The Greenberg Brief: Trump Comes to San Francisco – the Fragile Have a Freak Out

I returned to San Francisco the night before Trump made a fundraising stop here, an event hosted by tech mogul David Sacks, his wife Jacqeline and others. Even before my plane touched down, while still mid-flight, I was receiving phone calls and texts from media with requests for quotes, my thoughts about the pending Trump event. Who will attend the $50,000 + per ticket gathering? Will Elon Musk be there? So much speculation and assumption!

Before I go further, many of you know how rare it is I comment on national issues, on the Presidency, foreign affairs and Congress. We in San Francisco are already overloaded with the quagmire of city hall politics and failings. So much garbage to sift through to attempt to make sense of it all. Clearly, San Francisco is not Trump territory, not even remotely close. Biden pulled nearly 87% of the vote here in 2020, and though the percentage voting for Trump will rise this November (if indeed Trump and Biden do face off at all), the city is unwaveringly, solidly Blue.

On the same night before the event, local news websites, television and print journalists began echoing similar headlines: that the tyrant Trump, now with a convicted felon title in hand, is coming to the city. How dare he? He must be stopped, he’s a menace and is unwelcome in San Francisco. They mocked and sought to discredit the hosts, those who will attend, and Mr. Trump himself.

Days prior, supporters of Trump were hastily planning a gathering in his support, a mini-rally if you will, at the northern tip of the City, on the Marina Green. Initially, as the supporters first began to gather on event day, one local news outlet reported just eight individuals assembled, as if that was all there would ever be. Shameful reporting by a local network.

This gathering (as well as a secondary rally up the block from the actual home where the fundraiser occurred) ballooned to nearly one hundred, as reports had later showed. Apparently, at least one neighbor near the pro-Trump gathering was unhappy and called police, reporting a “white supremacist” gathering. Social media comments throughout the remainder of the day echoed similar, claiming this was a show of hate, so “how can the police let this happen?”

Local business leaders are disgusted by President Biden, with the multiple crises of inflation, open borders, violence, uncertainty of future business growth, threats of new and higher taxes. All weigh heavy on Americans. There’s the Israel-Hamas war as well. And we cannot forget Biden’s jailing political opponents. But pay no mind to all that, Trump is here, and that’s the outrage.

And that’s the point of my opinion column today. San Francisco has nothing to worry about as far as influence from those pesky few local city Republicans. San Francisco is a safe space for anything and everything under the sun – every gender, race, vice and kink. So why are so many freaking out at the prospects of this one individual Orange Man coming for a mere few hours to a private gathering they won’t see nor hear?

Counter protesters, many from the neighborhood Trump will be visiting, took to social media and TV airwaves as well, showing their clinging to repeating “our community stands for freedom, we love America and Trump stands against all that. He’s not welcome here.” Others labeled Trump supporters “boot-lickers,” and that our democracy is somehow at stake. Funny how they turn the tables.

Biden promised unity. Remember that? But against a rising tide of criticism of San Francisco’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion policies, we residents actually experience not-so-subtle reminders that our city is quite the opposite, in many ways, of unifying – and instead we experience state-sponsored bias, exclusion, Black on Asian hate, and race-based awarding of contracts.

Local anti-Trumpers now demand the exclusion of a person (Trump) from our soil due to his political opinions. It’s where the fragile have a freak-out, with their own bigotry, xenophobia, hatred and demands for censorship and cancellation, physically seeking he be prohibited from our presence, these are varied forms together encompassing a form of fascism – and it’s on full display.

I was especially struck by this video, excerpt posted by a local news affiliate where a man from the neighborhood where Trump’s fundraiser was being held was interviewed in near panic mode. Judgmental, intolerant and exclusionary. This person’s fragility we have come to learn is more common in K-12 schools than grown adults such as this. But here we are.  A prime example how residents insist on taking a stand by seeking the walling off their block, their neighborhood, their demographic, to exclude discussion of or people with other viewpoints, actions bolstered by their extreme biased positions.

The fear is real, for them. It shakes them to the core, which justifies their concocting of myriad excuses for bias and discrimination. Their fear and bias becomes fuel for hatred, leading eventually to boycotts, vandalism, physical violence, college campuses overrun, ultimately reaching insane levels of antisemitism and taking the side of Hamas.  Biden has utterly failed as a unifier, Americans are more divided than ever.

Local media and news sites have also been critical of Trump’s visit, sending out feelers to discover who attended the pricey event. Twelve million dollars was the amount quoted as the night’s donation haul, yet how much contributed by whom remains a mystery. What’s important in my mind is that neither local residents nor local media have made any similar efforts to call out our local elected officials ie. Mayor Breed, Board of Supervisors Peskin, Preston, Chan, State Senator Scott Weiner, et al, for the incredibly damaging policies and failure to act to curb crime, drug dealing, violence, high taxes, business and retail collapse. Actual, real, local tragedies. Reaction to Trump’s visit is merely a distraction from the obvious truth: when convenient, locals will exploit and freak out, rally to criticize Orange Man Bad while running cover for the worst of the city’s leadership today, San Francisco’s city hall.