Right-wing propaganda from CNN is exactly what we don't need.

“What happened … to San Francisco?” [urgent violin music].

“Can the city … be saved?”

“There are no rules there are no consequences!” an interviewee shouts, as if he’s currently being held at gunpoint. A flash of footage shows a crying elderly Asian woman who’s been attacked. You’ve got your standard video of drug users nodding out, rows of tents, shattered windows. We’re told the city is in the midst of an unprecedented crime wave.

“The Whole Story … with Anderson Cooper …”

No, it’s actually like … 4 percent of the story. I really don’t know why CNN is bothering. Fox News has been slugging lies about San Francisco as a bellwether for the dangers of progressivism for at least 5 years now. Why does Anderson Cooper have to do it, too? The toxic sludge peddled by ratings-greedy cable then trickles down to the lazy local stations, completing the ecosystem of media misinformation.

From KRON:

The episode will cover the city’s issues of homelessness, mental illness and drug addiction. CNN’s Sara Sidner interviewed Mayor London Breed and former Mayor Willie Brown.

This comes about a week after numerous retailers announced they will close their downtown San Francisco locations — most notably the Nordstrom inside the Westfield Mall. Many of these retailers cited safety concerns for their customers and employees as a reason for leaving the city.

Last year, San Francisco recorded 620 accidental drug overdose deaths in 2022, according to data from the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner.

Elon Musk even called violent crime in San Francisco “horrific.” In 2020, the city ranked 14th out of 23 cities with a population of over 750,000 for violent crime rate.

The city has an overdose crisis, like the rest of the country, because the drug markets are flooded with fentanyl. Chesa Boudin got blamed for every man and woman nodding off on the sidewalk. With Brooke Jenkins in office, however, the office of the DA has absolutely nothing to do with overdose deaths or crime for that matter.

The big retailers are closing because the tech geeks work from home and order everything online. You see delivery guys carrying Starbucks. Why the fuck would a 25-year-old working in his pajamas go to Nordstroms?

Whole Foods downtown closed too—leaving customers with only 8 other Whole Foods to choose from. No one who can afford it is being deprived of their organic quinoa.

And the grand finale:

Elon Musk even called violent crime in San Francisco “horrific.”

What does Musk think about Medieval poetry? Does he have an opinion on the best crochet stich? What about the right balance between cardio and strength training? Marine biology?

Why the fuck would you cite Elon Musk in a story about crime and homelessness and not, like, a criminologist and homeless outreach worker?

In 2020, the city ranked 14th out of 23 cities with a population of over 750,000 for violent crime rate.

Unlike most other parts of the country violent crime remained steady during the pandemic and remains relatively low. When a small city is ranked 14th worst in violent crime out of twenty three, generally that means that 13 cities are more violent. Why isn’t CNN going to those cities?

This would all just be very stupidly funny except for two things that make it dangerous: one, the narrative that San Francisco is a Hellscape is deftly weaponized by conservative to undermine progressive policy. Usually conservative fanatics have to do the work of vilifying gays, or immigrants, or trans people, but here “liberal”outlets are just giving them a gift-wrapped story.

Two, this narrative doesn’t just conflate homelessness, drug use, and violent crime—it presents them as identical, practically interchangeable. And that’s how you get Jordan Neely choked to death on the subway. Yes, his record indicated that he had been violent in the past. But everyone’s wondering why no one stopped Daniel Penny (probably because they thought Neely must be a serious danger for a buff marine to tackle him) and why for fucks sake Penny kept the chokehold for so long after Neely was already on the ground (fear of violence, probably, and also the under reported fact that it took police 10-15 minutes to arrive, even though Eric Adams put 1,200 more transit cops on the subway for public safety.

Meanwhile, the New York Post just did this:

Why don’t they hunt down Neely’s family members and just spit in their faces? It would be more respectful than juxtaposing Neely’s record with a snow job about how “inclusive” and “calm” and “helpful” “Danny” is.