco is the opposite: There’s too much money.”Joe was born in Sweden, where half of his family received asylum after fleeing Pinochet, and spent his early childhood in Chile; he moved to Oakland when he was eight.
Don’t think for a second they have anyone else’s best interest at heart but their own. They will take your vote, but not give you anything in return. The only thing that these three formations, conservative machine Democrats, professional progressives and alt right tech elites share in common is an utter contempt for San Francisco residents and participatory democracy.
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