The Greenberg Brief: Roads lead back to San Francisco

In the shadow of the assassination attempt on Donald Trump, once must not forget just how we got here. San Francisco plays, and has repeatedly played, an outsized role in the dissemination of anti-Republican, anti-Conservative values, and anti-Trump messaging, for years.

The trickle-down effect cannot be discounted. From Joe Biden down the line, heated rhetoric is directly linked to some of the worst offenders – which are elected San Franciscans: Kamala Harris, Nancy Pelosi, Scott Weiner, Gavin Newsom, Matt Haney, Chesa Boudin, and many other local and district-elected officials. The vocal attack on Trump, and by extension, the conservative voter base, has been constant since 2015’s presidential season.

It’s obvious the Democratic Party adopted the plan for high-temperature hate talk, enjoying much control of media national and local. Vilifiing and demonizing, their effort to crush dissent was, and still is, unmistakable. Democrats, anarchists, Marxists, socialists and far-Left activists are unrelenting.

Donald Trump’s life was nearly snuffed out live on national television. And though many political leaders across America were quick to condemn the heinous act amid a scramble urging to “tone down the temperature” on rhetoric, it’s not difficult to connect these same individuals to the problem. There’s no lack of social media posts attesting to their alluding to a battle cry for defeating, removing, preventing, stopping Trump by any means necessary.

Biden exclaimed, using his words, that “Trump’s a threat to the nation, literally a threat to everything America stands for,” and “It’s time to put Trump in the bullseye.”

Nancy Pelosi, in a strong position to quelle temperament, instead similarly squawked Trump “must be stopped, he cannot be president.” In today’s post-pandemic era, many impressionable and fragile people across the nation have been being coaxed to adopt extremist positions – many espousing violent rhetoric  – which sometimes leading to actual, physical harm to their intended target. A perfect example is the anti-Semitic and pro-terrorist movement seeking to erase Israel and vilify Jews.  Words, clearly, can be rallying to commit crimes, And they have. Give an emotionally fragile, easily manipulated person a cause, even if potentially destructive, and they’ll embrace it with often uncontrolled fervor.

This is precisely why elected officials have failed to lead by example, and so miserably. Or, they actually succeeded in their grotesque effort to exploit the radicals they preach to.

Current San Francisco Board of Supervisors president and concurrently a candidate for mayor Aaron Peskin failed to quelle a raucous anti-Semitic hearing in city hall chambers over which he presides, on a Gaza cease-fire resoltion- by not taking steps to stop harassment of a Jewish relative of a Israeli affected by the war, during a public comment session. And this resolution was authored by Peskin’s colleague on the Board, Dean Preston, himself one of the most radical socialist anarchists. Elected officials such as these are emboldened to enable and allow the spreading of inflammatory speech.

Biden and Pelosi both spewed hatred of Republicans, demonized conservatives, and activated the minds of the impressionable. Their calls to stop Trump is reprehensible. But it doesn’t stop there. Pelosi’s daughter Christine (rumored to be next in line for Nancy’s seat in Congress) previously praised a violent attack on Rand Paul.  Further emulating their words were disgraced and ousted former District Attorney Chesa Boudin, who is 2020 asserted “the rise of fascism was literally happening here, every day, and we must stop trump now.” Notice, Boudin doesn’t specify how to stop Trump, not at the ballot box. And that’s the danger.

In 2018, London Breed as candidate for San Francisco mayor, called Trump’s border wall “ill-conceived.” The same year, Matt Haney tweeted “we must do everything on our collective power to stop Trump,” further stating “Trump rallies are literally places that white supremacist terrorists go to become further radicalized.”

These officials have been competing in a contest of most inflammatory rhetoric, unabated and without repercussions.

Championing the recent attempt at Reparations in San Francisco, the Reverend Amos Brown (former member of the Board of Suprvisors as well), in 2018, was with bullhorn and banner in hand blasting  “Trump/Pense must go; No fascist USA; No Preaching White supremacy.”

Today, mere hours after the failed Trump assassination attempt, CA Representative Swalwell labels Trump “the lowest form of humanity”.

It’s been several election seasons since the initial election of Donald Trump in 2016, and every opportunity is taken by San Francsico candidates and incumbents to bash Trump and Republicans, even when Trump left in January of 2021. Following his departure from office, Democrats’ slogans simply evolved to “Trumpian”, mean to describe a concept, proposal or a candidate which they simply don’t like, insinuating Trump would have approved.

Further examples would fill up pages of this column. San Francsico’s political clubs and the subdivisions of the SF DCCC (the Democratic Party leadership committee) have routinely endorsed candidates who’ve repeated hate-memes, adopted stances which scapegoat and embrace bigotry. Will events of this weekend’s near-murder of a political opponent temper their public display of division?

When Joe Biden was candidate for the presidency in 2020, among the several things be promised, was to bring “unity” to the nation. We see how much of a failure this has been. And yet, even with Hamas, Israel, Trump’s almost-assassination, Soros-backed radical DAs, riots, lootings and defunded police departments, the “unity’ message is quite the farcical rally cry of Biden on down to the San Francico elected officials.

Local San Francisco Democratic party officials might pause attacks until things cool down, only to return to the level of heated rhetoric as before, or they can learn from the consequences of their acts and make meaningful, respectable change in messaging to voters. It’s an opportune time for Democratic Party in San Francisco and beyond to reflect on the role they’ve played in bringing the extreme rhetoric to a boiling point.