The Phoenix Review is a weekly analysis of the right-wing forces shaping local politics through campaign spending. Learn about the billionaire agenda in short takes from the Bay Area’s most thoughtful political observers.
In a few short months, state Senator Scott Wiener may come one step closer to his long-stated goal of replacing Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi and attaining a measure of the power that comes with succeeding a Democratic Party icon. Recent polling has Wiener leading what is expected to be a
Where did San Francisco’s environmental movement go? This seems a rather naive question since concern for the climate is everywhere in the city’s political language. But that saturation conceals a troubling shift. Environmentalism in San Francisco has not been defeated in public debate. Rather, despite the indisputable reality
A few weeks ago it was revealed that San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie spent about $1 million on consultants to burnish his image during his first year in office. While the tone of much of this coverage was critical, although conceding that it was perfectly legal, there is another way
One of the many ways the second Trump administration feels different from the first one is that this time it seems to be hitting San Francisco much more directly. During the first go around, whenever I was in San Francisco the horrors, excesses, cruelty, incompetence and crimes of Trump felt
JJ Smith became a local internet star by posting videos of drug users in the city’s long-troubled Tenderloin neighborhood. Smith’s videos became fodder for members of the Astroturf Network as it attacked progressive elected officials including former District Attorney Chesa Boudin and Supervisors Connie Chan, Aaron Peskin
Not long after the new year began, political provocateur and Pied Piper of right-wing San Francisco Garry Tan announced his departure from Astroturf group, GrowSF. Using his famously hyperactive X/Twitter account, Tan issued a terse message. He was abandoning local politics to spend more time in Washington, D.
As recently as a few years ago many would have identified San Francisco as the capital of liberal, or at least Democratic, America. The Vice-President was from the Bay Area and had gotten her start in elected office in San Francisco. One former mayor of San Francisco was the
Gil Duran was the first journalist to identify the strange right-wing beliefs being enthusiastically embraced by Bay Area tech leaders. The Network State, a scheme for tech elites to exit democracy and create their own sovereign states, served as a blueprint for their recent involvement in San Francisco elections.
Conway and Mehta contributed $50,000 each for a chance to cozy up to the newly elected mayor. Coming, as it does, on the heels of Lurie’s appointment of yet a third tech billionaire, OpenAI chief Sam Altman, as co-chair of his transition team, the news is worrying.
Mayor Daniel Lurie faces a choice. He can continue to embrace the doom loop narrative instrumental to his election victory, or declare victory it and take on the hard work of governance. The doom loop narrative reframed how much of the country and world viewed San Francisco politics, and sought,
Mayor Daniel Lurie raised eyebrows when he announced that Sam Altman, chief executive of OpenAI, as a co-chair for his transition team. Although many expected the mayor to follow through on his promises to seek advice from the tech industry as he attempted to “open San Francisco for business,
Biden’s comments, a bit late and more than a dollar short, were a clear shot at billionaire Elon Musk and the tech barons now surrounding President Donald Trump. Simply being extremely wealthy does not an oligarch make; undue influence does. Musk is a classic example, acting on Trump’s
Days after GrowSF’s Garry Tan announced his intention to step away from local politics, TogetherSF delivered similarly shocking news. The group, founded by billionaire Michael Moritz, said it would “merge” with Neighbors for a Better San Francisco, leaving TogetherSF’s chief executive Kanishka Cheng without a job. TogetherSF and
The message was brief, even by the standards of Twitter/X. “I am stepping back from GrowSF,” Tweeted Garry Tan, San Francisco centi-millionaire and political provocateur. “I’m spending more time on startups and AI and in DC this year.” With that, Tan announced his exit from city politics
Tech billionaire Michael Moritz’s media outlet, The San Francisco Standard, has frequently called Neighbors for a Better San Francisco, the Astroturf Network’s leading spender, the city’s “most powerful” political group. After the November 2024 election, that title rightly belongs to organized labor, particularly the Labor Council’s