Becoming San Francisco

Recalling what happened to a city I adored. And what it means for the country I love.

Atlanta, GA

October 13, 2024

Anyone who knows me will attest I loved San Francisco. I lived there for years and once considered it my adopted hometown. Prints of the City still hang on my walls.

I couldn’t imagine leaving, and regretted departing. Years later, seeing what its leaders have done to it, I regret what they did, and am relieved I left.

I loved the history of the City [as should be obvious from this, this, this, and this]. I still do. But I rarely thought to fear for its future. San Francisco had too many advantages for it to ever be destroyed.

Or so I believed.

I thought even catastrophic earthquakes couldn’t kill it. But tempestuous tectonics are no match for unscrupulous politicians.

Yet regardless their wackiness, San Francisco’s awful ideas always seemed contained. As we’ve learned the hard way, they weren’t.

They bred insidious rulers who ruined the City. And in the wake of their wreckage, they took the state with it. Now, the rest of the country risks going down too.

How did this happen?

Small and Narrow

Geographically, San Francisco is a small city. Politically, it’s a narrow one. And it’s only tightened over time.

For several years (for what it’s worth), Nancy Pelosi’s daughter was our upstairs neighbor. During that time, Joe Freitas was our landlord.

We hardly knew Pelosi fille. But Joe was pleasant, and we always liked him. In exchange for a slight decrease in rent, we agreed to help manage the building when he was away from the City.

His absence became more frequent. Given his history, I’m surprised he spent any time there at all.

Joe split time between homes in San Francisco, Chile, and France. He’d soon make Paris his permanent home. His French wife died there a decade after we moved out, and almost a year before he followed her to the grave.

But his promising political career perished three decades earlier, when for the deaths of mayor George Moscone and supervisor Harvey Milk, ex-supervisor Dan White was found guilty of voluntary manslaughter rather than first-degree murder.

At the time, Joe Freitas was District Attorney. Having been closely acquainted with the accused and both the deceased, he’d delegated the case to a veteran deputy. That decision backfired.

Riots erupted after the verdict was announced, and our future landlord never recovered. He later called it “the worst day of my life."

Dan White committed suicide five-years later, soon after release from state prison. Before inhaling carbon monoxide in his garage, he confessed that he’d planned to kill others besides Moscone and Milk… including Assemblyman Willie Brown.

Had he succeeded (and I’m obviously glad he didn’t), we might never have heard of Kamala Harris. Now almost everyone has, even if few know who this woman is.

Red Diaper Baby

Harris’s parents met as students at (where else?) Berkeley in (when else?) the 1960s. Both were active in the Afro-American Association, a far-Left “black power” group that became prominent on campus.

This was a Marxist organization that openly supported Fidel Castro and Che Guevara [NB: it was, and they did…no matter how many Kamala puff pieces now come out of the woodwork]. Bobby Seale and Huey Newton sprang from it to form the Black Panther Party, the Maoist prototype for today’s “Black Lives Matter”.

After her parents divorced, Kamala moved with her mother and sister to Montreal, where she attended high school. From there she went to Howard University, becoming an activist involved in left-wing causes.

After college Kamala returned to California, and found creative ways to climb the ladder. Her most promising rung entailed exchanging feminine “charms” for political patronage. And Willie Brown was more than willing to make the trade.

The Right Horse

Having been Assembly Speaker for many years, he was perhaps the most powerful politician in California.

Brown essentially ran the state, and ruled San Francisco. No one won office in that City without his approval. Kamala Harris had hitched her wagon to the right horse, and she’d ride him long enough to blaze her trail.

As he showcased his courtesan at high-end galas, Mayor Brown appointed her to some lucrative, low-commitment committees. He also gave her a new BMW, and helped her snag a post in the District Attorney’s office.

Already ambitious, Kamala positioned herself to aim higher. Terrence Hallinan was DA at the time, and soon sensed this chick wanted his job. He was right. If anything, he underestimated her eagerness.

Hallinan was no slouch. His was a big name in San Francisco politics. But he’d agreed to give an unaccomplished woman a shot.

Big mistake. In a harbinger of her later “nomination” to replace Joe Biden, Harris had no problem stabbing her boss in the back.

Impatient at not rising fast enough in Hallinan’s office, she took a role with the City Attorney. But she soon returned her sights to where they’d previously been set.

She decided to become District Attorney. Challenging Hallinan was a big risk. But she knew (intimately) just the man to help her mitigate it.

Pulling Strings and Peddling Influence

Like many places, San Francisco is a big city run by a small club. This tiny clique controls access, and a few families decide who gets it.

During the 1960s, the Pelosi-aligned Hallinan clan gave Willie Brown his start. Years later, their beneficiary’s mistress defeated their scion, and assumed the job Joe Freitas once held.

How was the mayor’s side-piece…a relative upstart and superficial lightweight…able to unseat such an imposing incumbent? The question answers itself.

While Kamala was no longer dating Willie Brown, her former lover pulled strings, peddled influence, extracted endorsements, and raised funds to help ensure she got the job. That she’d replace a man who was digging into the mayor’s corrupt schemes supplied extra incentive for Brown to make the switch.

But she partly owed this accomplishment to her own criminality. During the campaign Kamala committed numerous campaign finance violations, including breaching agreements signed under penalty of perjury. But her former paramour (who’d appointed most members of the “ethics” committee) got her off the hook.

A Hurricane Over Warm Water

Yet it was a school of other big fish that helped her swim further upstream. As noted here a couple months ago, Marxist agitator and Democratic power broker Steve Phillips was instrumental financing Kamala’s quest to be San Francisco District Attorney… as he would be for all her subsequent campaigns.

Phillips married into the wealthy Sandler family. With their money, he funded Kamala’s election as California Attorney General, and to the United States Senate.

Like a hurricane over warm water, Kamala Harris is good at gaining power. But wherever she goes, she leaves wreckage in her wake.

San Francisco was among the safest…and loveliest…cities in America when she became District Attorney. We lived there before her election, while she was still publicly dating the married mayor.

At that time, few districts weren’t walkable, regardless the hour. Now, almost none are at any time.

California suffered a similar descent during her stint as Attorney General. In both places, the tone she set still rings. In each, quality of life has continued to deteriorate. And the last four years, much of America has been out of tune.

Crack and Heroin

Not that she hasn’t had help. Her tenure as San Francisco DA coincided with that of Gavin Newsom as mayor. It was as if the City decided to OD on crack and heroin at the same time.

Newsom bubbled from the same cesspool in which Kamala Harris surfaced. Willie Brown was among his mentors (tho’ presumably in exchange for different favors), and several San Francisco families seeded Gavin Newsom’s ascent.

While I was there, he owned a couple cafés a few blocks from our Marina flat. They were good, and we went there regularly. His PlumpJack Group has since expanded to wineries in Napa and numerous restaurants around the state.

Bill Newsom was Gavin’s father and a lifelong friend of Gordon Getty, who co-founded PlumpJack with Gavin. Money from the Getty oil fortune greased Gavin’s early campaigns, as it helped fuel Kamala Harris’s rise.

Gavin Newsom was also funded by (among others) the Fishers and Pritzkers, and is well-connected with Nancy Pelosi. He had the right people in his pocket, who knew full well he’d remain in theirs.

California Democrats may be conniving and corrupt, but they’re usually disciplined. And very good at taking turns. They know their place within The Machine. We saw that this summer.

When Biden bombed his debate in June, it became obvious he had to go. The San Franciscans sprung into action, with Pelosi instrumental pushing the president out.

But despite being his VP, Kamala Harris was mentioned by few in the party as a potential replacement…tho’ Gavin Newsom regularly was.

Yet when asked about stepping in, the governor was quick to demur. Kamala Harris was next in line. Gavin Newsom knew better than to butt in…at least until there’s a wider opening.

Single-Party State

I moved to California just after the Loma Prieta earthquake. The state had a GOP governor, and was about to elect another.

Both senators were Republican. Many counties were solidly conservative, as was much of California’s representation in Congress. I was even invited on San Francisco public radio to give my opinions [that embarrassing audio is at the bottom of this essay].

This wasn’t that long ago, and shows how little time deterioration can take. San Francisco and California had everything, and seemed unsinkable.

But anything can drown when elected lifeguards keep pumping in water while tossing anvils as potential lifelines. After a couple decades being doused, California became a single-party state.

When that happens, internecine warfare becomes more important than well-being of pawns politicians ostensibly “serve.” Productive people soon flee, and the quality of leaders inevitably declines.

As District Attorney and Attorney General, Kamala Harris wantonly disregarded people’s rights, and was was repeatedly charged with prosecutorial misconduct. In San Francisco, her office was charged with withholding evidence that could benefit defendants.

She did the same at the state level, where detained inmates were unconstitutionally held as slave labor. She’s also commended censorship of speech. Whether Kamala Harris likes it or not, the US government has no jurisdiction over what anyone can say.

A Cold Gale

It’s easy to dismiss Kamala Harris as an incompetent dingbat who’s reached beyond her grasp. But that’s a mistake.

She may not comprehend economics, understand geopolitics, or know the Constitution. Of course she doesn’t. But she doesn’t care. Why should she? Most Americans don’t.

That isn’t what she’s there to do. Her ambition, as it’s always been, is to accrue power…and to serve benefactors who helped her get it. She may not be good at much. But we can’t deny she’s great at that.

For thirty years, she’s climbed the ranks without much effort. She rarely slips. And when she does…as in the 2020 Democratic primaries…she has plenty of people to pick her up.

The people advancing her know what they’re after. And they’ve repeatedly put her in places she can get it.

By doing so, they decimated San Francisco, converted California into what became of that City, and want to turn the rest of America into what they’ve done to California.

In a few weeks, regardless the tally, they’ll likely be on their way to their wish. I’m assuming Kamala Harris will be the next president, because that’s what they want.

When she is, those who fled San Francisco will find the City they left has followed them east.

And everyone else will feel the odd sensation of fog rolling in, on a cold gale coming out of the west.

JD