The Phoenix Review provides analysis on the presence of right-wing forces shaping Bay Area politics. Learn more about the billionaire agenda in short takes from the Bay Area's most insightful political observers
Now that we are removed from the despotism of the last century, there is a tendency to deny the signs that signal the beginning of fascistic policy. The notion that the technocrats who influence and run our city are essentially benign is the result of careful branding, one that allows
You wouldn’t know it from corporate media, but there’s a mobilized, determined movement protecting San Francisco from a deepening crisis under a rising authoritarian government. Everyday people -- organizers, protestors, activists, and labor leaders -- are doing the real work of fighting back against the ethnic cleansing campaign
The brief saga of Isabella “Beya” Alcaraz in San Francisco reveals something about the mayoral administration of Daniel Lurie. For those of you who have been paying attention to other things in recent weeks, following the recall of Joel Engardio, the supervisor for District Four, which includes most of the
You’ve lived in the Mission for years. After getting laid off several months ago, you’ve applied for hundreds of jobs, facing rejection after rejection. Your savings are all but exhausted as the deadline for making rent fast approaches. One day, you pass a familiar building. A flyer on
Mayor Daniel Lurie recently debuted his nearly $16 billion budget for fiscal year 2025-2026. Mayor Lurie’s proposed budget will close an $800 million-plus budget deficit at the expense of the working class and the city’s most vulnerable. The People’s Budget Committee has released a list of the
A charitable way to describe the Democratic Party since Donald Trump’s victory in the November election is that they have struggled to find their sea legs. Many Democratic elected officials have been unable to develop either a message or strategy that inspires or mobilizes voters. A significant exception to
In just three months under Mayor Daniel Lurie’s leadership, San Francisco has seen a 50% spike in overdose deaths, with 192 lives lost in early 2025 alone. That’s nearly two people dying daily from preventable causes. We’re seeing too much of the same failed War on Drugs
Last October, grassroots organizations, families, and educators thwarted then-Mayor London Breed’s push to permanently shutter 13 public schools. School closures are a conservative tool used as further “evidence” that public-schools are “failing,” a justification for charter schools, vouchers and the eventual privatization of public education. How did San Francisco,
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Daniel Lurie has now been Mayor of San Francisco for just over 100 days. While most of the world’s attention has been on the catastrophic, chaotic, cruel and destructive first 100 days of Donald Trump’s second presidency, it is useful to reflect on Lurie’s first 100 days
Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson’s Abundance made a splash after its March release, earning a spot on the New York Times’ best seller list, a rarity for a book steeped in political wonkery. As weeks passed, it earned its share of critics — the Phoenix Project, among them — who rightly
It's a new day in San Francisco, according to Mayor Daniel Lurie, who recently touted the accomplishment from his first 100 days in office. Among them, was the new mayor’s abstinence-only agenda for substance-abuse treatment. This was a policy shift, not an accomplishment, but that nuance sometimes
Oakland’s West and flatlands neighborhoods overcame the power of big-money in the city’s Mayoral race as former Congresswoman Barbara Lee defeated former Oakland City Councilman Loren Taylor in the April 15th special election to appoint a mayor to finish the remainder of Sheng Thao's term, a
The release of Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson’s new book Abundance has set off a policy debate between what is generally called the center and the left, but from an economic perspective is better understood as between the left and the right. Much has been written critiquing the problems
Five shadowy Independent Expenditure Committees have raised and spent hundreds of thousands of dollars supporting Loren Taylor for Oakland Mayor and District 2-linked candidates ahead of the April 15 Special Election, public records show. Empower Oakland; Revitalize the East Bay; Better Bay Area; Responsible Leadership for Oakland; and Oakland Neighbors,
San Francisco’s newest mayor, Daniel Lurie, swept into office on a campaign centered around his outsider status. He presented his lack of experience in public service as an asset, distancing himself from a broken, crooked City Hall. Given San Francisco’s recent history with public corruption, specifically the Public