President Donald J. Trump has decided not to move forward with a National Guard deployment to San Francisco, following a conversation with the city’s mayor, Daniel Lurie.
While stating that he believed he could fix things in the city “much faster,” President Trump said he would see how Lurie did, implying that the question could be revisited at a later date.
Lurie, for his part, said that he welcomed increased local police coordination with federal law enforcement, but spoke out against what he called militarized immigration enforcement in the city.
Lurie was elected mayor on a law-and-order platform, and he has spoken about San Francisco being on the upswing. Still, the city continues to face problems with open-air drug dealing and public drug use, historically fostered by a permissive culture and opposition to meaningful consequences.
Earlier this year, Lurie pushed back somewhat against this attitude, banning the absurd practice of nonprofits handing out drug paraphernalia and enabling addicts. The city now mandates that drug users participate in counseling in order to receive any so-called safe use drug supplies.
While it is a step in the right direction, it’s unclear why supplies are being given to drug users at all. Rather than moderating a terrible policy that feeds people’s drug addiction, why not just end it?
Elsewhere, the San Francisco Superior Court recently stated that it would be releasing criminals from pre-trial custody who do not have an attorney to defend them, a move blasted by the city’s district attorney, Brooke Jenkins. Local politics in recent years have been largely characterized by moderate Democratic politicians pushing back against an entrenched, pro-crime leftist apparatus, represented by the courts and powerful leftist nonprofits.
Eventually, they will hopefully learn the same lesson President Trump did by his second term: you can’t compromise with people bent on undermining you every step of the way. If the city’s activist left-wing class isn’t fully reined in, the president’s “much faster” fix may prove necessary.
