San Francisco’s dramatic decline makes a lot more sense after Monday night’s mayoral debate revealed what far-left incumbent London Breed thinks is the most important part of the job.
Candidates at the race’s second debate were each asked to come prepared with a question they could ask another one of the five competitors on stage. Breed pressed her question to former San Francisco supervisor and interim Mayor Mark Farrell, who held the office for six months in 2018. Of all the issues the incumbent mayor might have pressed Farrell on — drugs, crime, homelessness, cost of living — Breed asked Farrell if he could name three drag queens.
“You were at the debate last week and couldn’t name any drag queens on your own,” she said. “This is an opportunity to redeem yourself if you could name three LGBTQ advisers to your campaign and three drag queens in San Francisco.”
Farrell declined to “revise the drag queen question from last week,” but explained several members of his staff identified as LGBT. “I won’t dignify this question by actually naming exactly who they are.”
Farrell went on to explain that as a straight white male, he authored legislation while on the city’s board of supervisors to give tax benefits for gay couples before gay marriage was legally recognized.
“I look forward to the continued support from our queer community throughout the city of San Francisco,” he said.
San Francisco voters, meanwhile, overwhelmingly believe the city of nearly 900,000 is headed in the wrong direction, and residents are concerned about public safety and the local economy. According to a San Francisco Chamber of Commerce survey published in February, 61 percent of the 500 likely voters interviewed said they felt safe downtown during the day and just 34 percent said they felt safe enough to do so at night. Eighty-four percent said they support financial incentives to help small business either stay or move downtown as the Bay Area works to retain residents while Californians leave the rest of the state.
Last week, celebrity fitness trainer Jillian Michaels slammed California policymakers and the state’s leftward lurch as reason for her own decision to move from Los Angeles to Florida.
“I grew up here. I’m a woman. I’m a gay woman. My mom’s a Jew. My dad’s an Arab. I have a black kid. And believe it or not, my son is half Latin, even though he doesn’t look like it,” Michaels said on the “Sage Steele Podcast.” “I hold a million cards in your game of woke victimology poker. And when I leave California, maybe you’ve lost your f—ing mind. Just maybe! Like when you have me running from home, maybe it’s gone way too far.”
Michaels described new laws passed all over the state as “f—ing mind-boggling.”
“In relation to crime, protecting our kids — like, we’re decriminalizing everything, which, arguably, I would probably be okay with, but we’re not regulating any of it,” Michaels said. “So it’s like, okay, you’re gonna decriminalize sex work but only so women can legally loiter on the streets, like not to keep them safe, not to have them pay taxes, not to make them, you know, regularly check for STDs, not to take away the pimps out of the equation. Like if you made that argument to me, I’d be like, ‘Well, yes, of course.'”
