The town I live in has a long standing Dem mayor who is notoriously (as much as a local politician can be when many don't care about their comings and goings) anti-homeless. I know of at least one soup kitchen that he relentlessly attempted to have shut down because of a homeless encampment in a nearby wooded area that he wanted to force out of town. He's also had long standing plans to demolish a bunch of public housing units and replace them with a smaller number and offer "vouchers" to the victims, which are worthless due to a lack of overall affordable housing availability and lack of permanence. Mind you there's a wait-list at all time for the existing, insufficient, public housing, so this would massively increase homelessness.
I hate that motherfucker so much. I don't doubt that some local politicians are good but you can't say they are in general, broad strokes.
EDIT: I've also heard that he's got corruption issues with local property developers but can't confirm; in the "Yeah he's corrupt" column he was floating a very dubious property tax scheme to "encourage development" a while back that I won't name to avoid doxxing myself.
Yep. My experiences have been pretty similar. And I live in a Democrat-saturated "very liberal/progressive" area of Northern California. Maybe 1-2 of the 7 or so city council members in the largest city near me would actually call themselves Republicans or independent, with the rest insisting they are Democrats or even "progressives". These politicians are 100% fascist. The ones who call themselves "progressive" just use some nicer sounding rhetoric (e.g. having a debate over whether to call themselves a "sanctuary city" and then ultimately deciding not to because at least they were being honest that they wouldn't do anything at all to keep their own police, the local sheriff, or any federal agencies from having free rein to haul away undocumented folks; in other words they were considering adopting the label even though they knew it wouldn't mean anything at all).
And yeah: they adopt every anti-homeless ordinance they can think up, and openly sic their fascist pigs on tent-cities and individual unhoused people alike on almost a daily basis. Their hands have been tied on a very temporary basis a couple of times by injunctions filed in federal court, but all those courts have done is told them they need to file the proper paperwork, dot their Is and cross their Ts, before continuing with the violence. And still the local city and county governments have brainstormed every way possible to bypass and ignore these temporary injunctions and shit and continue to be as vicious and destructive as possible. And they get away with it 99% of the time.
Oh, small anecdote if anyone doubts they are outright fascist. The local cops warned unhoused activists that if they were seen meeting together or talking to housed activists who have been organizing with them, that they'd arrest them. Straight up violation of their supposed first-amendment "right to assemble". And all the local politicians literally just stared stony-faced and shrugged their shoulders when confronted with questions and demands about this policy.
The town I live in has a long standing Dem mayor who is notoriously (as much as a local politician can be when many don't care about their comings and goings) anti-homeless. I know of at least one soup kitchen that he relentlessly attempted to have shut down because of a homeless encampment in a nearby wooded area that he wanted to force out of town. He's also had long standing plans to demolish a bunch of public housing units and replace them with a smaller number and offer "vouchers" to the victims, which are worthless due to a lack of overall affordable housing availability and lack of permanence. Mind you there's a wait-list at all time for the existing, insufficient, public housing, so this would massively increase homelessness.
I hate that motherfucker so much. I don't doubt that some local politicians are good but you can't say they are in general, broad strokes.
EDIT: I've also heard that he's got corruption issues with local property developers but can't confirm; in the "Yeah he's corrupt" column he was floating a very dubious property tax scheme to "encourage development" a while back that I won't name to avoid doxxing myself.
Yep. My experiences have been pretty similar. And I live in a Democrat-saturated "very liberal/progressive" area of Northern California. Maybe 1-2 of the 7 or so city council members in the largest city near me would actually call themselves Republicans or independent, with the rest insisting they are Democrats or even "progressives". These politicians are 100% fascist. The ones who call themselves "progressive" just use some nicer sounding rhetoric (e.g. having a debate over whether to call themselves a "sanctuary city" and then ultimately deciding not to because at least they were being honest that they wouldn't do anything at all to keep their own police, the local sheriff, or any federal agencies from having free rein to haul away undocumented folks; in other words they were considering adopting the label even though they knew it wouldn't mean anything at all).
And yeah: they adopt every anti-homeless ordinance they can think up, and openly sic their fascist pigs on tent-cities and individual unhoused people alike on almost a daily basis. Their hands have been tied on a very temporary basis a couple of times by injunctions filed in federal court, but all those courts have done is told them they need to file the proper paperwork, dot their Is and cross their Ts, before continuing with the violence. And still the local city and county governments have brainstormed every way possible to bypass and ignore these temporary injunctions and shit and continue to be as vicious and destructive as possible. And they get away with it 99% of the time.
Oh, small anecdote if anyone doubts they are outright fascist. The local cops warned unhoused activists that if they were seen meeting together or talking to housed activists who have been organizing with them, that they'd arrest them. Straight up violation of their supposed first-amendment "right to assemble". And all the local politicians literally just stared stony-faced and shrugged their shoulders when confronted with questions and demands about this policy.