When Gavin Newsom was mayor of San Francisco, he famously married gay people. Pundits predicted it was tremendously risky to his political future (since everyone knew he wasn’t content with being just mayor). It may have helped him locally, but in terms of his statewide (or national) ambitions, many felt Newsom had just forfeited his political chances.
But Newsom chose idealism over pragmatism. He did something his heart told him was morally correct, not politically expedient. It’s one of the reasons I admire him.
Politicians always face these choices, especially in issues that touch on the public’s moral and social beliefs. Consider, for instance, this: what if an Oakland elected believes that race plays far too big a role in our city’s governance? (Some do, you know.) Dare he or she say so? The answer is no, because race is so explosive as an issue, and everybody is expected to be on the same side (against racism, and therefore in favor of making race, or “equity”, the centerpiece of everything). This is why you never hear Oakland electeds criticize the city’s obsession with race. They’d never be re-elected, and might even be recalled.
But it’s not unprecedented for a Democrat to criticize his own party’s position on social issues. When Bill Clinton was running for president, he had what is often called “a Sister Soljah moment,” described by Wikipedia as “a politician’s calculated public repudiation of an extremist person, statement, group, or position that is perceived to have some association with the politician's own party.” In repudiating Sister Soljah’s ludicrous statement that Black people should “have a week and kill White people,” Clinton distanced himself from the fringe of his own Democratic Party that was increasingly alienating voters, and he went on to win the nomination and Presidential election.
At the time, Clinton couldn’t have known beyond a reasonable doubt that he was helping himself. I’m sure he knew that his comment would turn off many Black voters and possibly even younger progressives. There may have been some political calculations behind Clinton’s move, but I think his denunciation of Sister Souljah was authentic, in that he felt what she said truly was dreadful and needed to be called out.
But, of course, we had a two-party system in 1992, and Clinton was angling for the independent, moderate vote. The problem in a one-party place like Oakland is that there’s no way for an ambitious politician to challenge the political consensus. If he tries, a hellstorm of fire descends upon his head. And who gets to define that consensus? The usual consortium of service employee unions, local nonprofits and the media, all of whom collude with those unions. What amounts to a party line is laid down, no less than in autocracies like Putin’s Russia, Xi’s China or the Ayatollah’s Iran, and woe betide the outsider who steps over the line. Angry mobs and flaming pitchforks! A government-controlled media paints him as evil or corrupt or hopelessly misguided or in the pay of rightwing billionaires, and the voters— confused as always—don’t know what to think. Elections therefore are won by the deepest pockets, who are precisely the union paymasters, and we end up with the kind of corrupt dysfunctional government that has run Oakland for the last forty years.
But wait, you ask, what about Truth? Shouldn’t politicians level with the voters? Yes, obviously; and this is exactly where the metaphysical battle between idealism and pragmatism occurs. Where does Truth reside on that continuum? In the case of Oakland, should the politician speak what is in his heart and mind, if he believes, after long thought, that racialized politics is destroying us? Or should he button up his lip, offend no one, and hope to coast through the next election, in the hope of getting small things done, but never changing the overall situation?
I think about these things. Yes, it’s easy for me to be the Monday morning quarterback. It’s a lot harder to be the actual quarterback, on the spot, in the arena, in the pocket, making instantaneous decisions. That’s the politician’s job, and I’m glad it’s not mine. My job is to try and get our politicians to be lofty and visionary, not just crassly considering the next election. We vote for these people, after all, because we believe in their ideals, and not just because they promise to fix a pothole or build a bike lane. There are worse things than losing an election. Sacrificing your moral compass in exchange for forty pieces of silver is one that, sadly, some of our most gifted young politicians do, because they get caught up in the addiction of re-election.
P.S. The scandal reported this morning concerning fired City Manager Jestin Jones is only the latest example of the incompetence and stupidity that characterize so many of Oakland’s “leaders.” Employees are selected, not for intelligence, but for skin color, for their relationship to the corrupt unions, and for cozy secret deals they strike with the phonies who hire them. Oakland government is a sleazebag of grift and we, the people who live here, tolerate it, never even recognizing that it degrades each of us. I’ve watched our electeds for decades get brought low by cooperating with this garbage instead of calling it out. And what does it get them? A lousy pension.
Steve Heimoff