As the Trump administration deploys National Guard troops to American cities, first to ostensibly combat illegal immigration, and now ostensibly to stanch drug crime and civil unrest, San Francisco is back in its crosshairs. Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, a scion of the city’s establishment, briefly cheered on the idea. He’s subsequently “clarified” his comments as a call for more resources generally to help the city fight crime, but they were shocking to many and increased anxiety over the prospect of San Francisco being placed under some legally tenuous military occupation. But it’s important to remember that this is part of a larger political game, with national consequences.
San Francisco is now caught up in a larger, much longer struggle over the nature of American government, one that has been ongoing for at least half a century. In the wake of the struggles of the 1960s and ’70s, many conservative leaders refocused on changing American establishment institutions from within. One major inspiration was the infamous Lewis Powell Memo, in which the future Supreme Court justice, then a prominent business lawyer, urged the United States Chamber of Commerce to pursue greater influence and, eventually, the capture of the nation’s media, academia, courts, and bureaucracy.
Since that time, the conservative movement in America has devoted considerable energy to a long-term chess game to control these spheres. At the same time, liberal and left groups have relied on the Democratic Party to play checkers and achieve political victories. Up until recently, Democrats were able to prevent the worst by mobilizing enough voters to elect presidents and enough members of Congress to maintain oversight.
Unfortunately, in recent years, Democrats have lost their game. The team bench has collectively become too old and too overly self-aware from internal struggles, to the point that a recent Associated Press poll found that up to a third of Democratic voters thought the party was “weak, tepid, apathetic,” or “broken.” Combine this with creeping inflation driven by global supply chain disruptions, in part caused by the Covid-19 pandemic and the Ukraine war, and you have an economic situation with even less hope to go around and fewer electoral victories for Democrats.
Then came the rise of MAGA, as if the Tea Party, in its frenzy of Republican self-criticism, had decided to take a dip in the radioactive lagoon from a 1950s horror film and reemerge as mutants from a 1970s horror film who, upon rewatching, compel comparison to San Francisco Democrats. The only board game they can master is Tic-Tac-Toe. Still, their gameplay is fast and furious enough that, up until now, they’ve been able to score victories in both the political and establishment realms, particularly with a paralyzed Congress.
It’s also worth remembering that the issue that makes San Francisco a political target — the nexus of drug addiction, homelessness, and persistent petty crime that hobbles the recovery of San Francisco’s street life — is something that Benioff has also contributed to.
It’s that level of brute force where the troops come in. Some argue that a significant goal of this action is to leverage MAGA’s presumed capture of the Supreme Court and force a new interpretation of federal Title 10 laws governing domestic deployment of the military. Recently, Trump’s deputy chief of staff, Stephen Miller, seemed to let slip in an interview that the White House was asserting “plenary authority” over functions of government, including the use of the military.
The result is a race of sorts by the Trump administration to stage a fait accompli about these newly acquired powers before others react. The problem with that, as John Zipperer pointed out earlier this week, is that the administration will more than likely face silent objections from military leadership, just as it does from the lower courts. A June poll by Military Times revealed that an overwhelming majority of service members were aware of what constitutes an illegal order, not only under United States law, but also under international law, and would not comply with such orders. Chances are high that the military will institutionally react to administration desires for kneecapping protestors as they’ve done before: “We don’t do that, sir.”
The question is whether they have the opportunity to do so soon enough, before more knock-on effects of the government shutdown push the economy to the point where Joe the Plumber decides to protest his skyrocketing hospital bills and gets labeled as an Antifa terrorist by the Justice Department. The administration’s domestic military aims aren’t popular with voters as it is.
Ultimately, whether Trump continues to turn the country upside down depends on the remaining ability of our institutions to slow him down before the midterm elections, which, if you believe the polls, could even result in a Congress with revived oversight powers and the stage set for a decidedly non-MAGA president elected in 2028, regardless of party.
Meanwhile, Benioff will have to address his own Trump troubles, like all the other tech companies, and continue to avoid becoming a target himself. Much of that is accomplished with money and flattery. Along with his reflexive statement of support for Trump administration policies has come flattering coverage of Trump himself on the cover of Benioff-owned Time magazine — though Trump apparently doesn’t feel flattered by the cover photo. If anything, Benioff’s remarks, which apparently took his own P.R. team by surprise, probably reflect his own anxieties about what Trump may do to him.
But Benioff isn’t just a Tech Bro — he’s a scion of San Francisco’s social establishment. Ultimately, he also has to reckon with fellow bluebloods like Mark and Susie Buell, who recently reproved him in the San Francisco Chronicle, as well as Mayor Daniel Lurie himself, as a Monday press event with the two of them was abruptly canceled. It’s also worth remembering that the issue that makes San Francisco a political target — the nexus of drug addiction, homelessness, and persistent petty crime that hobbles the recovery of San Francisco’s street life — is something that Benioff has also contributed to. It was Benioff who sold San Francisco’s business community on Proposition C, the tax measure that bankrolls San Francisco’s Homeless Industrial Complex.
Meanwhile, the city is stuck with the same problems that it has always had, whether the troops arrive or not. San Francisco’s street conditions problems were a media bugaboo for conservative campaigns in the 2023 election. Indeed, one might venture to guess that if Ron DeSantis were President today, the troops might already be here.
Most San Franciscans realize that the city needs outside help to address the problem, just not troops who will likely be left guarding federal buildings if they don’t mutiny in response to an illegal order from Trump. Not to mention that San Francisco has always been a prized whipping boy for conservatives. It’s far more likely that the horror movie scenario Washington favors for us isn’t so much The Handmaid’s Tale but Escape From New York.
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