I'm sure it's a solvable problem for Democrats, but first they have to resolve to address it, rather than just wishing that voters didn't feel this way.
Both; suburban and rural homelessness is less visible, but also less common, in part because urban jurisdictions are inherently more amenable to service delivery (whether by the government or by charities) to the homeless, and homeless people are not nailed down in one place.
> Are they shifting their homeless burden to places like cities with more programs and support for homelessness?
Some of it is “shifting”, some of which is just inherent features of the places conducive to Republican political success in the first place.
> Because I've never actually heard a Republican plan for dealing with homelessness that doesn't involve criminalizing it and sweeping it under the rug where no one can see it.
To be fair, Democratic-run jurisdictions do this a lot, too (there are some exceptions, but they are exceptions even among urban Democratic jurisdictions.) The difference is that heterogenous urban jurisdictions can sweep the homeless out of the places where the people who matter can see them without sweeping them out of the jurisdiction or the range of local government or charity service delivery.
Small town police departments are notorious for running "undesirables" out of their town...redlining and zoning keeping certain people from buying real estate...things like that.
Not really. Donald Trump is, for quite a long time, much more of a personal brand marketer than a real estate developer (though “real estate developer” is part of the personal brand he markets.)
No, they don't. Whether they are actively fighting it, meekly bending to it, or crassly exploiting it for intra-party power games (and there are clear examples of all of those among nationally prominent Democrats), national Democrats understand very much how those things, and even more the right-wing media narratives around those things, drive opinion.
The internal dominance of the center-right faction of the party for the last 30 years has been built almost entirely on exploitation of this.
But if you show the video of someone robbing a convenience store (in oakland! another city entirely!) enough times on loop, you can convince enough voters that Something Must Be Done.
Crime is visibly exploding, the police are only recording the most heinous/obvious incidents, and then we're told that crime is down.
When the paperwork is filled in, we have reported crime (because the police take a police report) and we have convictions (how many people were convicted is a matter of public record since courts are open). What we don’t have is a paper trail for all the crime that isn’t reported or when the paperwork isn’t filled out.
What can a third party bring to the table that the paper records cannot?
To give you an analogy that might help, high covid infection numbers are bad always, but low covid numbers can be either good (if the covid numbers are truly down) or bad (if the real numbers are just not being tracked properly/swept under the rug, and people are just not getting tested enough).
But to give a direct answer to your original question, yes, low crime numbers are bad when they are the result of prosecution and enforcement not doing their job, as opposed to being the result of crime actually going down.
The answer is it depends on the context.
I can name roughly 10 people in my life who said they didn’t bother. Another 5 who went to police only to be told by them that there was nothing that would happen and that they shouldn’t waste time on finishing the paperwork. To complete the data, I know only 1 person who fully reported a crime, and it was an extreme violent crime.
The second hand testimony from residents and business owners saying the police are telling them not to expect them to be able to prosecute anyone.
But there's also the evidence of what Boudin openly said and advocated. Sometimes the message and the stated intent are worth replacing regardless of how effective they've been at their goals.
Cites statistics.
I think the one thing with the data is how much crime it takes to make a neighborhood feel unsafe. And my hypothesis is that the threshold is very, very low. Like double digits low. It doesn’t take much to rattle the psyche of a community.
But sure. Crime falls by 40% during a DA’s tenure (hypothetical example) so all is well right? But what is the absolute number and what does that absolute number translate to in the real world?
Given the degree to which opposition to Boudin comes from other progressive Democrats, including politicians, in SF, the article we are discussing about a “message” to “Democrats and the nation” is an example of that.
There you go the clear graph: https://www.economist.com/united-states/2022/06/05/why-san-f...
If anything, the right has largely shifted to the center over the course of my life. For example: they, along with Democrats for quite a while, were opposed to gay marriage. While I'm sure there's still a small contingent that would roll that back if they could it's very much not an issue for the party anymore.
The left, or at least a good portion of the democratic party? They've gone off the rails in the past 10+ years. Everything is now about race or sex. Everything. It's 100% OK to discriminate against white men. We should have open borders. Abortion should be legal up until birth. Prepubescent children should be allowed to go on hormone blockers and get surgery if they think they're trans. Transwomen should be able to compete against women in sports. The Kavanaugh confirmation was a disgusting point in US history. Let's ban guns. The list could go on.
From what I see, Republicans largely want things to stay the same or be rolled back by a decade or so.
The Republican party is vastly more anti-abortion and anti-gun control now than in the past. It is mainstream in the GOP to talk about punishing women who get abortions. And in New York, a Republican congressman who said he'd vote for gun control in the wake of a mass shooting in Buffalo, New York, in addition to the one in Texas faced so much backlash from his party he had to quit politics.
I think what you've fallen for is a rhetorical trick Republican politicians use. They say, "Of course Roe vs Wade is settled law." And then they tirelessly work to undermine it, which is exactly what's happening right now.
> From what I see, Republicans largely want things to stay the same or be rolled back by a decade or so.
If what you said is true, the GOP would support the right to abortion and an assault weapons ban. Instead they are rolling back abortion rights by 50 years (Roe was decided in 1973) and expanding the "right" to purchase high powered firearms without background checks and carry them, concealed, without any training, to a degree literally never seen in US history.
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/facing-backlash-republican-...
https://www.npr.org/2022/05/03/1096108319/roe-v-wade-alito-c...
https://twitter.com/gelliottmorris/status/151975976283299430...
It showed Obama standing opposite a Republican, and the Republican saying:
"If you take a step towards me, I'll take a step towards you."
So Obama takes a step towards the Republican, who doesn't move and just says again:
"If you take a step towards me, I'll take a step towards you."
Its right which shifted so far right that it might seem the left shifted away.
A lot of things coming from the republican party, of bring tolerated by the republican party on recent years are uncanily similar to how Hitler proceeded before he started mass murdering (like in the rethoric of speach and willingness to commit violence etc.)
Your claim that the left has gone "so far left that everyone looks like they are far right comparatively" is detached from reality.
When people say stuff like this I wonder what planet they're from.
It's not like the US even has a viable Socialist party, never mind a Marxist or Communist one.
I've never heard a Democrat call for the abolishment of private property or a revolution of the proletariat. In America, dreams of that sort died with end of the 60's and 70s with the destruction of the Weather Underground, the assassinations of MLK, Malcolm X, and RFK, the neutering of unions and the labor movement. The rise to power of Reaganism in the 80s and the switch of former leftists to Neo Cons sealed the left's fate.
Now pretty much everyone in America in any position of power (Republican or Democrat) is pretty solidly capitalist, which isn't exactly a far left position. Most of the leaders are also pretty pro-war and happy to support the military-industrial complex, which are not traditionally leftist positions in the US.
Republicans, on the other hand, have called for revolution, and some have even acted on it. The major terrorist attacks on America since Timothy McVeigh have come from the right (which includes not only "patriot" and "militia" groups and the "lone nut" inspired by the endless hatred and calls for violence on conservative talk radio, but also Muslim fundamenalists, who themselves are pretty right wing and have much more in common with right wing extremists because of their anti-women, anti-progress, and theocratic views than with the left).
The left in America is a complete joke when you compare it to how strong it is in Europe, where you can actually find viable openly Socialist and Communist parties, very strong unions, and solid social safety nets. What passes for the "left" in the US would be considered right wing there.
The only thing remotely left wing that I can see in mainstream American politics today is support for abortion and tolerance of minorities and people of different sexual identities/orientations. While important, that's a pretty small ledge for the left to stand on.
I am not saying there is anything wrong with American Democrats but if you look at actual policies they would be labeled centre right anywhere else in the world.
As an American friend once put it to me "Americans believe luck is made, so social handouts are basically perceived as tax payer theft".
I’m just going to say it: the perception of where the American Democratic Party or the American Republican Party sits only matters to American voters. To whatever extent it interests foreigners, I’m happy to provide the entertainment as I take plenty of entertainment watching foreign politics myself, so fair is fair, but an outside observation of where we sit politically isn’t an actionable or useful observation because we’re not those other countries.
That isn’t to say there isn’t anything to be learned from the actions of other governments, whatever their domestic political makeup, but I am happy that if this were 1792 neither major American 2022 political party would be perceived to be getting buddy-buddy with the left of the French National Assembly. Actually gives me some hope for my country to think of it that way.
I hear this a lot, but as someone who's fairly up on politics in a few Western European countries I don't think it's accurate.
For example, the current democratic party platform supports universal healthcare, mass immigration with a roadmap to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, expansion of visas and a removal of wealth/income requirements, a major commitment to environmental protection and an acknowledgement of climate change including getting to net-zero emissions and devoting tens of billions to foreign aid.
That's all pretty in-line with left wing political manifestos/platforms in most of western europe.
Not in terms of social policies. How many European centre-left policies support giving puberty blockers to children? How many European centre-left policies support abortion right up to the time of birth?
And the recently introduced abortion bill by the Democrats which ultimately failed, does not match what you are saying (time limited by viability and exception for life-saving measures). It however matches roughly the (varying) standards in the various EU countries.
So both not really examples where the Democrats vary greatly from the average in the EU.
Like in no specific order: poverty, bleak future, failed "common" education system, state supported/tolerated exploition of citizens, failing police, falling justice system (if you ask they are meant to protect citizens), systematic deep rooted discrimination, toleration of fascism
Your list begins to muddy the idea though. Poverty may be the only thing of great import mentioned.
Ignoring criminality (in the name of 'equity') develops into a situation seen in SF, Seattle and Portland. Preventing crime is not itself a draconian practice. Having some kind of penalty for criminal behavior is not draconian.
Ignoring crime and allowing criminals to go unpursued is a demoralizer for the entire community
If there are no consequences, then a percentage of the population will go nuts.
I've had a few young kids ask about going to California to get toys since you don't have to pay for them there. In their mind it's a great deal. Explaining that it's wrong even though you get away with it is awkward.
The problems need solutions which are not fully but to a non-small degree independent of classical "crime fighting" decisions.
But you are right, war on crime makes no sense. It should be on _criminals_. Basically, if they have strength left to exercise in prisons they are clearly too well fed and not worked hard enough.
national-socialist are one movement which is fascist, they are by far not the only one. (Nazis are fascist with socialist paint coat).
The US never had (internally) a problem with nazis, I think. But it does have a problem with white supremacist. It also does have a problem with religious extremist, most times Christian based. Both of this groups have quite a bit of overlap and have often strong fascist tendencies.
And sure California might be one of the US states better of. Tbh. especially with the last statement I was more thinking about some other US states.
The US never had (internally) a problem with nazis
Colloquially, this is what everyone understands when using the term fascist, but it's not quite in line with the history. 'Fascism' is a pejorative dog whistle, when people hear it they think "enemy" - because in WWII the Italian and German governments were fascist.
In fact, fascism, as I understand it, developed as a "third way" on the European continent. It was a rejection of capitalism as dominated by wealthy US, English interests, and of Communism. It's interesting that it developed in an area of Europe geographically juxtaposed in the middle of two powerful capitalist and communist fronts. Fascism was a reaction to domination by foreign power - so yes, naturally it's nationalistic. It also has a component of strong integration of nation and economy. The fasces is a binding together, metaphorically a combination of social, political, and economic institutions. Initially, it was an attempt to strengthen the nation, to reclaim power over the national destiny, and make good for the people of that country.
Of course, in hind site, we can see that some truly awful deeds were committed by some truly awful people, and we should be vigilant to prevent that from happening again. Unfortunately, it's a hard thing to predict, and even harder to prevent. It of course becomes harder if the name of fascism is misused in partisan political contexts because the nuance and history of the term is quickly lost.