The absurdity of identity politics in San Francisco

A letter to the editor in today's Chronicle:

Mayoral coup d’etat

The Board of Supervisors just staged a coup d’etat. They deposed the legal, acting mayor (according to the charter) to install one of their own, for no good reason. The proper thing to do was to name London Breed to fill out Ed Lee’s days to the June election, which would have resulted in her resigning her board seat. Then voters in June weigh in to continue with Breed, or choose someone else. Instead, six people just flipped over the table! 

The charter needs to be amended to eliminate this political free-for-all from ever happening again. Breed was clearly handling the job. Her thanks: remove a woman, of color, to be replaced with a white male. Great move for a city that had a second massive women’s march days earlier. I guess I’ll just go visit my friends in “Indigenous People,” Ohio.

Ted Loewenberg

San Francisco

Rob's comment:

If I didn't know better, I would see Loewenberg's letter as satire. A very white male, in the most "progressive" district in San Francisco, passionately defends "a woman of color" in a muddled letter to the editor. 

Odd that Loewenberg raises the legal issue, even using the "coup d’etat" term, usually deployed to describe an illegal power play. Of course the supervisors' vote was entirely legal. I'd like to learn exactly what kind of charter amendment could prevent the board from making this vote. 

Three women supervisors, by the way, voted against Breed and for Mark Farrell.

Rejecting Breed as interim mayor was also "proper" and for a "good reason": a majority of the supervisors don't want London Breed to be elected Mayor of San Francisco in June. That's what the vote was about.

Breed has been an awful supervisor, which I've been writing about since she was elected in 2012 only because of the flawed Ranked Choice Voting system (See also London Breed: President of the Board of Supervisors).

Loewenberg supported Breed in 2012. Earlier that year, some of us were meeting in District 5 to discuss what could be done to oppose the dumb Masonic Avenue bike project that Breed supported. An apparently confused Ted showed up at the meeting wearing a London Breed t-shirt!

Mark Farrell also supports that misguided project, by the way (Big Lie on safety to justify screwing up Masonic).

Loewenberg and Supervisor Ronen can play the identity card all they want, but here's the reality of city politics: there are few significant policy differences between so-called moderates and so-called progressives in San Francisco (Staying the course with Breed and Conway).