Inside tech billionaires’ push to reshape San Francisco politics: ‘a hostile takeover’::The Guardian and Mission Local unravel ‘grey money’ network flooding the progressive city with conservative cash
Engardio has promoted policies including increased police staffing, harsh penalties for narcotics offenses
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the political network erected with the aid of libertarian tech money…
I think it’s important to point out that locking people up for using drugs is not a libertarian position; it’s a conservative position.
Yeh but paying for the police to lock up drug users with private money is libertarian
How is that libertarian?
I think the idea/joke is that the police are effectively privatized by being privately funded and carring out the rules of their funders.
I think the idea is that libertarianism is basically a milder form of anarcho capitalism, and ancaps believe in a world without any government. The only “police” would be private armed guards who go entirely unchecked—except by other private armed guards. Locking up “undesirables” is totally something that would happen in ancapistan.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
A new analysis of campaign filings, non-profit records and political contributions by the Guardian and Mission Local reveals the extent of this network, which is using its financial and organizational muscle to push the famously progressive city into adopting policies that are tougher on crime and homelessness, and more favorable to business and housing construction.
“This is a $20bn hostile takeover of San Francisco by people with vested real estate and tech interests, and who don’t want anyone else deciding how the city is run,” he said, referring to the combined wealth of the most prolific new donors.
Their engagement grew as progressive candidates won a number of narrow but surprising victories in 2019, including the district attorney office and several seats in San Francisco’s legislative body, the board of supervisors.
But, those observers say, their political participation really intensified during the pandemic, when frustrations over rising visible homelessness, a sharp increase in petty crime and fentanyl-related overdose deaths, and an economic downturn in the city boiled over.
The group’s biggest donor, Kilroy Realty, a southern California-based firm with major holdings in downtown office property and highly desired parcels in the South of Market district, has given $1.2m since 2020.
Campaign contribution filings show that major donors include Agarwal, as well as Larsen ($100,000), Tan ($25,000) and Pantheon’s Rosen, a tech investor who launched the controversial pro-market-rate development group YIMBY California.
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