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- [00:01]
Eli Lake
When I think about the recent tragedy of the California fires and the questions we all have about how, why and what went wrong, there's one story I keep coming back to. It was told to me by my friend and colleague and Free Press TGIF columnist Nellie Bowles.
- [00:19]
Nellie Bowles
There was an effort to clear fire roads around the Palisades and replace some of the wooden power poles with steel ones. Once that effort was started, a hobbyist, botanist and hiker was going for a hike around the Palisades and saw some people clearing away a little shrub to make for a better fire road and to install those new power poles. Now this hiker sees these guys pulling out this shrub called a milk vetch, and he freaks out and he's like, this milk vetch is a beautiful thing. And it turns out it's somewhat rare and it's just there and there's oh, oh, how many had to be killed to make this fire road? He gathers up a bunch of like, so called environmental groups, they send some letters, and it basically stops the entire fire prevention program in the Palisades.
- [01:17]
Eli Lake
To me, this captures something indelible about California politics and how its path to ruin is paved with the noblest intentions. This is a state where the Forest Service can be prevented from conducting common sense fire prevention to save an indigenous weed. And it's no longer a state that knows how to protect itself. Last month, LA burned, and it was one of the most predictable disasters on record. A century of development on land whose ecosystems were forged in wildfire. Yet years of increasingly regular blazes, months of low rainfall. The National Weather Service even issued an explicit warning this was coming. Unfortunately, when Chekhov's fire did arrive, it collided with what now appears to be a generationally inept political class.
- [02:14]
Karen Bass
Do you owe citizens an apology for being absent while their homes were burning? Do you regret cutting the fire department budget by millions of dollars? Madam, may have you nothing to say today? Have you absolutely nothing to say to the citizens today?
- [02:33]
Eli Lake
Karen Bass, the Los Angeles mayor, who at the time of the fire was in Ghana of all places, didn't have much to say to the citizens. Everything that could go wrong did. A key reservoir was being repaired when the blazes began. The hydrants didn't have enough pressure. The state hadn't cleared the dry vegetation near the hills of the Palisades in Malibu that is kindling for these seasonal wildfires. Now, you can't blame local officials for the weather, but it seemed to most observers that Bass and Governor Gavin Newsom had created their own perfect storm of Californian incompetence. What is the situation with the water, obviously, and Palisades ran out last night in the hydrants. I was trying the firefighter on this block.
- [03:17]
Michael Patrick
They left because there was no water in the hydrant here.
- [03:20]
Eli Lake
The local folks are trying to figure that out.
- [03:22]
Michael Patrick
I mean, just when you have a system that's not dissimilar to what we've seen in other extraordinarily large scale fires, whether it be pipe electricity.
- [03:30]
Eli Lake
Of course, the disaster matters most to the families that live there, the people who lost loved ones and watched their homes and businesses turn to ash. But it also matters in a different way, because when California burns, so does our vision of the future. California was once a place where industry and imagination locked arms and showed how great the human experiment could be. It secured democracy by manufacturing and engineering the weapons that won the Second World War. It built the dream factory of Hollywood. It gave us Silicon Valley and personal computing. It gave us Dr. Dre and Dr. Strangelove. Our vision of what it is to be a human would be incomparable today had the most ardent pioneers never reached the ocean and been forced to settle on the West Coast. Without California, there are no hippies, no tech bros, no gangsters in our rap, no hardcore in our punk, no boys in our beach, and no movie stars. And when we surrender California, we surrender the dreams that built the American century.
- [04:37]
Michael Patrick
My name is Michael Patrick. I'm 76 years old. I was born in Riverside, Illinois. My girlfriend and I hitchhiked out here in 1968 because we were hippies and we ended up in Venice Beach. Oh my God. It was perfect back then.
- [04:53]
Eli Lake
And yet something has gone very wrong. California has surrendered because the fires are indicative of something rotten at the core of the state. And to understand how this rot began, we have to travel back to the 1970s. This was a decade of despair and decadence, not just for la, but particularly and especially for San Francisco, as it became the petri dish for the values that now define the state's politics and governance. It all began in a mayoral election in 1975, when an affable smoothie of a politician formed a new kind of coalition that included the radicals and dreamers who until then had been locked out of power. It's a story of sex, drugs, scandal and terror. And if you want to understand how Democrats began to accommodate a radical left that has burrowed deep into the state's bureaucracy, courts and political machines, look no further than this revolution 50 years ago. Because as bad as things seem today, trust me, the San Fran 70s were worse.
- [05:58]
Michael Patrick
I know it seems we have no hope, can't take it anymore. But if you know our history, we've all been here before. America's been on the brink of going straight to hell.
- [06:12]
Eli Lake
I'm Eli Lake, and you're listening to Breaking History. After the break, the story of how California learned to stop fighting the freaks and invited them into City Hall.
- [06:33]
Michael Patrick
The psychedelic shop on H Street is the shrine of the hippie movement. Started just over a year ago, it spreads the gospel of a dreamy new utopia based on brotherhood and love and LSD.
- [06:44]
Eli Lake
The year is 1967. It's the summer of Love. And its spiritual home is a neighborhood in San Francisco known as the Hate. A phonetic irony, I suppose. It was a magnet for the nation's dreamers, veterans from Vietnam, fans of the new psychedelic rock. It was there that America was introduced to the hippie. A young person with long unkempt hair who hallucinated on lsd, maybe did yoga, read Eastern philosophy for a hot minute. They were like a tourist attraction.
- [07:14]
Michael Patrick
At this point, we are going to leave Golden Gate park to go into and take a slight sojourn through the Haight Ashbury district of San Francisco. This is the new.
- [07:27]
Eli Lake
We are listening to extraordinary 1967 footage of a guided tour of the new utopia in the Haight. Such was the culture shock of these naked spliff smokers that groups of squares would ride tour buses through the district on a sociological safari, gawking at Sodom and Gomorrah, stockpiling salacious anecdotes for the next church social.
- [07:49]
Michael Patrick
This is a protest against the middle and upper class people of San Francisco, in fact, of the area. It is the belief of the people who live within the area that we, the middle class or the upper class, have done a very, very po job in running our government and our way of life.
- [08:11]
Eli Lake
It was a wild time. The Haight Ashbury hippies were remodeling their little corner of society. Weed plants were everywhere. There were communes that cooked meals for anyone who wanted. A group called the Diggers opened a store where everything was free.
- [08:25]
Michael Patrick
We're trying to start a pilot program here. It's called a Digger Feed in. You go home, you cook whatever you can cook at your kitchen and you bring it out and you serve it to hungry people on the street. And if everybody does it, we'll all have a bowl.
- [08:37]
Eli Lake
They even established a free clinic to handle the inevitable sexually transmitted diseases and bad trips that accompanied this bacchanal lifestyle. But this high point wouldn't last. Haight Ashberry became a magnet for the lost, the reviled and the damaged, with runaways, pimps, biker gangs and smack dealers flooding the Mecca of free love. Indeed, before his followers menaced the Hollywood Hills, Charles Manson hung his hat in Haight Ashbury. The first wave of hippie visionaries who flocked to San Francisco in 1967 had hoped to spread peace. But the war in Vietnam raged and the local politics came to reflect this. In an explosion of violence, San Francisco began to resemble a war zone.
- [09:19]
Michael Patrick
I will not come out at night because I had too many bad experiences. As I say, when my husband was in the hospital, I took a taxi home and I lived just two blocks away.
- [09:33]
Eli Lake
The clip we just heard were citizens responding to the Zebra Killers, a spree of murders conducted by black militants associated with a local Nation of Islam Mosque between 1973 and 1974. It was a twisted crime for such a tolerant city. Black Muslims murdering white citizens at random. At the height of the frenzy, San Franciscans were advised by the city at times and on some nights not to leave their homes. One of the first victims of the Zebra Killers was Art Agnos, a legislative aide to a progressive California assemblyman. In December 73, Agnos barely survived after being shot twice, returning to his car after meeting with constituents. By April 16, the next year, the zebra killers had killed 23 citizens. The mayor, Joseph Alioto, believed it was time to take extreme measures. He ordered the police to stop anyone, and I mean anyone, that resembled a nondescript illustration of a black man drawn from hazy witness recollections. It turned into a political crisis that led to protesters spitting on Aliotto in the street. Unbelievably, the Zebra Killers were not the only serial murderers plaguing San Francisco in 1974.
- [10:47]
Michael Patrick
Search goes on in San Francisco for the man known as the Zodiac Killer. The elements involved today included psychiatrists, astrologists and police guards for school buses.
- [10:58]
Eli Lake
The Zodiac Killer was a phenomenon, perhaps the most famous unsolved murder in American history.
- [11:04]
Michael Patrick
School children are nice targets. I shall wipe out a school bus some morning, shoot out the tires, and then pick off the kitties as they come bounding out. That was the threat of the Zodiac Killer. Now every day, police cars follow the buses, which would be likely targets, officers armed with shotguns.
- [11:22]
Eli Lake
He had killed five people in the late 60s, but by 1974, he had re emerged to haunt San Francisco by writing letters into the local paper, the San Francisco Chronicle. In one particularly gruesome message, he explained how he loved to hunt people because People are the most dangerous beasts. And that he believed in the afterlife, his murder victims would be his eternal slaves. As if the zebra and Zodiac killers were not enough, there's been a big.
- [11:51]
Michael Patrick
Kidnapping on the West Coast. The victim is Patricia Hearst, the daughter of newspaper executive Randolph Hearst. And a granddaughter of the legendary William Randolph Hearst. Richard Thrill.
- [12:01]
Eli Lake
What the hell was going on in San Francisco? The pot smoking longhairs had been replaced with kidnapping, racial murders and a serial killer taunting the city from within the pages of its own newspaper. The veneer between civilization and the jungle was peeling away. Mayor Joseph Elioto's reputation was in shambles. A change was coming to City Hall. George Moscone was a fun loving, charismatic California state senator. Who rose to be the majority leader. A known womanizer and late night socialite, he was a throwback to the era of hard drinking skirt chasers. Exemplified by Frank Sinatra's rat Pack in 1975. He was campaigning to be the mayor of his beloved San Francisco. And to do this, he was going to embrace the huge cultural shifts that were happening in the city. Here is a passage from David Talbot's History of the San Fran 70s season of the Witch. That describes Moscone's visit with a Haight Ashbury commune. Where the candidate would be given the ultimate Haight Ashbury test.
- [13:14]
Karen Bass
Moscone and his hippie hosts were seated around a massive communal table. As they began to discuss neighborhood issues. One of Calvin Welch's comrades fired up a pillow sized reefer. We were going to pass it around the table and see if that motherfucker takes a hit or not. Recalled Welch. As the smoldering joint came around to George Miller, Moscone's young aide and a future California congressman. The protective Miller tried to pass it over as boss to an aide on the other side of Moscone. Wait a minute. The candidate exclaimed, deftly intercepting the contraband. Moscone grabs the joint and takes a huge fucking hit. The whole room burst into applause. The candidate passed the test. The hate was in his column, of course.
- [13:59]
Eli Lake
Away from the blunt rotation, Moscone appealed to the traditional constituencies like the labor unions. But he also embraced legendary gay activist Harvey Milk. The environmentalists, hippies, nonconformist spiritual movements and other radicals who were on the outside looking in.
- [14:16]
Michael Patrick
We're going to spread the action to people whose names never appear in columns, who never appear in the society pages, but who are simply hard working, dedicated San Franciscans.
- [14:25]
Eli Lake
It was a political coalition as wild and experimental. As any of the art being made across California. At this Time. Here is how Moscone's friend and fellow politician, Willie Brown. Remembered the 1975 campaign nearly 40 years ago.
- [14:40]
Michael Patrick
Moscone was the change agent. You really had an active racial minority constituency. Going out to vote for Moscone. You had an environmental movement going out to vote for George Moscone. You had the elderly all for George Moscone. Whatever the progressive movement, if it existed at that time. Was for George Moscone.
- [15:09]
Eli Lake
The 1975 Merrill election in San Francisco. Was the first race under a new campaign finance law. That limited spending to just over $120,000. For a populace like Moscone, this was a great advantage. Because it tempered the influence. Of the wealthy downtown real estate developers and lawyers. Who had powered conservative campaigns in 1967 and 1971. Moscone's rival in the race. Was a family friend. The conservative populist John Barbigliata. Barbigliata himself was a realtor. Who wanted to return San Francisco. To something that resembled the city before the hippie and weirdo invasion began. In the late 1960s. As a member of the city's Board of Supervisors. He had passed legislation to ban bottomless strip clubs. And he favored enforcing the local laws against sodomy and gay sex. In a runoff on December 11, 1975. Moscone won a nail biter against Barbigliata. With a margin of 4,443 votes. He soon got to work. Leaving his very progressive mark on the city he adored.
- [16:13]
Michael Patrick
Victory Tonight. It is the beginning of our campaign. The beginning of a very long road forward. The beginning of efforts to make San Francisco as it once was. The absolute greatest city in the world.
- [16:38]
Eli Lake
His victory speech declared a new politics for his city. He promised that San Francisco would be a place. Where gay citizens could roam the streets without being harassed. Now, this may sound like boilerplate today. But 50 years ago it was revolutionary. And many of Moscone's moves were admirable. He appointed Harvey Milk to the powerful Board of Permit Appeals. The first time an openly gay person. Had ever served in such a public position. In San Francisco. Or, for that matter, anywhere else in the States. He got rid of the mayor's limousine. And announced that his door would always be open. For any San Franciscan that wanted to talk. Moscone appointed Charles Gane, a so called sociological cop. To be the chief of police. And one of Gein's first moves was to remove the American flag. That hung proudly outside the commissioner's office. And replace it with a plant. He encouraged gay cops to come out of the closet. And he issued an edict to the force to stop arresting the city's hookers. Effectively legalizing prostitution overnight. Charles Gayne was not your classic cop. And the rank and file of the SFPD were deeply suspicious and downright contemptuous of this liberal. Gein didn't help himself. You know, my favorite example of this self inflicted wound. Was when he attended something known as the Hooker's Ball in the fall of 1977. It was exactly what it sounds like. A giant party at the city's Civic Auditorium. With 10,000 revelers and prostitutes. Gain. San Francisco's Chief of police, don't forget. Was photographed wedged between one of the city's most notorious madams. And someone calling herself Wonder Whore. Dressed in the superhero costume with a dildo in her holster. And Moscone still stuck with him after that little scandal.
- [18:33]
Michael Patrick
Maybe I'm being immodest. I think that we gritted our teeth and said, look, we judged the police chief by what the realities are. And what appears to be the fact. Let's see if the people won't rally to him. And I think at the moment they are.
- [18:45]
Eli Lake
Most police hated Mayor Moscone as well. Particularly after he signed a new consent decree with the Justice Department. Requiring the city to hire more minorities into a police force Dominated by Italian and Irish cops. Known colloquially as the Garlic Gaelic Coalition. In contrast to Moscone, the attitude of the old school San Francisco cops. Was best captured in the 1971 classic Dirty Harry. Where Clint Eastwood played Inspector Harry Callahan. Who doesn't care for the mayor's policy because he's got his own policy.
- [19:17]
Michael Patrick
I don't want any more trouble like.
- [19:18]
Eli Lake
You had last year in the Fillmore district.
- [19:21]
Michael Patrick
Understand? That's my policy. Yeah, well, when an adult male is chasing a female with intent to commit rape, I shoot the bastard. That's my policy.
- [19:31]
Eli Lake
George Moscone was exactly the kind of do gooder liberal that Dirty Harry despised. The mayor's political philosophy was forged in the civil rights struggle. Volunteering to register southern Black voters. In 1965, as a state senator, he became one of the most potent foes of Governor Ronald Reagan. And some of his signature legislation Sound like standard issued democratic agenda items today. Such as decriminalizing possession of small amounts of marijuana. And decriminalizing gay sex between consenting adults. And despite being a devout Catholic, Moscone supported abortion rights. By the time he announced his run for mayor in December of 1974. Moscone had honed a reputation as a champion of the causes that Would later become the key to his party's ruling coalition. In both California and the nation. He was a real pioneer. Moscone came to power in 75 because he was willing to share power with the left wing. Street organizers and political activists relegated to the margins. Before his predecessor, Joe Aliotto, sent SWAT teams to the hate communes to pick one example, George Moscone shared a joint with the commune on a campaign stop. Now, to build a new San Francisco, George Moscone was willing to work with anyone. And I mean anyone.
- [20:59]
Michael Patrick
Now, as we meditate, God is love. Love is a healing remedy. We're going to reach out to areas.
- [21:11]
Eli Lake
Like, for example, the Reverend Jim Jones, the leader of the People's Temple. Jim Jones, the mass murderer responsible for for the death of 909 people. The same Jim Jones given a job in George Moscone's administration. And the same Jim Jones whose cult acolytes Placed Moscone on the mayoral throne of San Francisco. Now, outside of wartime, few in America's bloody history. Have been as responsible for as many deaths as Jim Jones. The expression to drink the Kool Aid Was born into American English. After he forced his followers to drink a fruit flavored cyanide soda. In the jungles of Guyana in 1978. But only a few years before that, he was just another member of Moscone's misfit coalition. Jones was considered a progressive leader In a very progressive city. That his church relocated to in the early 1970s. It was an integrated church that catered to the poorest people in the city. And even though Jim Jones was white, the majority of his followers were black. He dressed his sermons in the vocabulary of social justice. And other radicals of the era, Like Angela Davis and Black Panther leader Bobby Seale. Considered Jim Jones to be an ally. To many, the idea of a diverse religious organization. Was a thrilling addition. To San Francisco's progressive social cocktail. But Jones was not interested in progress. He was interested in power. And he cultivated relationships with politicians by doing them favors. One of these politicians was George Moscone. In the very close runoff election against John Barbigliata. Jim Jones bussed hundreds of members of the People's Temple. From all over California. To vote in precinct after precinct from Asconee. Here is what the Reverend's son, Jim Jones, Jr. Several decades later told Talbot for his book, Season of the Witch.
- [23:13]
Karen Bass
We loaded up all 13 of our buses with maybe 70 people on each bus. And we had those buses rolling nonstop up and down the coast into San Francisco. The day before the election. We had people going from precinct to precinct to vote. So could we have been the force that tipped the election to Moscone? Absolutely. Slam dunk. He won by 4,000 votes. I'm sorry, but I've got to give my father credit for that.
- [23:40]
Eli Lake
After the election, Moscone returned the favor. He first appointed Jones to the powerful Housing Authority of San Francisco. And later made him the chairman. Moscone was not alone in his admiration. It seemed almost every major politician in San Francisco was an ally of Jim Jones. Harvey Milk, a hero of the gay rights movement, Considered Jones a friend. Governor Jerry Brown praised Jones work with the community. Rosalynn Carter, Jimmy Carter's wife and the first lady at the time. Appeared with him at a Democratic fundraiser.
- [24:11]
Michael Patrick
Jones moved his church headquarters to San Francisco eight years ago. And aligned himself with some of the city's top politicians.
- [24:18]
Eli Lake
Here is Moscone ally Willie Brown. Explaining how so many of the political elite in San Francisco embraced Jones.
- [24:25]
Michael Patrick
There is no question, not one politician, to my knowledge. Who sought and received Mr. Jones's support. Reverend Jones's support. Ever question or the method of his running the church? I don't question the method of running a Catholic church. Or many of us don't question the method of running Delancey Street. Or any of the other organizations. That are highly disciplined. And that can deliver bodies. Unless there are some allegations presented. And the first allegations ever presented in a negative fashion on People's Temple. Were presented by an article in New West. Authored by Mr. Phil Tracy and Mr. Marshall Kildrop.
- [25:02]
Eli Lake
The article Willie Brown is referencing was so damning. That in 1978. Jones fled America. To join over a thousand of his flock on a Guiannan plantation. California relatives of Jones followers. Were alarmed by the sudden emigration of their family members. And appealed for help. And so, on November 18, 1978. California Congressman Leo Ryan. Accompanied by a group of journalists. Went to visit the People's Temple in Guyana.
- [25:28]
Michael Patrick
A California congressman, three American journalists and a woman Were gunned down. Murdered by a gang of fanatics. Congressman Leo Ryan had gone.
- [25:36]
Eli Lake
This was endgame for Jim Jones. And he announced to his followers. That it was time to kill themselves. In what he called a final revolutionary act. Those who refused were made to drink the poison anyway. Including hundreds of children. Chillingly, Jones recorded audio of the whole barbaric event. You can hear screaming parents and their writhing, dying children. While Jones preaches over a speaker. Long before that, San Francisco's liberal political elite should have known better. By the time Jones moved his flock. From San Francisco's People's Temple to Guyana. There were enough defectors to begin to tell the whole story of his twisted cult. Here is one defector talking to San Francisco's kqed After the world learned of the mass suicide.
- [26:23]
Michael Patrick
To leave People's Temple. You had to decide you'd rather die. Than continue to go there and see the beatings and the mistreatment of people. The rip off of senior black people from their homes, all their property. You had to decide that you were ready to die when you left the church.
- [26:41]
Eli Lake
On closer inspection, Moscone's links to this disastrous cult were even worse. His administration allowed for one of Jones's allies. A man named Tim Stone. To be placed in City hall as a deputy district attorney. When a small team at the San Francisco Police Department. Began their investigation of the People's Temple. Conducting sensitive interviews with defectors. Who shared horror stories of humiliating sexual rituals. Corporal punishment of children. And a scheme to steal the pensions of church members. Stone leaked the information directly to Jim Jones. Who retaliated against the whistleblowers. There can be few political scandals. As explosive as the aiding and abetting of a murderous cult. In the persecution of its members in return for electioneering. Yet this dark side of Moscone's legacy. Is often airbrushed out of the history. And the reason is simple. Just nine days after the massacre in Guyana. Future Senator Dianne Feinstein appeared at City hall to make this announcement.
- [27:41]
Michael Patrick
Both Mayor Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk have been shot and killed.
- [27:53]
Eli Lake
A double assassination of two beloved political leaders. In those circumstances, it's understandable that many prefer to focus on the barriers Moscone and Milk tore down. But that's not the whole story. Moscone's new politics did make great strides for gay rights. It did give a voice to powerless segments of society. But it also invited a monster into its coalition. And utterly failed the victims of the People's Temple. There is a parallel to the struggles of modern California Democrats. Just as Moscone's compassion for the downtrodden. Blinded him to the darkness of the People's Temple. Today compassion for addicts and vagrants. Blind Los Angeles and San Francisco leaders. From seeing the darkness of open air drug markets and tent cities. In a decade of serial killers, death, crime and domestic terror. It was shocking that the man behind the worst assassination in San Francisco's history. Was a conservative, clean cut former cop and firefighter named Dan White. He was angry that the mayor had replaced him on the board of City Supervisors. At least that's what he said at first, says the Mayor told him people.
- [29:10]
Michael Patrick
In his district no longer wanted him to represent them.
- [29:13]
Eli Lake
And a replacement would be announced at a press conference later that morning.
- [29:17]
Michael Patrick
Just all the time knowing he's going to go out and lie to the press. And tell him, you know, I wasn't a good supervisor. And that people didn't want me. And then that was it, and I just shot him. Dan White left through a back door.
- [29:37]
Eli Lake
Much later, White would admit that he was actually motivated. By what he saw as the moral rot in San Francisco. White's confession on that tape. Is crucial to understanding the conclusion of this bizarre and tragic tale. Because the man who committed the most heinous murder in San Francisco's history. And confessed the very same day. Pretty much got away with it.
- [29:59]
Michael Patrick
Sources telling me today that when Dan White went into one of these depressive states. He would stay in the house, lie in bed and watch television. The interesting note is what he ate while he was in one of these moods. Foods with high sugar content. Like Coke, Pepsi, cupcakes and Twinkies. The effect of this sugar on his mind and body. Could be key testimony in the Dan White defense.
- [30:25]
Eli Lake
Yes, that was his argument in court. Which became known as the Twinkie defense. With the help of a food scientist peddling a dodgy theory. That a drop in blood sugar could cause temporary insanity. White made the case that he was not in his right mind. The day he pulled the trigger. And one of those only in California moments. It actually worked.
- [30:50]
Michael Patrick
The verdict's just come in for the killings of George Moscone and Harvey Milk. Voluntary manslaughter on both counts.
- [30:57]
Eli Lake
Dan White ended up getting only five years in prison. And San Francisco suffered its own bout of temporary insanity. When the verdict was announced. Gay supporters of Harvey Milk in the Castro district. Began a march to City Hall. As more and more joined, they began breaking windows and smashing police cars. It was a fitting end to a decade of chaos. After the assassinations. Dianne Feinstein, the city supervisor who found Milk's body. Was named mayor. And presided over a period of both calm and plagued. The AIDS crisis was arriving. And the bacchanalian revelry of the San Francis came to a somber close. Feinstein undid some of Moscone's reforms. She fired Police Chief Charles Gane. After she won an election in her own right, for example. But California's Democratic politics had changed for the good. No longer would gays, environmentalists, radicals and women's groups. Be kept outside the halls of power. Looking in, they became the new ruling coalition for the Democratic Party. A Victory for representational diversity. At the same time, though, the double murder at City hall deprived the city of a reckoning over the scandal of the people's temple. Without accountability. The new California Democrats were denied a teaching moment on the downside of an extreme kind of tolerance. It's a similar blinker tolerance that leads today's Californian leaders to save the milk veg plant at the expense of common sense forest management. Or that stops the police in Los Angeles from catching petty criminals. Much like Moscone's initial alliance with Jim Jones. This tolerance is motivated by the noblest intentions. But it leads to hell nonetheless. The Jim Jones catastrophe should have been, by all normal political metrics, the end state of Moscone's progressive coalition. But ironically, perhaps the death of the mayor enshrined the Democrats in power for another half century. Similarly, today's fires, by all normal political metrics, should be the end state of today's progressive California coalition. But will anything change after the break.
- [33:15]
Michael Patrick
We have the highest marginal tax rate in America. Higher than almost all other states. And soon. Greenland. What is included for that? Breadsticks. Because it clearly doesn't cover fire. That's government's job. Protect us from crime, violence, theft, fire. I'm not saying Alabama would have done better with fires by fighting them with prayer in school. But look me in the eye and tell me anyone could have done worse. We just got our ass kicked by fire. Something Neanderthals fought to a tie.
- [33:59]
Eli Lake
It's 50 years since Moscone's revolution. And in that time California has become a one party state. After Moscone, surviving Democrats became the new establishment. Many of the Republican voters who helped elect governors like Ronald Reagan in the 1960s moved out of the state as taxes rose and the quality of service services declined. Willie Brown, Moscone's longtime political ally, would emerge as one of the most powerful political bosses in the state. Eventually mentoring and briefly dating a young prosecutor named Kamala Harris. After two terms as mayor, Dianne Feinstein would be elected to the U.S. senate. A seat she held long into her senescence. Until she died in office at the age of 90. The Democrats became the mono party of California. This deprived the state of the tempering benefits of real political competition. If you want to understand why California keeps doubling down on the politics of good intentions, just consider that Democrats have controlled both houses of the state legislature for 29 years. In fact, Democrats have controlled both chambers for all but three of the last 55 years.
- [35:08]
Michael Patrick
I think most people feel that the.
- [35:10]
Eli Lake
Old Democratic Party that had alternated power with the Republicans in the 1950s and 60s, felt that they now had constituencies due partly to illegal immigration and partly to the departure of millions of people from California. This is Hoover Institution scholar and renowned historian Victor Davis Hanson. So you had a lot of money in this coastal corridor, A lot of poverty and no middle buffer in between. And the Democratic party just started to accommodate these radical agendas and felt they inherited a rich infrastructure from their grandparents and water, highways, airports, universities, and they could leave it on autopilot without reinvesting or maintaining it. It's taken a long time for this process to play out. And this is in part because of the tech boom of the 1990s and 2000s. In some ways, the infusion of trillions of dollars into Silicon Valley masked over the politics of best intentions. But the progressive agenda was still there, even in the boom times in the 2010s.
- [36:17]
Nellie Bowles
All of a sudden, the tech companies are starting to be headquartered there. The tech workers are starting to live in the city.
- [36:23]
Eli Lake
Nellie Bowles was working for the San Francisco Chronicle at the time. She remembers the boom year as well.
- [36:29]
Nellie Bowles
The city was getting richer and richer and richer. And so it was like with all this money, let's get all these neighborhoods great, let's clean up the streets, let's make it so it's not dangerous across wide swaths. And so a lot of what I was covering in my early 20s was the rise of these neighborhoods and art galleries opening and coffee shops opening and new incredible creative spaces popping up all over and places that before had been really depressed and had a lot of just like pawn shops and payday lending storefronts. As soon as coffee shops started opening, they started to get protested. Almost immediately there started to be pushback. That this was horrific gentrification. Basically as soon as progress, actual progress started happening in the city, the so called progressives of the city decided it was their number one enemy.
- [37:29]
Eli Lake
The renaissance fueled by the tech fortunes didn't last. By the end of the 2010s, the city, like California itself, was struggling.
- [37:38]
Michael Patrick
There are 65 reports of human poop.
- [37:41]
Karen Bass
Littering the streets and alleys every single.
- [37:43]
Michael Patrick
Day in San Francisco. The city will soon have a so called poop patrol out on the streets.
- [37:50]
Eli Lake
Caught on camera, they are literally ransacking a San Francisco Walgreens. Look at the aisles right there and they don't even care that there is video of them.
- [38:00]
Michael Patrick
City leaders are uniting to combat the.
- [38:02]
Karen Bass
Car break in epidemic.
- [38:04]
Michael Patrick
And their plan involves more warning signs.
- [38:06]
Eli Lake
That combination of dysfunctional government and high taxes is just not sustainable. So many of the tech titans responsible for the renaissance have begun to leave. Hewlett Packard's done it, Oracle's done it, and Elon Musk of Tesla has threatened to do it a couple of times, but just filed the paperwork saying his company's move was actually complete just yesterday. I'm talking about leaving California for greener pastures in the form of lower taxes and less regulation. But what about Los Angeles? Well, the same mono party that is losing the corporations that revived the Bay Area has empowered frivolous leaders that prioritize compassion projects over basic governance in the City of Angels.
- [38:48]
Michael Patrick
When life is hard for some Angelenos, it affects all Angelenos. And this is why tomorrow morning I will start my first day as mayor at the city's Emergency Operations center, where my first act as mayor will be to declare a state of emergency on homelessness. A state of emergency on homelessness.
- [39:19]
Eli Lake
This mono party has not produced competent leaders. Karen Bass, the woman Angelenos voted in as mayor in 2022, said her first priority would be dealing with the 10 cities that plagued LA. In and of itself, that's fine, but the plan was to help the homeless get temporary housing at low end motels. In a city with rising and rising rents, it was very poorly considered. The homeless caseworkers that were employed by the city through NGOs to enact the plan had to sleep in their cars at times for stretches because those rents were so high. And even more disastrously, while Bass was funding motels for the homeless, she was cutting the fire department budget. Good intentions again, paving the way to disaster. Just listen to this now infamous public service announcement from the LA Fire Department, from its deputy in charge of equity and human resources. You want to see somebody that responds to your house, your emergency, whether it's a medical call or a fire call that looks like you, it gives that person a little bit more ease knowing that somebody might understand their situation better. Is she strong enough to do this or. You couldn't carry my husband out of a fire, which my response is, he got himself in the wrong place if I have to carry him out of a fire. By the way, including benefits, this woman earns nearly $447,000 a year. This is the downstream effect of a political machine that elevates mediocre ex radicals like Karen Bass to leadership.
- [40:51]
Karen Bass
It should itself be an indictment of a certain type of democratic politics. This very unremarkable six term or so congressman. Yeah, she went into state politics and this activist class got those jobs. Whether in the professoriate or into politics.
- [41:08]
Eli Lake
This is Matt Welch, editor at large for Reason magazine and native Angeleno.
- [41:14]
Karen Bass
Karen Bass is more, as my friend Ken Lane put it, like an assistant DMV manager with an activist background. And just kind of that deer in the headlights look that she had at the airport tarmac when confronted by a middlingly hostile reporter is pretty accurate. I mean, just watch her performance at press conferences here. I don't know how you become an unremarkable politician having served in government for as long as she has, but that's it. And I think mono parties produce this type of mediocrity.
- [41:44]
Eli Lake
So as the fires finally die down, the voters of California have a choice. Will they continue to empower the mono party that has failed them? A coalition of dreamers and radicals that have run the state into the ground with the best of intentions? A mono party that sends life coaches to tent cities and saves the milk veg at the expense of the Palisades? Or will they demand a change?
- [42:07]
Michael Patrick
My name is Juan Sepovera. I'm a UPS driver and I deliver.
- [42:11]
Eli Lake
Here in this local area. Do you feel safe still in la?
- [42:16]
Michael Patrick
Well, now I do feel safe because.
- [42:18]
Eli Lake
Mistakes were pointed out and now there's.
- [42:21]
Michael Patrick
A lot of accountability. And if there's not accountability, people gotta make sure someone is held accountable for their mistakes. Because something at this catastrophic size, someone has to take accountability for that.
- [42:34]
Eli Lake
There is reason to hope. In Los Angeles, the decriminalizer District Attorney George Gascon lost his reelection in November. London Breed, the mayor of San Francisco, was sent packing as well. And in 2022, voters had had enough of progressive District Attorney Chesup Odin's soft on crime approach. He was recalled with 55% of the vote. Last month, the publisher of the Los Angeles Times said he regrets the paper's endorsement of Karen Bass in 2022. I hope the trend continues because if the fires are California's final act, it's not just a tragedy for the largest state in our union. It's the end of an American dream that has sustained our great Republic for nearly 200 years. So I'm rooting for California, as I hope all Americans are, to find its way back to the greatness that has so enriched our country and the world. Thanks for listening to Breaking History. If you like this episode, if you learned something, if you disagreed with something, or if it simply sparked a new understanding of our present moment, please share it with your friends and family and use it to have a conversation of your own. And if you want to support breaking history. There's just one way to do it. Go to the Free press at the fb p.com and become a subscriber today. See you next time.
- [44:01]
Michael Patrick
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