San Francisco – These are the days of searching for self -democrats, and it is a time of reckoning and self -criticism while trying to understand the reason for the loss of Congress and the White House and struggle to find their path from political antiseptic.
The examination extends to the point of San Francisco, a place famous for liberalism and elaboration, as the reflection of the inner appearance began even before Trump’s restoration of the White House.
In 2022, the voters made three UberMembers of the Board of Directors of Schools, who seemed more intense on symbolic gestures, such as re -naming public schools to erase the likes of Abraham Lincoln and Paul River, are to achieve students. A few months later, the provincial lawyer, Chisa Budin, was called in response to his perceived public safety bleeding.
In continuation of the voters, the voters were elected in November, a new and relatively new political coming, Daniel Lori, as a mayor and permeates the feelings by presenting it to the Simpatico Council in the Baroque City Hall in San Francisco.
In the same manner, the Democratic Party in the city approached, not exactly a pro -Maga choir, from the center, and chose a leader who sees Trump’s elections and improved standing in these blue strongholds as one of those moments in which the red lights and noisy warnings watered.
“One of the issues related to the Democratic Party at the present time is that many of the party’s policies, especially at the local level, have been largely and not related to the daily life of workers,” said local party leader Nancy Tong. . “I think we are now a violent reaction at the national level.”
San Francisco is not about to turn into a Kangasan’s sheet, or become Alabama with views of the Pacific Ocean. Trump received 6000 votes here in November more than four years ago and strengthened his support by 2.5 %. However, he lost to Kamala Harris, a former lawyer in the city, at about 65 percentage points.
Tong policy should also be placed in some perspective. It checks all democratic funds-supporting the choice, combating Trump, and hiking-laughing in many places called communism. But Tung is a medium according to the standards of San Francisco, and the political pendulum in the city, which has long been fluctuating between the left and the left, was clearly affected.
“It can call me what they want,” she said at lunch in the city’s mission area. “I think the government should work for people, and at the local level there are some basic things that should not be controversial, right? Every society deserves good public schools. They deserve safe streets, clean sidewalks. The government that works, this is not Very bureaucratic … this does not put special interests on ordinary people.
Tong, 50, is the daughter of the Taiwanese immigrants. She grew up in southern California, in Arcadia, before moving to the Gulf region, where most of her career spent a public prosecutor. Her work in the San Francisco Da office focuses on hate crimes.
Tong started her political activity recently, after Trump’s victory in 2016. On a trip to Washington, she was planning to celebrate the Hillary Clinton historical elections as the first president of America. Instead, she had an ugly cry at the National Photo Gallery, sitting in front of the introduction of women who served in the Supreme Court.
A few weeks later, Tong returned to the capital, on the eve of Trump’s first inauguration with Polhorn at hand. At home, her political participation was lost by participating with one of the countless democratic clubs in San Francisco. In the end, though, Tong grew, and felt marginalized not because she was a Asian woman or America, but because other Democrats will not accept her comparative moderation.
In 2019, she ran in vain to the province’s lawyer, and lost in front of Bodin. The following year, The Supervisors Council nominated Tong To the police committee because, in the climate, after the killing of George Floyd, he was seen as a supporter of the police.
Slowly, however, the political wind turned, as it does often. By 2022, it was the leadership of the San Francisco Democratic Party that looked out of the step. Among the other moves, the party opposed that the school council remembers, which was supported by 70 % of the voters, and the overthrow of Budin, who left his position easily. In 2024, Tong led a list of control of the party.
During lunch at a Pakistani Indian favorite restaurant, she described its goals from now to the end of its mandate in April 2028. Tong’s behavior was not, as one of the public prosecutors might expect huge. Weapons crossed. Curd eyebrow.
Tong pointed out that the most important thing is to stay away from abstraction and indulgence and address issues that touch the daily life of voters.
Tung was martyred by a decision that the local party has passed a few years ago opposition to the use of children’s work in the chocolate trade in Africa. Something terrible, yes. But why did you ask, was the Democrats in San Francisco devoting time to this? “It makes people think that you are far from touch,” Tong said. “Why is there something about children’s work in another country and not something about how we deal with children here?”
This may be reduced, but the point is taken well. If the last elections show anything, these principles of high thinking, such as defending democratic standards, are less important to many voters, for example, the cost of gasoline and grocery.
Tong said that the Democrats are advancing in a meal of rice and lentils, they need to “show people in reality our value, like what we do in society. … does it help to feed people? Do you help people’s clothes? Do you help in connecting people to services? Is it? Help people cut the red strip in the city hall?
Inevitably, the conversation turned into Trump and fears that the country is on its way to dictatorship.
Yes, Tong said, party leaders like her can speak and they must speak and help direct democratic anger. There is information and resources to share with individuals and groups, such as immigrants, who may target punitive policies. “Can we support the people who are affected? Yes, we can, Tong said.” Can we provide a forum for the people who want to speak? Yes, you can do this too. “
But the real resistance, as Tong said, must come from elected officials, members of Congress, from public lawyers and other Trump administration in court.
It did not say that, but the truth is that if the Democrats really hope to stop Trump’s excesses and his crime of federal programs, they will have to restore a degree of power in Washington.
There is a great deal of work to be done.