Shocker: Appointing A 29-Year-Old Derelict Pet Store Owner With No Politics Experience To San Francisco Board Of Supervisors Not Actually A Masterstroke | Defector

"As of publication, residents of San Francisco's District 4, comprising most of the Sunset from 7th Avenue out to the Pacific Ocean, do not have a representative on the city's Board of Supervisors; the 29-year-old former pet shop owner whom the mayor appointed to the position had to resign after around a week on the job. The cascading series of reasons is both very funny and a revealing look at the strange state of San Francisco local politics."

"The story of District 4 (where I lived for the better part of six years) begins, as most stories of latter-day culture and politics do, in 2020. San Francisco was as reshaped by the pandemic and its aftereffects as any American city besides Minneapolis. The city's tech-heavy workforce stayed home in larger numbers than anywhere else in the nation, only for the titans of big tech's second wave to conduct mass layoffs."

"This was the fulcrum around which American politics at every level pivoted to the right after the George Floyd protests of 2020; it manifested in San Francisco in particular as a sense of shame, with the most influential bloc of San Franciscans (tech leaders) feeling humiliated less by their city's conditions than by its reputation as an exemplar of post-2020 wokeism run amok."

District 4, covering most of the Sunset from 7th Avenue to the Pacific, currently lacks a supervisor after a 29-year-old former pet shop owner appointed by the mayor resigned after about a week. The resignation followed a cascade of personal and political factors that expose the peculiarities of San Francisco local politics. San Francisco's post-2020 transformation included widespread remote work among tech employees, mass layoffs in big tech, and widening Bay Area income inequality. Increased visibility of urban crime amplified perceptions of decline. A narrative emerged blaming 'fundamentalist wokesters,' prompting a political shift and visible humiliation among influential tech leaders concerned with the city's reputation.

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