Sacramento Bee: Trump “Isn’t Seeing the Real California” (And Neither Are We!)

Sacramento Bee: Trump “Isn’t Seeing the Real California” (And Neither Are We!)

Sacramento Bee: Trump “Isn’t Seeing the Real California” (And Neither Are We!)

Trump and his cabinet have been making headlines recently in terms of the pushback they’ve given to California for its sanctuary city policies. The president has been characteristically critical toward California’s own brand of liberalism, and he recently singled out Governor Jerry Brown in particular. In response to Trump’s activity involving California, a Tuesday editorial from the Sacramento Bee claimed that President Trump hasn’t seen the real California, and has, thus, vastly mischaracterized the state on the national stage.

Here’s a segment:

As Donald Trump visited California on Tuesday for the first time as president, he limited his view to what serves his agenda – a border crossing in San Diego to inspect prototypes for his proposed wall, Marine Corps Air Station Miramar to speak to service members, and a private home in Beverly Hills for a $35,000-per-person fundraiser.

If only the president and the nation could see the real California. They’d see a state that drives much of the U.S. economy, with diverse and dynamic people leading the way into America’s future.

Granted, I’m on board with the idea that Trump’s rhetorical style often relies on the use of “broad brushstrokes.” The same can be said for many politicians. That, and it’s definitely true that California is a diverse state, it’s filled with dynamic people, it’s significantly impactful over the US economy, and Californians do develop tech that will launch us into the future.

But those on the editorial board at the Sacramento Bee are deluding themselves if they think Californians live in some idealistic liberal utopia.

I live in San Francisco. I cherish my city, but it has major problems, none of which the editorial addressed.

The worst problem of all– way worse than soaring rents, the high cost of living, unreliable police, ridiculous taxes, less-than-optimal public transit, and laws that hamstring businesses and individuals in the name of liberal ideology– is the trifecta of homelessness, mental illness, and addiction that affects people who live on the streets.

To give you an idea: this past Monday, I was walking down the entrance stairway to the Civic Center BART station, and on my way down, I walked in between two homeless men as one passed a crack pipe to the other. They made zero effort to conceal the pipe because it’s just normal in that area of town to do hard drugs out in the open. And several days ago, when my husband and I went to the public library downtown, we saw several plastic pieces that had come off of hypodermic needles laying around. My husband has seen people shooting up before. He once saw someone defecating in the street. I’ve seen someone smoking a pipe in the street. I’ve seen a pregnant woman smoking cigarettes on the street. One time, I saw someone pee on the side of a building downtown, and their bag was laying in the middle of their pee stream as it ran into the street, so when they finished doing their business and picked up their bag, it was dripping urine as they walked away.

Nothing shocks me anymore. A couple of weeks ago, as I was working in a coffee shop, I looked out the window onto Market Street, which is the main drag through downtown San Francisco. I saw a person on the sidewalk take all of his clothes off, raise his hands high in the air, and talk to an invisible person for about five minutes before putting his clothes back on and walking off.

It’s San Francisco, so, no big deal. That kind of thing happens all the time.

 

Do the local and state governments in California actually help the people who live on the city streets? It doesn’t look like it. Or, at least, help from the government is not apparent to those of us who live here. The reality is that homelessness has, in recent years, worsened tremendously in California and on the west coast in general.

Ben Shapiro does a great job explaining the situation cities like San Francisco face here, in an answer to a question posed on his podcast. He essentially says that:

  • 1) Every citizen has a right to access city streets in relative safety, and thus, it should be illegal for people to loiter on the streets, establish encampments, and leave waste in ways that create hazards for anyone else, and also
  • 2) It is cruel for the government to see homeless people suffering on the streets with severe mental illness and addiction and do nothing to tangibly help them.

Government should be small in almost every sense, with the exception of caring for those who truly cannot help themselves like the addicted and mentally ill. When a person is suffering from a debilitating mental illness or addiction to the extent that they wander the streets, unable to live normal lives and care for themselves, the humane thing for the local and state government to do is to use the resources they have to treat such people (instead of blowing said resources on less important projects– like giving Fisherman’s Wharf a facelift).

But what do we hear from the Sacramento Bee editorial?

If Trump could rise above politics and let go of grudges, he just might see how important California is to the success of his presidency and to America’s prosperity. But that would mean looking at the bigger picture, and acknowledging the America he doesn’t want to see.

The members of the Sacramento Bee editorial board should examine their own motives. They should use their Trump lens on themselves and acknowledge what they don’t want to see: the fact that their state is a highly nuanced place… filled with many amazing sights (despite liberals’ constant attempts to make everything just a little bit worse) and also filled with untold brokenness, dirtiness, and pain.

Attacking Trump by pretending the state has no problems won’t make the state’s problems go away. Only good policy, good sense, and compassion for all who live in California will do that.

 

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12 Comments
  • GWB says:

    Do the local and state governments in California actually help the people who live on the city streets?
    Well, that depends on how you define “help”. If you define it as “keep a person from having to suffer the horrible consequences of their poor choices or mental handicaps”, then San Fran is doing a bang-up job! Well, except for preventing their constituents from suffering the horrible consequences of their poor choices (voting for these idiots).

    with the exception of caring for those who truly cannot help themselves like the addicted and mentally ill
    No, I disagree. It should be up to citizens to help them. BUT, where the gov’t should be involved is in not passing laws that prevent actual, viable help for these folks. And in enforcing laws that perpetuate a healthy and safe municipality.

    And, yes, California could be a wonderful land of milk and honey. If only the people who live there could stop voting their feelz and instead vote for freedom and conscience.

  • Kirk S. says:

    San Francisco isn’t any different than her rival, Los Angeles. I commute into the heart of L.A. everyday. Homeless people hot bunking it in the morning trains. Transit police and LAPD reluctant to cite them, let alone get them off the trains and subways. Dodging the sleeping homeless on the platform, zig zagging around urine puddles.

    No better at my work place, which is a very large medical complex. The homeless surround the perimeter with encampments, hang around restaurants for handouts, sneak into our buildings to turn toilet stalls into makeshift baths. And the very real problem of Hepatitis A around our workplace and commute routes is rarely addressed by the media, let alone government.

    And our local elected leaders are no better than San Francisco. Liberal, “feel good” types who look for a headline rather than making headway against these problems.

    Orange County faced judicial roadblocks when they tried to evict homeless camps out of public flood channels. Even citing the law in maintaining the flood channels, keeping human waste and drug debris out of the area, was not enough for a activist judge. It’s no wonder our state and cities are upside down in priorities.

    I love my home, my state, but damn, when will the people realize enough is enough?

  • Subotai Bahadur says:

    “I love my home, my state, but damn, when will the people realize enough is enough?”

    They will not, ever. Californians, the majority of Californians, who live in these conditions want them that way. No, the entire state does not, but they are outnumbered by those who do who outvote them, aided by the invasion of foreign nationals who also are outvoting them. There is no longer any way to vote our way out of this. There will be separation, or there will be conquest. That conquest can go either way, and is guaranteed not to be bloodless. One should have plans as to what to do in any of the three possible outcomes.

    Subotai Bahadur

  • md says:

    This is a characteristically myopic and tone deaf editorial from one of the most myopic and tone deaf editorial boards in the country. No one who has ever read the Bee for a single day can honestly say otherwise.

  • Kendall says:

    My last two visits (in the last five years or so) I saw homeless people actually defecating not just in the street, but against a wall next to the sidewalk – one of the most foul sites I have seen, anywhere on Earth. After the second time I’ve decided to never go back to San Francisco if I can possibly avoid it. There has to eventually be loss of tourist revenue from continually increasing problems like this. And as you say, it sure looks like no-one is really taking care of anyone there no matter how much they say they are spending. I’ve also never seen so many truly alarmingly mentally ill homeless anywhere else as I have in San Francisco.

    If nothing else I don’t know why the city cannot put up some kind of public showering structures through the city. There’s no reason people have to live like animals in completely unsanitary conditions, and just the act of being able to clean yourself when you wanted to would probably help the mental state of a lot of people. For the amount of money they spend on the homeless, a small fraction could be put to designing and building an easily cleaned (or better yet self cleaning) shower hut of some kind.

    • Andrew says:

      The reason they do not put public showering structures in place is because these places become the places to live. It is unfortunate but every nice thing done is abused and over run by those that only care about themselves in the next few minutes. If the homeless problem was just about helping those that fell on hard times there would no problem putting in shelters to help them. But those are overwhelmed by the influx of those that care nothing of other people.

  • TJB says:

    Spent the best part of the last 30 years in SF. The answer to every single question that you raise is very simple, lawsuits and policies of very “progressive” special interest groups and politicians. I can go into great detail about the background and history going back to the 1960’s of where every single disaster came from and why it continues.

    Why is MUNI crap? Political corruption, union corruption and some “civil rights” lawsuits in the late 70’s / early ’80’s that made MUNI give up on law enforcement on buses and streetcars. LA Metro sidestepped that particular shakedown which is why anti-social behavior on LA buses gets dealt with promptly.

    The street people? Thats simple. Hand out free cash by the tens of millions p.a and the “problem” will never disappear. Too many jobs depend on in. At least 2,000 in the various “non-profits” the last time I looked. And anyway, 75% of the street people are not from SF and have no long term connection with SF. They are welfare tourists.

    Why so many now? Prop 47 and 57 rolled back Three Strikes so what you have now is exactly the way SF was before Three Strikes was passed back in the 1990’s. Lock up petty criminal and serious crime drops. Releases petty criminals and serious crime increases. Because guess who commits most serious crime? Why, petty criminals. Plus drug rehab is not longer a requirement of probation so rehab rates fell 90%. And the winos cannot be locked up and cannot be forced to take rehab either. Result, streets full of junkies and winos.

    Oh, yeah. Prop 47 and 57 was bank rolled by billionaires like Zuckerberg, Reid and Steyer. And from Jerry Browns massive slush fund. Where do you think some of the $ billion p.a of no audit funds handed over to the CARB ends up? Or the High Speed Rail unaudited funds? The Bay Bridge replacement fiasco (less seismically safe that what it replaced) was pure Jerry Brown narcissism. Final 30 year cost – north of $20B. Plus cost of replacement bridge after next Big One. But the HSR fiasco and the “Carbon Trading” scam is pure fraud. Thats why its so important to Jerry. Follow the money.

    The answer for all mysteries in SF politics since time immemorial is follow the money. Which at the moment in the City usual starts and end with the question – Whats Willie Browns angle? If you dont know that Willie has run the City since the mid 90’s then you dont know anything about SF. Think of Willie Brown as Mayor Eugene Schmitz reincarnated. But far far better at playing the game.

    Other fun fact. Voter fraud by Jim Jones and his Peoples Temple got Moscone elected Mayor and Milk elected supe. Why do you think Moscone made Jones head of the Housing Authority? And from that stolen election flowed all power of the current “progressive” clique who have pretty much run the City ever since. Willie Brown showed his wonderful survival skills by after being very close to Jim Jones quickly distancing himself before the Cool Aid hit he fan. As for Milk. Dan White was acquitted because the killing of such a craven henchman of Jim Jones was seen very much as a public service by most native San Franciscans at the time.

    Funny how you never hear any of this stuff in the Official Narrative promulgated by the media. And if you dont know the real story none of what happens around will make any sense. Know even part of the story and it all starts making sense.

    Follow the money.

  • Oldhawker says:

    We heartily support California in its efforts to normalize using sidewalks as toilets, stairways as crack dens, and severe mental illness as “just another accepted lifestyle”.
    Signed,
    The Other 49 States.

  • Anon says:

    So, where do the homeless get the money to buy their drugs??

  • Riprake says:

    Original Song Title: “Hell Hole”
    Original Performer: Spinal Tap
    Parody Song Title: “Sh*thole”
    Parody Written by: Immoral Liberal

    Depending on how you look at it, California is either no place for illegal immigrants from Mexico, or the perfect place for them.

    The cops are dirty;
    My business stinks;
    Cartels are no place for good men.
    I can’t get a green card;
    I got no visa;
    Might get one someday; not sure when.

    My clothes are filthy;
    My wife got raped;
    Dudes wave their shotguns in my face.
    My kids are starving,
    But getting fat;
    We won’t last too long in this place

    No…

    Mexico is a SH*THOLE!
    Acapulco is a SH*THOLE!
    Also, Durango: a SH*THOLE!
    Got to get out of this SH*THOLE!

    We rode a dump truck;
    We reached our stop;
    We’re in the sanctuary state.
    The forest’s burning;
    The mudslides hit;
    The earth quakes on, and won’t abate.

    The schools are filthy;
    My kids got raped;
    Can’t tell the women from the men.
    The cops are freaks;
    Neighbors are perverts;
    Time to pick up and leave again.

    Yeah, that’s what we’re doin’… right now!

    California’s a SH*THOLE!
    Yeah, San Francisco is a SH*THOLE!
    Sacramento is a SH*THOLE!
    Got to escape Moonbeam’s SH*THOLE!

    More than a few Californians are considering secession; and more than a few of the other states would prefer not only to let them leave, but to expel them preemptively.

  • […] Sacramento Bee: Trump “Isn’t Seeing the Real California” (And Neither Are We!) […]

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