Live data from Hacker News

Chesa Boudin Recalled by San Francisco Voters

wsj.com

71–80 of 101 posts

Re: Chesa Boudin Recalled by San Francisco Voters

#71
post #62
post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

care to expand on that?

DA parents were domestic terrorists jailed or murder (google it) So he was raised with parents in jail and became a defendant attorney. He took power he took revenge on the system and people by stopping prosecuting people in the name of social justice, and letting crime run rampant. Straight out of a Batman movie, just in real life there is no Batman to save SF. People had enough and are revolting against this lying…

Interesting. However your explanation does not look exactly impartial, what is the story from their side of things?

It also looks stupid and petty to "take revenge" from the system when the system can expel you before you actually do any significant damage. Wouldn't be more logical to rise to the top and bring it down from there by playing the system?

Re: Chesa Boudin Recalled by San Francisco Voters

#72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The crimes listed at that link are making, selling, importing and exporting drugs. How are these 'opportunistic'? All of them require planning.

You have a very rose colored view of the world. Some folks are presented with an opportunity to sell (or be an accessory to the sale) and the deal is too good to pass up because the alternative is starving.

"You have a very rose colored view of the world."

Perhaps I do, and perhaps I don't. But I'd prefer we discuss the issue than my general view of the world.

Let's take your scenario: someone is on the brink of starvation, and an opportunity to sell drugs (and not starve) falls in their lap. They take it (without any prior plan). This is definitely opportunistic.

What happens if the above situation is repeated a second time? Do we consider that opportunistic as well?

How many times does someone have to take such an opportunity before we consider them selling drugs as being 'what they do' or part of their plan?

Unless the chance of being arrested is close to 100%, it's unlikely that someone's first arrest for selling drugs coincides with the first time they sold drugs. So is it really opportunistic?

Re: Chesa Boudin Recalled by San Francisco Voters

#73

I don't like what I've heard about Boudin at all, but can someone explain how the 40% who supported Boudin might feel about this? What is their motivation? Is it as simple as not worrying too much about crime and believing Boudin's approach is justified?

It’s a gross abuse of the recall process. Recalls should be reserved for flagrant abuses of power, egregious ethical lapses, or profound incompetence. If voters are just unhappy with an elected official, they should follow the normal election process. The SF DA is up for a routine election in November of 2023. Turning recalls into a routine part of politics, where billionaire-backed activists can try to dump a bunch…

[deleted]

Re: Chesa Boudin Recalled by San Francisco Voters

#74

>Crime overall has fallen since Mr. Boudin took office in January 2020 lol, that's pretty easy to do when you just stop prosecuting people. Same way graduation rates increase if you just stop failing people. Who cares about the actual purpose of institutions or whether goals are being achieved, just make sure the numbers are what we want https://twitter.com/DavidSacks/status/1533544746173571079

I live in SF but don’t fully buy into the idea that any rise or fall in overall crime is on him.

He entered office right before Covid hit and there’s a dozen different factors that could have played a role here. Regardless it’s clear property crime is bad and downtown is still a ghost town with every other store deserted and companies don’t want to host conferences here anymore.

I don’t think anyone believes recalling him with magically fix any of these issues. To me I see it as more symbolic and a sort of public venting among voters of being fed up with quality of life issues that rarely seem to be top of mind of politicians anymore, and recalling a progressive DA sends a clear message.

Re: Chesa Boudin Recalled by San Francisco Voters

#75
post #47
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you're writing things like "you're part of the problem", you've departed from the norms of this place. There's a place for that kind of advocacy, but it's not HN; we're here for curious conversation. Even some people ordinarily inclined to agree with you will recoil from this kind of rhetoric here.

Agreed on avoiding finger pointing. But the bit about "American Far Left" is spot on.

I mean, we do have a far-left but it's not particularly doing stuff right now. The last time it was active they were blowing up buildings across the US or trying to bomb the US capitol [1] [2]. We're 30-40 years removed from that, and the far-right is more active right now. They definitely do exist and I'd say groups that are analogous to them certainly exist right now.

1: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/1980s-far-left-female... 2: https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/remembering-left-w...

Re: Chesa Boudin Recalled by San Francisco Voters

#77

I don't like what I've heard about Boudin at all, but can someone explain how the 40% who supported Boudin might feel about this? What is their motivation? Is it as simple as not worrying too much about crime and believing Boudin's approach is justified?

I didn't really know anything about him beyond all the media the last year calling him the "Progressive DA in San Francisco" ... and then I read his wikipedia page and WEW.

I'm genuinely gobsmacked that a) people are surprised he behaved the way he did as DA and b) that some actually thought it was a good idea to elect a communist as chief law enforcement officer. Maybe don't do that? In any case, this is a rare but good story about democracy's fail safe mechanisms kicking in.

Re: Chesa Boudin Recalled by San Francisco Voters

#78

I don't like what I've heard about Boudin at all, but can someone explain how the 40% who supported Boudin might feel about this? What is their motivation? Is it as simple as not worrying too much about crime and believing Boudin's approach is justified?

Speaking in general terms, its likely due to low voter primary turnout. The change side of the party (the progressive side) is much more organized since they are attempting to challenge the status quo and therefore have much more recently put in place infrastructure to get out the vote (perhaps peaking in response to the tech influx/peak BLM/Trump) to get Chesa in.

The incumbents are generally properly larger but largely apathetic/too busy trying to afford SF rent - unless things go too far in the wrong direction.

I think the recent attempts by the newly installed progressives at renaming schools (while the schools were closed for covid), changing the admissions to the magnet school to be non-test based, etc. - led to some infrastructure being built among the moderate, middle class family democratic voting base - particularly on the western side (Richmond/Sunset) which is mostly Asian.

The fact that the media reported a lot of Anti-Asian crime in SF that Chesa didn't seem to do much about - probably fit well with this newly organized group.

Re: Chesa Boudin Recalled by San Francisco Voters

#79
post #4
post #3

[flagged]

As I understand it, Boudin barely eked out a win to begin with. Philadelphia is about twice the size of San Francisco, which has outsized visibility in our political culture but is in fact about the size of Nashville. Philly overwhelmingly reelected its progressive prosecutor. There's something to be said for the idea that, ideology aside, you also just have to seem good at the actual job; the job is not simply a ser…

> Philadelphia is about twice the size of San Francisco, which has outsized visibility in our political culture but is in fact about the size of Nashville.

Well yeah, SF's visibility comes because it's the original centre of what is now a much bigger area.

Re: Chesa Boudin Recalled by San Francisco Voters

#80

I don't like what I've heard about Boudin at all, but can someone explain how the 40% who supported Boudin might feel about this? What is their motivation? Is it as simple as not worrying too much about crime and believing Boudin's approach is justified?

I didn't really know anything about him beyond all the media the last year calling him the "Progressive DA in San Francisco" ... and then I read his wikipedia page and WEW. I'm genuinely gobsmacked that a) people are surprised he behaved the way he did as DA and b) that some actually thought it was a good idea to elect a communist as chief law enforcement officer. Maybe don't do that? In any case, this is a rare but…

> that some actually thought it was a good idea to elect a communist as chief law enforcement officer.

Blame the "tough on crime" crowd for that. They thought he'd be putting everyone in gulags, like any proper communist would.

Post reply on HN