The relationship between San Francisco’s aspirational congressman and reactionary national media is toxic. But, also, symbiotic.
by Joe Eskenazi June 15, 2026 (MissionLocal.org)
Right-wing grievance culture has not yet mounted a case that we should all be watching “Song of the South,” even if the U.S. Supreme Court seems intent that we should all be living “Song of the South.”
Disney essentially locked away the 1946 animated/live-action hybrid 40 years ago like the man in the iron mask; even by the mid-1980s, its treacly depictions of Lost Cause plantation stereotypes were offensive and archaic.
But if the right-wingers calling the nation’s political shots had sat down and watched this film, they might have learned something: It’s true! It’s actual! Everything is satisfactual.
In the abstract: They might have noticed that Br’er Fox and Br’er Bear, hoping to harm Br’er Rabbit, foolishly threw him into the Briar Patch, which is the biggest favor they could’ve given him.
In the concrete: Right-wing loons keep throwing Scott Wiener into the Briar Patch.
In the most recent instance of a high-profile reactionary zealot targeting San Francisco’s state senator and aspirational congressman, the incredibly lifelike Laura Loomer described Wiener on her podcast earlier this month as a “degenerate … BDSM-wearing freak” who has worked to “legalize murder.”
The chyron across the screen read “Democrats Nominate Al-Qaeda Linked Jihadist and Pedophile Protector.” She also tweeted this to her 1.9 million followers.
There is danger here. Unhinged individuals preaching unhinged messages to fellow unhinged individuals can lead to dire consequences in both the real and virtual worlds.
Wiener’s office affirms that, for years, “not a week goes by” without the police being notified because of a salient online threat. Multiple people have been prosecuted for making threats to Wiener’s life.
Being Scott Wiener, or even working for him, entails getting your “fair share of abuse,” as Mick Jagger might have put it.
But there is also a silver lining. You couldn’t procure more effective advertising in San Francisco than being targeted as the bête noire of increasingly deranged and outlandish right-wing commenters — who, chillingly, no longer represent a fringe outlook.
Cleaner Streets, Stronger Community
After 5 years of working to fix SF’s litter problem, Clean Streets – a Mission-based, community-funded, litter pickup workforce has funded 1,236 hours of living-wage work and cleaned 617 miles of neighborhood streets. As little as $5 makes a difference. Click here to help us clean the Mission.
Wiener, in more ways than one, has always been a big target.
In 2015, when Fox News sent then-Bill O’Reilly minion Jesse Watters and others to buttonhole city officials and put them on the spot about the killing of Kate Steinle, Supervisor Wiener went viral with his monotone brushoff: “Fox News is not real news, and you’re not a reporter.”
He delivered this line, repeatedly, like Marshawn Lynch answering every media question by reciting “I’m just here so I won’t get fined.” Except Wiener did it while traipsing down a hallway; you could call it an Aaron Sorkin walk-and-don’t-talk.
After O’Reilly called Wiener a “pinhead” on national television, the Castro supervisor subsequently received thousands of threats and a cottage industry was born.
Since that time, Watters has oozed up his corporate ladder and Wiener, the politician who told him to stick it, has advanced up his political ladder.
The relationship between right-wing media and Wiener is toxic. But it’s also symbiotic.
In life, politics and news infotainment, crass stupidity can explain a lot. But it doesn’t explain the ongoing right-wing obsession with Scott Wiener.
One needn’t be a political Einstein to realize that right-wing extremists attacking a San Francisco centrist plays about as well here as vegan Maoists targeting the institution of Texas barbecue.
Put another way, even stupid people like to win, and clearly the people going after Wiener know they’re not doing that when it comes to San Francisco voters.
Perhaps the best analog here is professional wrestling. The former Worldwide Wrestling Federation is now known as Worldwide Wrestling Entertainment. This is show business. So is right-wing infotainment.
Wiener, for their audience, serves the role of wrestling heel, whether he likes it or not. Think of him as a much taller Andy Kaufman with a law degree.
If the state senator’s right-wing infotainment critics were truly aghast at the prospects of his political matriculation, you’d think they’d have come up with a strategy over the past decade and change that doesn’t symbiotically benefit him with the actual people who vote for him. They haven’t.
And that’s because Scott Wiener is good for the rage-bating business. If he didn’t exist, they’d have to make him up.
“Honestly, keep in mind, these people are scam artists,” says Wiener. “It’s all about the clicks and the engagement. I am red meat for their base.”
Incidentally, San Francisco center-left Democrat Scott Wiener does eat red meat as well as portray it on TV.
There are many downsides to the reduction of politics to entertainment — and wrestling-like entertainment at that. It’s all fun and games until someone gets hit with a folding chair, and the continuing debasement of political discourse by bad actors looking to score some clout is making us all dumber — and that right soon.
It is startling, when you take a moment to come up for air, how dumb it’s all gotten. There is, as we speak, a UFC cage on the White House lawn. The East Wing previously resembled wreckage from Dresden.
But, if you’re hoping to find a pony beneath the mounds of horse manure, there is this: The reactionary culture war issues perpetually enraging the online right remain a nonfactor here in San Francisco.
Former Trump appointee and Republican-turned-Democrat Marie Hurabiell, who felt the best route to replace Rep. Nancy Pelosi as San Francisco’s congresswoman was to run on transgender bathroom issues, is polling about 4 percent in the most recent returns.
Hurabiell also traveled to Sacramento last week to inveigh against a Wiener bill to ease lawsuits against LGBTQ-conversion-therapy practitioners. While Hurabiell seems to have received outsize support among angry people on Twitter, actual voters behaved differently.
San Franciscans, for all our superficialities, are not getting worked up about transgender people locking themselves in bathroom stalls and using the facilities. Hurabiell is running neck and neck for fourth place in the congressional primary with a Republican challenger who does not appear to have mounted a campaign.
So, whatever issues Wiener and Supervisor Connie Chan run on in November’s general election, they will, by default, be more substantive and relevant than that.
But, in show business, everyone loves a sequel. Expect more performative right-wing vitriol directed Wiener’s way, and expect the state senator to suffer. But also prosper.
It’s the truth. It’s actual. But everything isn’t satisfactual.
We won’t ignore your neighborhood
When a San Francisco neighborhood has a Mission Local reporter, it means someone is there. We’re following new housing projects proposed on your block, keeping tabs on what your district supervisor is up to at City Hall, and letting you know when longtime businesses close (and new ones open). When big news breaks, we already know the context.
Most neighborhoods don’t have that. Yours could.
That’s what Mission Local is building. Our reporters don’t parachute in — they write consistently on San Francisco, so you’re never reading about your neighborhood from someone who just looked it up.
So far we are in five of San Francisco’s neighborhoods. But we know all San Franciscans deserve our kind of coverage. Will you join us?about:blank
Latest News
S.F. supe proposes Mamdani-inspired “Affordable Groceries” fund, vacancy tax
New eyes in SoMa skies: SFPD to launch drone pilot this fall
A Q&A with Jonathan Weber, author of “City on the Edge: Technology, Politics, and the Fight for the Soul of San Francisco”
Joe EskenaziManaging Editor/Columnist
Joe is a columnist and the managing editor of Mission Local. He was born in San Francisco, raised in the Bay Area, and attended U.C. Berkeley. He never left.
“Your humble narrator” was a writer and columnist for SF Weekly from 2007 to 2015, and a senior editor at San Francisco Magazine from 2015 to 2017. You may also have read his work in the Guardian (U.S. and U.K.); San Francisco Public Press; San Francisco Chronicle; San Francisco Examiner; Dallas Morning News; and elsewhere.
He resides in the Excelsior with his wife and three (!) kids, 4.3 miles from his birthplace and 5,474 from hers.
The Northern California branch of the Society of Professional Journalists named Eskenazi the 2019 Journalist of the Year.More by Joe Eskenazi
