Three San Francisco school board members have been recalled. It wasn’t even close. It was a massacre. Leah covered this yesterday. For all three members, over 70 percent of San Francisco voters said it was time to go. Was it over COVID? That’s what was initially seen as a possible explanation. In a now-deleted tweet, German Lopez of The New York Times wrote, “If the hyper-cautious approach to COVID is now losing badly in San Francisco, it’s just not working out politically.”
It prompted FiveThirtyEight’s Nate Silver to reply with, “It’s sometimes underappreciated how unpopular certain liberal positions are even among liberals.”
I don’t know why Lopez’s tweet was deleted. It does hit on one of the issues that led to this election massacre. The board president had past racist tweets about Asians resurface. The city also instituted a lottery system for the best school in the city, and they were dithering on re-opening. That’s the COVID angle. They also were way too focused on renaming schools that appeased the political correctness mob. So, you can see how the Asian-American population went Genghis Kahn on this trio (via Axios):
The recall effort was largely driven by Asian American parents who were discontent with the board's delay in reopening schools, accused board members of unfairly prioritizing efforts to rename schools and were upset about plans to install a lottery admissions system at a prestigious local high school.
The controversy spiraled further out of control after one board member's 2016 tweets resurfaced. Commissioner Alison Collins had used racist tropes to accuse Asian Americans of indulging in "white supremacist thinking" while discussing anti-Blackness in Asian communities.
The comments led to an immediate backlash in the city, which experienced a 567% spike in anti-AAPI hate crimes last year.
Yet, some people took issue with Nate’s tweet, adding that it wasn’t about COVID. Well, that really doesn’t negate what he said about liberal positions being widely unpopular. Voter ID is popular. School choice is insanely popular. Both issues carry supermajority support among almost every demographic. And the mask mandates are done. Has liberal America noted that their governors are lifting such mandates? The science hasn’t changed. We’ve known for months that the current COVID regime doesn’t work. The political science has changed. That’s the issue, which you already know.
It's sometimes underappreciated how unpopular certain liberal positions are *even among liberals*. https://t.co/EizLB9baTa
— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) February 16, 2022
There are some disputes in the comments about precisely *which* unpopular liberal positions were most important in the recall, which don't really serve to rebut the thesis.
— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) February 16, 2022
Another thing that is underappreciated is the value of just saying nothing if you don't know what you're talking about.
— Renee DiResta (@noUpside) February 16, 2022
Current approaches to COVID were not even in the top 5 issues driving the SF recall. pic.twitter.com/hGvqOaikHc
There’s also the defunding of the police and college debt bailout initiatives that are grossly unpopular. Being pro-crime and anti-police is not a good strategy. People have been working, going to college, and paying off such loans for decades. There should be no bailout because this whiny segment, the whitest and most liberal, are complaining that their worthless “woke” degrees aren’t paying six-figure salaries. You must work, kids. Welcome to life.
Overall, the American people want fewer taxes, fewer regulations, and more jobs. They also want a secure southern border, but again—liberals have nothing for normal Americans. The college faculty lounge is not a base of support.