Photographer: Jeff Chiu/AP

By David M Greenwald
executive editor

Los Angeles, CA – There were a lot of bad media takes coming out of the primary election two weeks ago—and a lot of them were due to a rush to judgment because the media failed to understand that the old rules largely do not apply anymore as to how ballots come in and get counted. That led to premature calls.

It still looks like Chesa Boudin will get recalled, but by a 10-rather than a 20-point margin. One of the bad takes has been the use of San Francisco as evidence for the limits of progressivism and even a warning to Democrats for the fall, and perhaps even deeper.

Gil Duran’s otherwise good piece warned, “The primary election in California last week conveyed a warning to Democrats about the political threat posed by rising public anger toward the increasingly visible poverty and disorder on city streets — in this case, San Francisco’s.”

It makes sense on one level—San Francisco has been consistently one of the nation’s most progressive and reliably blue cities in the country, and, as Duran put it, while Chesa Boudin became a scapegoat for the problems in the community, “[h]is loss in a recall attempt had much to do with California’s chronic failure to deal with homelessness, mental illness and poverty. These issues will persist without him.”

But what if San Francisco is not really the best test case for such issues?

San Francisco, after all, is hardly the first city to see a backlash against a progressive prosecutor. We saw heavy money thrown into DA’s races last year in Philadelphia and St. Louis, to name two. However, in each of those, the incumbent DA was (a) running against a named opponent with a record and agenda they could push back on, and (b) was able to prevail—overwhelmingly.

Boudin did not get a tangible opponent, but the big difference might be the demographics in San Francisco.

This is a point made by Erika Smith, an LA Times columnist, who argued yesterday that Los Angeles rather than San Francisco could become the most progressive city in California (and by virtue of that, the nation).

(One thing to bear in mind is that George Gascón faces a recall in Los Angeles, but, unlike San Francisco where the county is limited to the city of San Francisco, Los Angeles County encompasses a number of much more conservative areas, which could make it more dicey for Gascon).

But Smith points to things like the apparent victory of abolitionist City Council member Eunisses Hernandez over formidable establishment Democrat Gil Cedillo for City Council.

Moreover, there is also Hugo Soto-Martinez, “who campaigned on having fewer cops and repeating the law that allows the city to remove homeless encampments, has pulled ahead of incumbent City Councilman Mitch O’Farrell in District 13.”

Moreover, “In citywide races, it’s much the same thing. For controller, progressive activist Kenneth Mejia was the top vote-getter and faces City Councilman Paul Koretz in a runoff in November. For city attorney, civil rights lawyer Faisal Gill is in the lead after vowing to repeal the city’s anti-camping law and enact a pause on prosecutions to evaluate the “unacceptably broad” charging of misdemeanors.”

She also notes “in the mayoral race, Rep. Karen Bass has pulled ahead of billionaire developer Rick Caruso, with those who voted by mail overwhelmingly choosing her more liberal approach to addressing crime, policing and homelessness.”

That was one of the bad media calls that proclaimed him a winner before the votes were all counted. Suddenly that race looks very different.

“This progressive surge has made itself competitive,” said Raphael Sonenshein, executive director of Cal State LA’s Pat Brown Institute for Public Affairs as quoted in her column. “And that’s a big deal.”

Smith notes, “Los Angeles is one of the most progressive cities in the country, but it’s rarely thought of as the most liberal city in the state. That title usually goes to San Francisco.”

“There is a perception of San Francisco as more liberal than LA,” Sonenshein said, “back to the days when LA was more conservative than it is today. I’m talking 30, 40, 50 years ago.”

Here I think is probably the most important point, she writes: “Nevertheless, given Boudin’s national profile, it was that vote that launched a thousand ill-thought-out think pieces and several more thousand speculative tweets.”

Los Angeles has probably become more progressive, certainly since the 1980s, but a big factor that many have failed to recognize—San Francisco has become much more affluent, in part due to the housing affordability crisis, and, as such, much less diverse and more white.

Whereas Kim Gardner in St. Louis and Larry Krasner in Philadelphia could tap into huge bases of black voters when the going got tough, Chesa Boudin was hung out to dry when normally progressive upper middle class white voters panicked at perceptions of rising crime rates.

Writes Smith, “Contributing to this has been the influx of tech wealth, followed by the housing affordability crisis. San Francisco has become a far more affluent city than it once was and far less of a working-class one, with even teachers forced to become super commuters. And this has had an impact on diversity.”

“Everybody’s seen ‘The Last Black Man in San Francisco,’” Melina Abdullah, a professor of pan-African studies at Cal State LA, quipped about the 2019 film, the plot of which is exactly what it sounds like.

“You’re starting to see—I mean, maybe not even starting—what you’re seeing is people who we’d assume would be liberal have their class-based interests and are voting their class, rather than voting along with working- class people of color,” she added.

John Pfaff, a law professor at Fordham University, noted in a June 5 tweet that San Francisco is only 5 percent Black compared with Philadelphia (44 percent) and St. Louis (46 percent).

He noted before the election that the notion “if liberal SF can’t vote for a progressive, then… who will??” has traction but “gets the racial politics of all this wrong: SF is (progressive), but MUCH whiter than most cities (with progressive) DAs.”

Pfaff believes that support for reform from white progressives is much less reliable than for people of color.

As he told Smith, “Crime is an abstraction for most of them—for most of us… You read about it, you hear about it, but the moment crime is closer to you, it’s kind of shocking and appalling. But the Black community, they not only experience the violence, they experience the policing. It’s not abstract for them. The fundamental humanization of it explains why there’s more support for reform.”

Put another way, for many white upper middle-class voters—even those who are progressive—they favor reform over there, when the threat is away from them and they are safe and secure in their homes of privilege.

What we learned is that white upper middle-class voters run from reform when they perceive it as a threat to their affluence and comfort, and that’s why reform has succeeded in places like Philadelphia and the like but not San Francisco.

Smith makes one other point that is important, “That’s one more thing going for progressive politics in Los Angeles, which could make getting rid of Gascón harder than getting rid of Boudin in San Francisco.

“While working-class people of color continue to be displaced from the city of LA, many remain in the county, relocating to Palmdale and other, cheaper high desert locales. Those priced out of San Francisco generally have no choice but to leave the city and the county, as the boundaries are basically the same.”

Even though housing costs are rising in Los Angeles, outstripping wages, it may not have the same impact as it did in San Francisco.

“There is time for those who want a progressive agenda to make sure that we don’t go the way of San Francisco,” Melina Abdullah said.

But again, there is a flip side to that—there are a lot of more conservative areas in Los Angeles than there are in San Francisco. So we’ll see how this plays out.

The post Commentary: Why San Francisco Could Not Be the Finest Check Case for Progressivism appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

It’s been a little over four months since I took on the role of Head of Vehicle Information at Manheim. And during that time I thought a lot about light. Maybe it’s because we’re finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel with advances in COVID vaccines.

And maybe it’s because we’ve been moving at the speed of light in digital wholesale for more than a year.

Our customers have not been afraid to share their feelings about this transition to a more digital environment. I’ve heard appreciation for our quick response, and I’ve heard concerns about restricted access to personal viewing of inventory. The temporary loss of the ability to “kick the tires” and perform the “scratch and sniff” test detracted from customer confidence, who relied on their more traditional way of assessing inventory.

For some it was not easy to pull this rug out from under you right away. While the security of our customers, team members and industrial partners came even more to the fore, we also had to address the sudden lack of access that customers were used to.

With all of the challenges posed by COVID-19, what was positive was how quickly it accelerated technological innovation – and adoption – in wholesale. What would have taken the industry years, we achieved in weeks and months instead.

One of the areas that was most in focus, at least for us in Manheim, was vehicle information – from condition reports to pictures and beyond that, buyers get the information they need to make good purchasing decisions.

While I now ran vehicle information for Manheim, at the time of the COVID hit GM, I was in Manheim St. Pete, a location that specializes in cars under $ 5,000. Smaller independent dealers, who tend to tend to sell more physically, have been our main customers.

Working with them during the sudden transition to all-digital gave me so many valuable insights into what our customers really need to not just buy digitally, but prefer to buy that way. And it all comes back to giving them the same level of detail about vehicles online that they can get in person.

The great thing about digital is that it can give merchants even more information – more efficiently – than they can get in a physical setting. But the industry still has a little way to go to get there.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, and improving the imaging is the first way we can give our customers the extra information they need. In 2020, we more than doubled the number of images in online health reports, introducing more angles of the vehicle inside and out.

We have also established an advisory board to meet our customers’ needs as we continue to develop our vehicle information offering, and have implemented a quality health report program that includes extensive training of inspectors and enhanced review of health reports.

Our customers have also noticed the difference. In a recent Manheim survey, around 60% of customers said they had noticed changes. In most cases, it mentions additional images, more consistency, and better descriptions. And a vast majority of them claim that these changes have made them more confident about understanding a vehicle’s condition.

But we don’t stop there.

Our acquisition of Fyusion, an incredibly innovative, industry-leading computer vision company based in San Francisco, will of course bring an unprecedented level of vehicle imaging and insight. In the near future, however, we are preparing to make some big changes to our digital platforms that we are sure our customers will celebrate. Things like better quality imaging and the collection of more mechanical and safety data – everything our customers want and need to know when buying wholesale vehicles.

Right now it’s no secret that condition reports are probably the most criticized thing in auctions these days. My goal in the near future is to get her to at least second place.

However, my ultimate goal is to make sure customers love health reports, rely on them for more insights than they can otherwise get, and ultimately shop online more safely than in person.

It may seem like a lofty goal right now, but I firmly believe it is achievable. That’s why I was excited to take the lead in vehicle information. And now, a little over four months into the role, I’m more certain than ever.

The work of improving not only the quantity but also the quality of vehicle information is an ongoing journey. But as long as we’re moving at the speed of light, we’ll be there sooner than anyone could have predicted a year ago.

Brad Burns is AVP for Vehicle Information in Manheim

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