The Greenberg Brief: Progressive Politicians Exploit Again

Garry Tan is a petulant schmuck. The tech executive/rich guy and CEO of Y Combinator, Mr. Tan is disliked by a lot of people. A lot. Including me. He’s got a Napoleon complex, in full-on display, a short man with a penchant for bullying and gloating to make some sort of point. But Tan often makes sense and often makes reasonable critiques, via valid arguments about our city’s condition, which I agree with. A great percentage of San Franciscans agree with his him as well. He and several fellow tech bros launched a PAC a few years ago to support (and oppose) ballot measures and candidates for office, and to do voter outreach including direct mailers. It’s called GrowSF, and among other things, it’s behind the campaign to block the re-election of embattled SF Supervisor Dean Preston.

Last Saturday morning, Garry Tan tweeted (“X-d”) his lamenting of the failures of certain progressive/socialist members of the SF Board of Supervisors (our city council). Garry was apparently drunk. In his tweet, now widely condemned, he chose to quote a phrase from a Tupac rap-song; he wished those farthest Left supervisors to “die slow motherf&%ckers.” And almost immediately, all hell broke loose.

Shortly afterwards, Mr. Tan deleted that tweet, and he issued an apology. Predictably, those he offended weren’t accepting it. Instead they made a media spectacle of it. They even deliberated Garry’s tweet-rant at this past Tuesday’s weekly Board of Supervisors meeting, accusing Tan of incitement to violence. The board President wants legislation punishing such speech be drafted. Two board members filed a police report against Mr. Tan. Now, San Franciscans have lined up in support of Garry or condemning his gaffe.

I don’t think it was a gaffe.

Mr. Tan echoed what so many of us residents, business owners and tourists to The City think about daily: that elected officials in city hall are indeed incompetent and malicious, and those officials are squarely to blame for the doom-loop environment we see today. They are the root cause of the damage to our economy, and the cause of preponderance of crime, drug dealing and the obscene amount of taxpayers’ money wasted. But we halfway-intelligent people also do not take Garry’s words, nor Tupac’s rap song words wishing a slow death, literally.

Never let a crisis go unexploited; never let a serious crisis go to waste. Politicians memorize this mantra. It’s one of the hallmarks of the so-called Progressive playbook. And yes indeed, like clockwork, they milked Garry Tan’s slip-up. Predictably, San Francisco’s media ran this story (and many guest opinions) with a fervor.

Mayor London Breed freaked out at a billboard commissioned by a rival mayoral candidate in their 2019 race. Breed’s supporters held a press conference, huddled on the sidewalk, talking to media, asserting the billboard above them was racist and hateful. Ultimately the signage company took it down.  In 2022, a local artist created a campaign poster supporting the recall of disgraced DA Chesa Boudin. It was a political parody, inspired by a historical Chinese Mao Tse-tung propaganda image. His face was replaced with that of Boudin in a 1930’s-era attire. Connie Chan, local District 1 Supervisor, grabbed a few friends and allies to muster their collective fragility and condemned the commie-parody. They held a press conference. They demanded an apology. They demanded destruction of the poster.

Just this past December a local restauranteur and amateur rap artist wrote and recorded a song to video, trashing SF Mayor London Breed’s failures on crime and safety. Breed and her supporters including local Reverend Amos Brown condemned that song and threatened the artist and his restaurant.

This week, Garry Tan’s words, as well, caused a freakout.

The recurring theme, if you haven’t already deduced with these four examples, is the fear of repercussions for failed public policies. The failure of and by our elected and appointed city hall officials to just do their job and safeguard our city. The failures are taking its toll across San Francisco (and everywhere else, of course). And we are collectively emboldened to speak up, with our words.

We need to keep up the pressure. This year is especially crucial (and pivotal), as in about one month from now, California’s election primaries will be held, and much of the loony-toon Leftists vs. “moderate” Democrats control hangs in the balance. But we actually don’t want balance. We want the pendulum to come back to center from being stuck far left for years. We need a return to normalcy. We want streets safe again, to be able to walk in the park at night, and not have our cars, our shop windows and hearts broken.