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My experience of San Francisco, post-election
On election day, I went to bed after my personal news black-out. I awoke too early at 4:00 am, gave up trying to go back to sleep, and turned on the radio to hear about the depressing disaster. NPR was on, and they were doing their usual multicultural report, interviewing an illegal alien or some such about how they “felt” about the election. I was able to infer some disturbance in the narrative, but it would take a few minutes to glean what it was from NPR. So I switched to KGO, where I heard a talk show host and pillow spokesperson named Chip in full liberal gloat and end-zone dance about how Republicans were now in the dustbin of history. But I was soon able to determine that this was a rebroadcast from election day, prior to any vote counting. I switched to KCBS, and immediately was informed that Trump had won, and Republicans held both the Senate And the House. Oh My! I was pleasantly surprised, to put it mildly.
The train ride to San Francisco was very somber, as were the downtown streets. I took the elevator up the high-rise with my boss and two colleagues who immediately starting talking about the results. The boss demanded that they shut up, he did not want to hear any whining. But when out of earshot, the day was full of whining and bewilderment from the lawyers I work with, with much vulgar contempt for Trump voters. Although I am known to be more conservative than the local average, nobody assumed I was a Trump supporter and, needing to earn a living, I kept my head down and did not say much.
I went out for lunch, and was astonished to see high schoolers marching under Mexican Flags, and “Pride” Flags on Market Street. In the actual street! My first thought was that this is no place for children, as Market Street has many bums urinating and young ladies openly injecting drugs into their arms. Who let them out of school? If they are counted as absent that day, it is very costly for the school, but that depends on how they “count”.
At the end of the day, I took the elevator down with silent strangers. There were hipsters, young people lucky enough to be employed in the new information (advertising?) economy, the new “masters of the universe”, able to afford San Francisco and things. At the last moment, a guy looking like Pajama Boy, but dressed for work in skin tight pants, cool shoes, untucked shirt and full brimmed hat, announced, “dark times ahead”. Such is the wisdom of children. I have a feeling I will never forget that day.
It has gotten worse. My colleagues, lawyers all, informed and smart and good people almost all (I know, cue the guffaws) are reporting “massive voter suppression” in 33 states. Massive vote tampering, etc. (Fake news might actually be a real problem). A very handsome, elegant, black man with an impeccable British accent is reporting hostile glares and Uber discrimination on the streets of San Francisco! An Indian women is afraid of internment camps and trying to come up with an escape plan. The worst was a lawyer reporting to our boss that he had purchased a gun “to protect his minority friends”. Is this acceptable workplace behavior? Instead of firing him, the boss, a minority, advised him to “keep on his meds”.
I live in a true alternative universe. It is starting to wear me down.
Published in Politics
Heh, my oh my. What I expected. I haven’t been to “The City” for at least a year I guess. But I’ve heard enough from those who have that I think I’ll keep it up – a real loss, since I come from a musical family, and have attended many performances at Davies Hall. Everybody makes reference to the stench.
And I remember when KGO was a truly great station – Jim Eason, Ira Blue, and many more who will come to mind – but that was long ago.
The response here in Durham was much more muted on 11/10, though I was reliably and repeatedly assured that “hate won” by my co-workers.
Speaking of hate winning, I read this morning that the Hillary campaign is now support Jill Stein’s efforts at a recount in WI?
Is it that hard to get registered for the bar in Texas? Relocation could be a solution to your problem.
Alternatively, stoke the California independence movement, and then support a county by county opt-out. Move to a red county when the SF-LA corridor votes to secede. (Texas will help them go.)
Seawriter
I loved reading this! These people kill me with their “escape plans” and fear of “repression.” Like you, I don’t dare reveal what I really think to anyone involved in my career, and my fear of canceled contracts is very very real. They think they know about “repression”? Hah. Cry me a river.
Retail, are you serious? This sounds like a comedy skit – that is the complete and total opposite of our area in FL. and my clients in Dallas said they are still dancing in the streets. I was shocked when a friend of mine said in an email that she was afraid to put a Hillary sticker on her car because some right wing nut with a gun might shoot her – in Massachusetts!!! I am seriously surprised by the vitriol spewing, the depression, all of it. It confirms how we see each other as Americans – as fascist nuts with extreme views where cannot possibly find common ground. How did this day come, who started this lies and false information divide, to make people see each other as the enemy rather than real enemies to our country? Deeply disturbing and our newly elected leaders, families and clergy have their work cut out. We have generations of paranoid people.
Yea, head’s down here, too. Remember back when “Bush is causing a constitutional crisis!” was the shibboleth du jour?
Such cri de coeur is fashionable again. As is unnecessary use of French idioms.
I read these accounts with a heavy heart. The very idea that people must keep their political leanings (for a major party!) secret just kills me. We have become distressingly like the Soviet Union. Doesn’t anyone on the Left see this?
More reason to rejoice the result.
Le hahaha
My sympathies for living in an alternate universe. I have read about these sorts of people and find it intriguing. I bolded your point about fake news, because I think it is very telling.
A man in my building in grad school, an older guy who was a non student, lived a few floors below me. His wisdom for us youngsters on the elevator was the line “Believe you can, or believe you can’t; you’ll always prove yourself right”.
I assume your colleagues sincerely believe what they are saying, but it seems it’s a case of people trying to prove themselves right. Since they believed the hyperbole going into the election, they believe they must be seeing the manifestations after.
To your point, you live in San Francisco – the bluest of blue places. Were there really closet racists driving Uber praying for Trump victory so they could refuse black people? Is Jerry Brown really going to call out the national guard to herd people in to buses?
Nothing has changed, but “everything” has changed.
Most probably don’t see it, but those that do like it. They like repression so long as they are doing the repressing. This is the root of “white privilege” and “mansplaining” and wanting to imprison climate “deniers” and the rest of identity politics.
I am likely to retire in a few years, and will probably relocate. But I am 5th generation native Californian, very rooted in the place, and I don’t imagine that it will be easy. Everybody I work with, and no doubt the hipsters in the elevators, are newcomers. If they ever grow up or have children, they will move out, too. San Francisco has become a theme park for young liberals.
Speaking of faux news reports, “Nazi” graffiti is now “popping up.” Uh-huh. Leftist kabuki theater is nothing new.
My sister moved to San Francisco for a while once. She left because she said “Every man I meet just wants to do my hair.”
Totally serious, and no exaggeration. I thought it was hilarious at first, too. But like I said, it is grinding me down. I wish I was wiser than I am, I wish I understood it better.
Pajama Boys (and their female [?] counterparts) don’t breed. You are stuck with them if you stay in SF.
Look at the bright side. You don’t have to live with them after you retire. They are stuck with themselves unless they possess the moral courage to admit to the vacuousness of their lifestyle and change. When they hit their 50s and 60s, and it is too late to have families they will realize how hollow their lives are without children.
Seawriter
Just the savings on state income tax would probably play your mortgage.
As a fellow Californian I can only say I am glad to be retired and not having to navigate within the political leanings of my former colleagues. California as a place and California as a population remind me of the joke about France: The Brits, Germans, Spanish and Italians all complained to God about His Creation: France. “Why,” they asked,”did He put so many wonderful things in France, while only putting a few good things in their own countries?” God responded that, “Yes, it is true that I put many wonderful things in France, but then I balanced it out by populating it with the French people.”
California, the place, is extraordinary. California, the population, is becoming (politically) insufferable. With exceptions, of course.
But you tell the story beautifully. Thanks for posting that.
I would be more than happy to act as a consultant on their escape plans. I envision a contract with Uber and highways choked with vehicles, possessions tied to the roof heading north to a Canadian port of entry. Hipster refugee camps in Canada that would include a start-up of a chain anarchist coffee bars featuring Joan Baez wannabees singing mournful folk songs. As someone said never let a tragedy go to waste.
This will pass. Just remember how we felt in 2012. Hopefully the liberals will learn that just because we disagree with them on somethings doesn’t we are evil.
Haha “hipster refugee camps”
It’s working, then.
Just wait. Those mourning liberals will also benefit from the Trump tax cuts, especially those over-paid tech workers. What will they say when their paychecks turn out to have increased? What will they say when the regulatory burden on their companies is lightened and their bosses and owners have more freedom of action?
I also live in a deep-blue area, Western Washington. My company does light manufacturing. I have not seen many long faces, but some in my department think Obama did a great job and are wary of Trump. I just choose to remember the mid-level manager who first commented on my “Hillary for Prison” t-shirt, in a neutral manner. He made a point to come by my desk to tell me about having gone to the Trump rally in Everett, and how impressed he was by the attendees outside, and how disgusted he was by the ever-present vulgar demonstrators. He made a point of coming by my desk the day after the election to give me a double thumbs-up.
We are going to downtown Seattle today, for Titus’s last stop meet up. I will have my camera and try to take pictures if there are still street demonstrations. The pictures from inside will be better!
I can confirm that the West Coast techies on my Twitter feed, in addition to being high-functioning masters of the universe building tomorrow and managing billions in ‘value’, have spent the last two years twisting themselves in pretzels over sexism, diversity, BLM and PoC, and have now definitively jumped the shark over Trump and the Russians.
Sell.
Anyone taking odds on whether he shoots himself in the foot?
RL, you might want to pass on this primer from Larry Correia, of Monster Hunters International fame, for liberals who have a new-found commitment to the right to bear arms. He’s gentler than he usually is, but still satisfies.
Go back to India.
Problem solved!
We live in the end result of forty years of information war. A large percentage of the population has been living in a morass of racism, homophobia, islamophobia, white supremacy, misogyny, intolerance fear with language control in the form of PC.
They are not rational, the programming is well embedded at their emotional core.
Our hope is the immune, the uninfected, the street wise minorities and the young.
This battle will shape up to be as futile and messy as the European religious wars of the reformation era.
When I retired, I moved to Texas after living in New Mexico all my life. I haven’t regretted that decision once.
I wonder if they will be disappointed when their dystopian fantasy doesn’t come true. I was pleasantly surprised when I realized that Obama was not going to come to my home and personally transform me, re-educate me, or whatever paranoid scenario I had dreamed up.