by Randy Shaw on October 20, 2025 (BeyondChron.org)
Marc Benioff
Marc Benioff’s urging Trump to send the National Guard to San Francisco overlooked a key fact: Governor Newsom sent the National Guard to the city in 2023 and it failed to reduce drug activities. The National Guard supposedly provided strategic assistance but did not arrest dealers. Nor did it protect sidewalks as many hoped.
Newsom acted after touring the Tenderloin and hearing people’s complaints (JJ Smith’s video of Newsom’s tour went viral). The mayor supported Newsom’s action. In contrast, Trump’s planned use of the National Guard is opposed by city leaders, including Mayor Lurie and District Attorney Jenkins.
Trump’s misuse of the National Guard has nothing to do with increasing public safety. In fact, it was reported last week that “a video the White House circulated to portray Chicago as violent and chaotic used footage of drug busts, arrests and deportation raids in Florida, Texas, South Carolina and Nebraska.”
If public safety were really the goal, troops would be sent to the many red states with higher crime rates than Democratic-run cities, including San Francisco.
Trump’s misuse of the National Guard was well known to Benioff. The Salesforce head now bears responsibility for the National Guard’s harassment of hard working San Francisco residents should troops arrive. His subsequent retraction of his call came far too late and is unlikely to impact Trump’s thinking (it does show the power of resistance).
National Guard in SF
COVID dramatically expanded sidewalk drug activities in the Tenderloin. Many of us urged the city to find additional resources to protect the neighborhood I wrote a lot of stories about this and urged Governor Newsom to send in the National Guard and other outside help. When it happened I wrote, “Many of us were elated by the news. We had worked hard to convince Newsom that the SFPD could not close drug markets on its own and our efforts finally paid off.”
I described the impact of the National Guard soon after it arrived. (“Has CHP and National Guard Reduced SF Drug Dealing?, May 16, 2023). The California Highway Patrol made a huge, positive difference. A positive impact that continues to this day. Sidewalk drug activities in the Tenderloin were much worse before the CHP arrived in 2023.
The National Guard offered “logistical help.” It was never clear what it was doing to reduce drug activities. At the time few thought of the National Guard as an occupying political force. They were typically used to address floods, fires and other natural emergencies.
Fears that the National Guard would be shooting at Tenderloin residents in a modern version of what happened at Kent State were misplaced. Also misplaced was my belief that the National Guard could make a meaningful difference.
Why San Francisco?
Cities targeted by Trump’s use of the National Guard—-Chicago, Los Angeles, Baltimore, Washington D.C.—all have black mayors and large black or Latino populations. San Francisco doesn’t fit this pattern. That’s why I’ve assumed Trump was more likely to send troops to Oakland.
But Trump likes attention. And he knows that sending troops to San Francisco will bring a high-profile response. That’s probably why he also tried to send troops to Portland, which has a white mayor and few blacks or Latinos. A federal judge blocked that move but today the Ninth Circuit ruled that Trump can deploy the Oregon National Guard to guard an ICE facility in Portland. Texas National Guard troops remained blocked.
The same legal response could block troops from arriving in San Francisco. But we can’t take anything for granted. The Supreme Court could give Trump power to send troops to any cities he wants; that’s the likely ruling if a case reaches them.
The Big Picture
National Guard missions in Democratic cities gets a lot of media. Deservedly so. But what about Trump’s defunding congressionally approved spending in Democratic cities? Or claims by his team that those protesting at No Kings events are antifa agents who hate America?
Karoline Leavitt, Trump’s press secretary, said last week that “The Democratic Party’s main constituency is made up of Hamas terrorists, illegal aliens and violent criminals.” J.D. Vance sought “to downplay the revelation that leaders of a group called the Young Republicans exchanged hundreds of racist, sexist text messages – including one in which rape was called ‘epic’, and another in which someone wrote ‘I love Hitler – as youthful indiscretions.” The ages of 8 of the 11 heard on the tape ranged from 24-35.
These are even more troubling signs that the United States is now under authoritarian control. It’s the historic triumph of the Confederacy, whose racist values Trump espouses.
That’s the racist agenda underlying Benioff’s call for the National Guard to come to San Francisco. And subsequent to Benioff’s call it was learned that on August 26 Salesforce offered its help to expedite hiring for Trump’s vicious and racist ICE mass deportation strategy.
I haven’t heard Salesforce withdrawing that offer.
That’s a reputation killer in Benioff’s longtime home city of San Francisco.
I thought he was a better man that that. So did longtime Benioff ally, Ron Conway, who said “It saddens me immensely to say that with your recent comments, and failure to understand their impact, I now barely recognize the person I have so long admired.”
Sadly, Benioff is not alone. Many once well respected people and companies have chosen to align with or avoid challenging Trump’s plans to be a dictator.
Sinclair Lewis was right. It can happen here.
Randy Shaw
<I>Randy Shaw is the Editor of Beyond Chron and the Director of San Francisco’s Tenderloin Housing Clinic, which publishes Beyond Chron. Shaw’s new book is the revised and updated, The Tenderloin: Sex, Crime and Resistance in the Heart of San Francisco. His prior books include Generation Priced Out: Who Gets to Live in the New Urban America. The Activist’s Handbook: Winning Social Change in the 21st Century, and Beyond the Fields: Cesar Chavez, the UFW and the Struggle for Justice in the 21st Century.
