Graham Platner, the Democratic hopeful in Maine looking to unseat US Sen. Susan Collins next year, received the largest applause of his Labor Day speech in Portland on Monday when he railed against the ill-spent taxpayer money used to support the Israeli genocide in Gaza—a sharp contrast with many in the party who have shied away from such direct criticism of Israeli’s assault and the backing it receives from the US government.
Even as support for Israel’s assault on Gaza has plummeted among US voters and Americans across the political spectrum have increasingly demanded an arms embargo on the country, a number of Democratic politicians have struggled to keep up with the electorate in recent weeks.
Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigiegcalled the conflict in Gaza that’s killed more than 63,000 Palestinians and starved hundreds of people “complicated,” while Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) last week accused a Jewish comedian of “justifying antisemitism” for noting that more than 80% of people killed by the Israel Defense Forces were civilians. Both responses garnered condemnation from Palestinian rights advocates and progressive commentators.
But on Monday—before a packed house of more than 6,500 in Portland—Platner took a much different approach.
“Our taxpayer dollars can build schools and hospitals in America, not bombs to destroy them in Gaza,” said Platner, leading the audience to stand up and applaud for a full 30 seconds.
Platner: Our taxpayer dollars can build schools and hospitals in America, not bombs to destroy them in Gaza. pic.twitter.com/DwVzZZ7FoG
Platner, a military veteran and oyster farmer who is challenging Collins—a vehement supporter of Israel—has previously spoken about Gaza in an interview for Zeteo, calling Israel’s US-backed attack on the territory “the moral test of our time.”
He repeated his message on social media Tuesday, saying: “It’s not complicated: Not one more taxpayer dollar for genocide.”
Platner was speaking at a rally hosted by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), as part of the senator’s ongoing Fighting Oligarchy tour—a project that some establishment Democrats have claimed is out of touch with the views of Democratic voters even as Sanders has filled arenas in both red and blue districts across the country.
Rep. Eliss Slotkin (D-Mich.) has claimed the term “oligarchy” is unfamiliar to Americans, but the audience of a reported 6,500 people in Portland evidently didn’t have trouble understanding Platner when he named oligarchy as “the enemy” of working Americans.
Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner: “I grew up in rural Maine and I did four tours in the infantry. And I am not afraid to name the enemy. The enemy is the oligarchy.” pic.twitter.com/JjQz4B1JWm
A “Workers Over Billionaires” march took place in San Francisco’s Mission District Monday, alongside a separate rally for current and retired federal workers outside the Philip Burton Federal Building, and many others around the Bay.
Protests took place across the nation on Labor Day, organized by activists and labor unions, protesting against Donald Trump and various policies of this administration, including its crackdown on immigrants.
In San Francisco, as ABC 7 reports, a rally took place outside the Philip Burton Federal Building, with members and supporters of the National Active and Retired Federal Employees Association protesting against DOGE cuts to the federal workforce, and threats against unions.
The largest event of the day, the largest since June’s No Kings protests, was organized by the national May Day Strong Coalition. It featured union members and leaders, including teachers, city workers, and others, who rallied first at Mission and 16th streets Monday.
Andy Beetley, a member of the service workers’ union, SEIU 1021, spoke to ABC 7, saying, “Labor power and power of the people against a government that is not only corrupt but also seems help destroy everything good that we have created with this country. This is the least we can do.”
“You know educators love a three-day weekend,” said Jodie Sheffels, a math and science teacher at Bessie Carmichael School, speaking to the crowd per the Chronicle. “But today is not just a holiday for us… We are here as workers and educators to stand up to Trump and the billionaires.
People took to the streets on Labor Day to rally in support of federal workers and to speak out against federal job cuts, threats against unions and DOGE getting involved with things like Social Security and IRS tax returns. In San Rafael, protests include those dissatisfied with… pic.twitter.com/rgUUyNQ38a
The group, numbering in the hundreds or around 1,000 according to one SFist tipster, marched down Mission Street to 18th, and over to a busy Dolores Park.
“We are here to protect public services and to let everyone know it’s workers over billionaires, and that these corporations need to pay their fair share of taxes,” said Sarah Perez, speaking to ABC 7.
State Senator Scott Wiener was also in the crowd, and told the station, “Donald Trump is trying to destroy our democracy. He is trying to destroy unions, destroy workers and empower the larger cooperation in the world and he is creating a secret police to mass deport immigrants. Immigrants who have built this country. When you look at how authoritarian regimes end its because people mobilize there is a mass mobilization.”
Monday’s protest was one of many around the Bay Area, as the Mercury News reports. Similar protests and rallies took shape in Oakland, Redwood City, the North Bay, and multiple stops along El Camino Real on the Peninsula, including Mountain View and Sunnyvale.
As the Associated Press reports, the group One Fair Wage also organized large labor protests in New York and Chicago on Monday, with protesters shouting “Trump must go now!” and “No National Guard.” Groups supporting federal workers also rallied in Los Angeles and Portland.
Said one Portland protester, Lynda Oakley, speaking to the AP, “I am done with what’s happening in our country.”
Top image: Protesters hold signs during a May Day demonstration and march at San Francisco City Hall on May 01, 2025 in San Francisco, California. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
Five supervisors stood Tuesday afternoon with labor organizers and immigrants to condemn the Trump administration’s move to end Temporary Protected Status for over 60,000 immigrants from Honduras, Nicaragua and Nepal.
“The termination of any of the current countries that receive Temporary Protected Status directly affects our immigrant communities in San Francisco,” said District 9 Supervisor Jackie Fielder, who introduced a non-binding resolution urging the California federal delegation to urge Congress to establish a permanent pathway for Temporary Protected Status holders.
The Trump Administration’s order has been upheld by the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and on Sept. 8, the immigrants will lose their protected status – this includes their ability to remain in the United States or to work here legally.
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By Fielder’s side at the steps of City Hall were Supervisors Myrna Melgar, Chyanne Chen, Shamann Walton, and Bilal Mahmood. The resolution itself passed with unanimously on Tuesday afternoon at the Board of Supervisor meeting.
District 7 Supervisor Myrna Melgar gave a speech in Spanish at the rally supporting Temporary Protected Status holders. Photo by Xueer Lu. Sept. 2, 2025.
“As your city attorney, I can share with you that our office is doing everything we can to stand with our immigrants because we know how far our country has fallen from the promise of the Statue of Liberty,” said City Attorney David Chiu, whose office filed amicus briefs on July 29 highlighting the “deep integration into American society” of the city’s immigrant population, and warning that ending their status would “cause irreparable harm” to communities.
“We have to stand together,” Chiu said to the 30 or so people who attended the rally.
Created by the U.S. Congress as part of the Immigration Act of 1990, “Temporary Protected Status” protects nationals from countries undergoing civil wars or environmental disasters such as earthquakes, hurricanes, drought and epidemics from deportation.
A Temporary Protected Status designation has to be renewed every six, 12 or 18 months, depending on the arrangement.
Kimberly, a city worker attending the rally, said that this had been true for her mother, Janeth. She arrived in Los Angeles at age 23, after being displaced from Honduras by Hurricane Mitch.
Violence, disease, and infrastructural damage caused by the hurricane made returning to Honduras dangerous enough that the U.S. kept renewing TPS status for Hondurans.
Like many other TPS holders, the only way for her mother to stay in the United States was to renew her TPS status every two years, Kimberly said. Progressing from TPS status to a green card or citizenship is difficult, and her mother wasn’t able to obtain either.
“The only thing that they give you with TPS is work authorization and deportation protection and to be legally present here,” Kimberly said. “So it literally is just for labor.” Her mother spent the last two decades working as a nurse at Kaiser.
But Sept. 8, 2025 will be her last day. Her mother is not willingly retiring, Kimberly said. Her employment is terminated because of the Aug. 20 court ruling that allowed the Trump administration to proceed with terminating TPS status for several countries, including Honduras.
NPRreported that the decision will impact some 51,000 Hondurans and 3,000 Nicaraguans, whose TPS designations are set to expire on Sept. 8, as well as some 7,000 people from Nepal whose designations will expire on Aug. 5. Once their designations expire, these immigrants will face deportation.
City Attorney David Chiu gave a speech at the rally. Photo by Xueer Lu. Sept. 2, 2025.
Kimberly said that her mother has been working seven days straight ahead of her layoff on Sept. 8. “She needs all the money that she can get because she has a mortgage,” Kimberly said.
Her mother has no idea if she can get her money from her retirement account or her pension in any way if she’s in Honduras. She doesn’t know if she will have a chance to be called into work on Monday, Sept. 8. She doesn’t have any family in Honduras anymore.
“Mentally, she’s not okay,” Kimberly said. “Physically, she’s still showing up.”
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Cliff Cash Comedy Premiered Jul 26, 2025 Every Monday at The Heritage Foundation 214 Massachusetts Ave. Washington D.C. 4pm protest 6pm pizza Every Friday at Fox News D.C. 400 N. Capitol St. Washington D.C. 4pm protest 6pm pizza We are launching fox protests nationwide You can start your own at www.foxtakedown.com More info at www.donaldlovesvladimir.com Coming soon: www.epsteinsbestfriend.com Please follow my friends at F.L.A.R.E. for all D.C. actions including in person office visits to Congress.
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ABC News Dec 14, 2012 The president fights back tears as he addresses the elementary school tragedy. Wikipedia • On December 14, 2012, a mass shooting occurred at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, United States. The perpetrator, 20-year-old Adam Lanza, shot and killed 26 people. The victims were 20 children between six and seven years old, and 6 adult staff members.
Progressive Sep 2, 2025 PDA Weekly Town Halls On Sunday’s Town Hall, we will also have a report back from the DNC meeting held in Minneapolis this past week. A number of new progressive-supported Party rules and bylaws were passed there, along with some excellent progressive resolutions, including one that calls for the elimination of dark money from all Party caucuses and primaries, including the race for the Democratic Presidential nominee. There were two competing resolutions on Gaza. PDA supported Resolution 18, that resembled Rep. Delia Ramirez’s excellent Block the Bombs Act, and was introduced by Florida DNC member Allison Minnerly. In spite of our best efforts, Resolution 18 was voted down in committee, where an alternative resolution, much more sympathetic to Israel, was passed. However, DNC Chair Ken Martin intervened at this point and withdrew both resolutions and, in coordination with Allison Minnerly (among others), announced the formation of a special commission to study how the Party should respond to the war on Gaza. Many activists and pro-Palestinians advocates were understandably frustrated at what they saw as more deflection by the DNC and denial by its members. Still, Chairman Martin’s action when he pulled the pro-Israeli resolution that had been supported by the committee was the opposite of what the pro-Israel lobby groups wanted. Indeed, this was far from what we wanted too, but at the same time it was a major setback for AIPAC. On this Labor Day Eve town hall, PDA will renew its bonds of support and vow of solidarity with the American and International Labor Movement. Then, we will discuss how PDA can best work in coordination with organized labor and the Democratic Party to defend and strengthen our constitutional republic, rebuild a prosperous middle-class society, and vanquish Trumpism.
“Voter I.D. Must Be Part of Every Single Vote. NO EXCEPTIONS!” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform late Saturday. “I Will Be Doing An Executive Order To That End!!! Also, No Mail-In Voting, Except For Those That Are Very Ill, And The Far Away Military. USE PAPER BALLOTS ONLY!!!”
Less than two weeks ago, Trump declared on the platform that “I am going to lead a movement to get rid of MAIL-IN BALLOTS, and also, while we’re at it, Highly ‘Inaccurate,’ Very Expensive, and Seriously Controversial VOTING MACHINES.” He claimed, without evidence, that voting by mail leads to “MASSIVE VOTER FRAUD,” and promised to take executive action ahead of the 2026 midterms.
Those posts came as battles over his March executive order (EO), “Preserving and Protecting the Integrity of American Elections,” are playing out in federal court. The measure was largely blocked by multiple district judges, but the president is appealing.
Trump’s voter ID post provoked a new threat of legal action to stop his unconstitutional attacks on the nation’s election system.
“Go ahead, make my day Mr. Trump,” said Norm Eisen, who co-founded Democracy Defenders Fund and served as White House special counsel for ethics and government reform during the Obama administration.
“We at Democracy Defenders Fund immediately sued you and got an injunction on your first voting EO,” he noted. “We will do the same here if you try it again. The Constitution gives this authority to the states and Congress, not you!”
In addition to pointing out that Trump is “an absentee voter himself,” Democracy Docketexplained Sunday that “the US Constitution gives the states the primary authority to regulate elections, while empowering Congress to ‘at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations.’ The Framers never considered authorizing the president to oversee elections.”
According to the National Conference of State Legislatures: “Thirty-six states have laws requesting or requiring voters to show some form of identification at the polls. The remaining 14 states and Washington, DC use other methods to verify the identity of voters.”
Those laws already prevent Americans from participating in elections, according to the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law.
“Overly burdensome photo ID requirements block millions of eligible American citizens from voting,” the center’s voter ID webpage says. “As many as 11% of eligible voters do not have the kind of ID that is required by states with strict ID requirements, and that percentage is even higher among seniors, minorities, people with disabilities, low-income voters, and students.”
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US Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) speaks at a “Workers Over Billionaire” Labor Day rally in Concord, New Hampshire on September 1, 2025.
(Photo: Anna Bahr/X)
“Workers are fighting for a society where public schools take precedence over private profits, healthcare is prioritized over hedge funds, and affordable housing is valued more than homelessness,” said May Day Strong.
This is a developing story… Please check back for possible updates.
Americans turned out across the United States on Monday for more than 1,000 demonstrations against President Donald Trump and other oligarchs “to reclaim worker power against billionaires who hoard unprecedented wealth and power.”
The “Workers Over Billionaires” protests are being led by the May Day Strong Coalition, which is made up of dozens of organizations including the AFL-CIO, American Federation of Teachers, National Union of Healthcare Workers, and advocacy groups like Americans for Tax Fairness, Indivisible, Our Revolution, and Public Citizen.
Demonstrations took place or are set to happen in big cities, small towns, and communities in between all across the nation. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) spoke at a rally in Concord, New Hampshire, where Sanders—whose “Fight Oligarchy Tour” has been drawing huge crowds across the country—vowed that “together, we will create an economy and government that work for all, not just the 1%.”
Khanna said that “today on Labor Day, we must recognize the workers across the country who build our economy and strengthen our nation. We need to fight for a living wage and stronger unions as we work to reindustrialize America.”
Sanders took his Fighting Oligarchy Tour to Portland, Maine on Monday, where he was joined by guests including Graham Platner, an oyster farmer who is running to unseat five-term Republican US Sen. Susan Collins.
In a video posted on the social media site Bluesky before the rally, Platner said he “could not think of a better day to be a pro-labor candidate.”
“Organized labor is the basis of the movement that we are going to have to build to retake this country for working people,” Platner added.
May Day Strong said Monday’s mobilizations aim “to build collective action against billionaires taking over the US government.”
“Building upon momentum from May Day, Good Trouble Lives On, No Kings, and key impromptu actions in the streets and the workplace, Workers Over Billionaires will reach communities nationwide, tapping rural and city workers to stop the billionaire agenda that continues to burden everyone,” the coalition said. “As the federal government continues to enable the ultrarich, working people are stepping onto pavement to stop their greed and protect their families.”
“Working families want to live in a country that puts workers over billionaires,” the coalition added. “Workers are fighting for a society where public schools take precedence over private profits, healthcare is prioritized over hedge funds, and affordable housing is valued more than homelessness.”
In New York, actions included a rally outside Trump Tower in Manhattan, where demonstrators demanded a $30 an hour minimum wage. Members of groups including One Fair Wage (OFW) staged a “Restaurant in the Street” demonstration “designed to highlight the struggle of working people and launch the New York Living Wage for All campaign.”
https://twitter.com/i/status/1962595167027986604
“The action coincides with the release of a new OFW report, Making America Affordable Now: The Case for a Living Wage for All, which finds that nearly half of US workers—67 million people—earn less than $25 an hour,” One Fair Wage said. “In New York, 41% of workers fall below that threshold.”
OFW said that the demand for a living wage is the “next generation of the Fight for $15,” warning that “past wage gains have been erased by historic inflation, skyrocketing rents, and cuts to Medicaid and SNAP,” the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
“It also highlights how gimmicks like Trump’s ‘No Tax on Tips’ proposal do little to address workers’ needs, since two-thirds of tipped workers earn too little to benefit,” OFW added.
In Chicago, at least hundreds of people from dozens of groups including the Chicago Teachers Union, Teamsters, and healthcare and hospitality workers rallied against Trump’s Project 2025-inspired evisceration of federal agencies and the social safety net.
Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson denounced Trump’s threat to send federal forces into the Windy City in a similar occupation to the one underway in Washington, DC, leading chants of “No troops in Chicago! No troops in Chicago! Invest in Chicago!”
American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten told Chicago protesters that “what has happened in this country is that the billionaires don’t understand this country was created in protest and resistance to fight off a king, not to recreate a king.”
Chicago protester Mark Petersen toldNBC Chicago: “I think solidarity among workers is probably the most important thing we can do right now. We’re looking at our country get disassembled from the top down, and the best thing we can do is unite from the bottom up.”
Hotel workers at the Hilton Americas-Houston downtown went on strike before dawn Monday, demanding a $23 hourly minimum wage. They kicked off their planned nine-day strike with a protest at 6:00 am, during which workers chanted, “Aquí estamos, y no nos vamos”—”We are here, and we won’t leave.”
“The workers are feeling this need urgently,” Franchesca Caraballo, president of Unite Here Local 23’s Texas chapter. “We have to take it up several notches here to turn up the pressure on this company.”
In Indianapolis, marchers chanted, “No fascists, support unions, support workers.”
AFL-CIO president Liz Shuler said ahead of the protests: “Every single thing working people have won for ourselves in this country’s history—it’s not because we asked those in power. It’s not because they were handed to us. It’s because we fought for them relentlessly.”
Saqib Bhatti, executive director of Action Center on Race and the Economy (ACRE), toldUSA Today that “it’s important to show that there is opposition to the Trump-billionaire agenda in every community, big and small; it’s not just cities that are united against what’s happening… it’s all towns, it’s small towns that voted overwhelmingly for Trump.”
Monday also saw the launch of the Department of Class Solidarity (DOCS), “a permanent national war room tracking nearly 1,000 US billionaires, their wealth, corporate holdings, and political contributions.”
“This Labor Day weekend, we are not resting,” DOCS said on social media. “The oligarchs are snatching away our healthcare, our livelihoods, and our rights. Now is the time to act.”
DOCS and allied groups rallied for a “Hamptons Billionaire Shutdown” on Long Island.
“The Hamptons is where right-wing billionaires like Bill Ackman and Dan Loeb plot and plan in their hundred-million-dollar mansions, ensconced from the workers they exploit,” DOCS said. “Time to give them a taste of their own medicine.”
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A U.S. District Court judge signaled on Friday that she may release six women in ICE detention near Bakersfield.
It’s the latest move in attorneys’ attempts to fight back against the routine arrests of Bay Area asylum-seekers after they attend regular court hearings.
It is a rare case of San Francisco-based lawyers filing an asylum petition for immigrants in detention after being transferred from the Bay Area to remote facilities elsewhere in the state.
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More than 2,000 people have been detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement across Northern California, Hawaii, and U.S. territories in the Pacific. Once immigrants are in detention, it is difficult for them to find a lawyer to file a petition for their release.
On late Friday, a federal judge, Jennifer L. Thurston with the U.S. District Court in the Eastern District of California, signed an order stating that the petitioners “likely can demonstrate that their circumstances warrant the same relief” the court has offered to other immigrants in a similar situation: a temporary restraining order that releases them from detention.
Thurston gave the government a chance to respond to her order. She could order the women released as early as next week.
The petition late Friday was the first attempt at large-scale release of women out of the Mesa Verde detention center, near Bakersfield, California, said immigration attorney Jordan Wells.
Wells, along with colleague Victoria Petty of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area, filed the habeas corpus petition on behalf of the women, arguing that the arrests and detentions violated due process rights.
In recent weeks, lawyers have had success in getting immigrants released from detention by filing habeas petitions, but mostly before those immigrants leave San Francisco.
On Friday, for instance, attorneys were able to release five of the six asylum-seekersMission Local saw arrested in Judge Patrick O’Brien’s courtroom Thursday morning.
When asylum seekers are arrested in court, they are typically processed at an ICE field office two floors up from the immigration court at 630 Sansome St. They are held there for hours or a few days, until ICE finds a bed for them in a longer-term detention facility. There are no such facilities in the Bay Area.
Generally, habeas petitions had to be filed based on a person’s current location, so an arrest sets off a rush for attorneys to figure out who was taken and file a petition before they are transferred out of 630 Sansome St.
The overwhelming majority of people arrested following court hearings tracked by Mission Local do not have a lawyer, and often require a lawyer to file the petition for them pro bono.
If they are transferred, San Francisco-based lawyers have to refile the petition in the defendant’s new location.
If a lawyer cannot pinpoint the detainee’s location, or the petition is filed too late, that person slips through the cracks.
For example, one of the six women included in this habeas corpus petition by the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights was arrested alongside two others from the same courtroom on Aug. 1.
One of those three, a 20-year-old asylum seeker from Colombia, was released on a habeas corpus petition within days, because he had friends with him in court who immediately contacted Wells. The other two are still in detention in facilities in California and Louisiana.
“It reflects the reality,” Wells wrote, “that the legal services community doesn’t have the resources and real-time info to keep pace with ICE’s campaign of dragnet arrests.”
Three of the six women included in the petition late Friday were arrested following administrative hearings in their asylum cases at San Francisco immigration court, at either 630 Sansome St. or 100 Montgomery St.
Mission Local was in court and witnessed two of the arrests on July 18 and Aug. 1. Another woman, a San Francisco resident, was arrested on June 30.
The other three women were arrested at check-ins with ICE or at their homes, according to the habeas corpus petition, filed by Wells and Petty on behalf of the six women. Two of them live outside of the San Francisco Bay Area: in Fresno and Eugene, Oregon, according to the petition.
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The billionaire-backed coalition of ‘moderate’ politicians running San Francisco’s Democratic Party is in tatters. And Joel Engardio is out in the cold.
by JOE ESKENAZI September 1, 2025 (MissionLocal.org)
A final sunset before the Great Highway closes. Photo by Abigail Van Neely, March 13, 2025.
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It’s a hell of a thing to move heaven and earth — and meeting dates and meeting venues — to ensure you don’t have to do anything. It’s a hell of a thing for the San Francisco Democratic Party to go out of its way to make its brand and position statements even less relevant.
But that’s what happened last week.
Months ago, San Francisco Democratic Party chair Nancy Tung was already phoning up fellow party members and urging them to vote “no endorsement” in the pending recall of District 4 Supervisor Joel Engardio.
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Engardio’s pro-business, pro-law-enforcement, pro-building agenda has a constituency here in San Francisco. It certainly includes the billionaire tech and landlord donors who underwrote the ascendant leadership of the Democratic Party, and are underwriting Engardio’s anti-recall campaign.
But Engardio’s championing of Prop. K, the measure to transform The Great Highway into a park, enraged a broad swath of the Westside — including thousands of Chinese San Franciscans.
Politicians being caught between their donors and the city’s angriest voters turns out to also be a hell of a thing.
In June, Democratic Party members were informed they’d be voting to endorse or spurn the recall at the July 25 regular meeting. If they rejected it, that would give Engardio all of August and half of September to inundate Sunset District voters with flyers and ads blasting an “Endorsed by the Democratic Party” message.
But Tung yanked the item from the July 25 meeting agenda. She moved it to a special meeting slated for July 30. And she then subsequently canceled that special meeting.
The endorsement vote on the recall ended up being delayed for a full month, until last week — nearly two weeks after mail voting had commenced.
At that belated Aug. 27 meeting, the party deadlocked between Tung’s preferred “no endorsement” and “no on the recall.” As a result, the San Francisco Democratic Party will officially have no position on the Sept. 16 election.
If the ardent campaign to keep the Democratic Party from taking a position in the District 4 recall was done to preserve the party’s reputation with heavily Chinese and conservative-leaning Sunset District voters, it has come at the potential expense of the party’s reputation with nearly anyone else.
The national Democratic Party’s brand is in tatters, despite existential threats to American democracy, because of its inability to articulate a coherent ethos and steadfast unwillingness to take strong positions.
The particulars here in San Francisco are far different — but, broadly, the same situation applies.
The coalition of moderates running the local party is also in tatters. In the past year and change, YIMBY urbanist moderates have gritted their teeth in the name of unity and supported measures pushed by get-off-my-lawn, law-and-order moderates.
They have now been definitively shown that there will be no reciprocity.
Residents gathered at Ruth Williams Bayview Opera House to weigh in on the San Francisco Democratic County Central Committee’s vote on its endorsement on the recall of Joel Engardio. Photo by Junyao Yang on Aug. 27, 2025.
Tung, in an interview with Mission Local, denied intentionally driving the San Francisco Democratic Party into a ditch.
She said she moved the endorsement vote from the regular July meeting to a special meeting because the venue for the regular meeting, the Central Chinese High School in Chinatown, was potentially too small to accommodate the throngs that might show up and opine on the recall.
Tung denied moving the vote to specifically avoid the specter of holding an endorsement vote in Chinatown. The recall is an issue of fervent interest to many San Francisco Chinese voters — with a majority, and likely a firm majority, skewing pro-recall.
She also denied delaying the vote until late August — when it would be meaningless — because she hadn’t in July nailed down enough “no endorsement” votes to reach her desired outcome.
Rather, she said she canceled the July 30 special meeting because of bylaws indicating that special meeting votes would require a supermajority to pass, not a simple majority.
Tung did not deny calling her colleagues to push a “no endorsement” vote, however, because that happened. Mission Local spoke to numerous recipients of these calls.
When asked why she advocated this position, she said, “I want to say I think it’s important for the party to think about these sorts of elections, especially when they’re so localized. We need to be sensitive to the communities that have to make these decisions.”
This is confusing. The Democratic Party endorses in every election, be it federal, state, citywide or districtwide. It endorsed Prop. K, the Engardio-led ballot measure to close the Great Highway that rests at the core of the recall. It endorsed a slate of district supervisor candidates in November. It will do so again in 2026.
The ostensible power of these endorsements — and the supposed allure of the Democratic brand in a city where registered Dems outnumber Republicans by a factor of eight — was a major reason why tech executives and landlord interests invested heavily last year in their preferred candidates to oust the labor-backed politicos running the party.
So it’s confusing for the chair of the Democratic Party to now say that District 4 voters need to be given their space to decide the fate of their supervisor — a supervisor who, notably, was pushing Prop. K and other Democratic Party-endorsed positions.
No Democratic Party member I spoke with took seriously the claim that the vote was moved out of the Chinatown venue hosting the July 25 meeting because the hall was too tiny.
Nor was anyone particularly swayed by Tung’s argument about the rules carved onto the Stone Table of the county Democratic Party regarding endorsement votes at special meetings.
Tung countered that she sought the input of a “professional parliamentarian” on the matter, whose opinion compelled her to cancel the special meeting. But she declined to identify who this person was or disclose if they had been compensated.
The county Democratic Party, incidentally, has in-house parliamentarians, and it’s unclear why their opinions weren’t good enough. It also has veteran members who don’t recall this ever before being an issue over the course of many years and many special meetings.
If a two-thirds endorsement vote really is required at a special meeting, scheduling a special meeting for such a vote was extremely careless — at best.
In short, many of Tung’s colleagues, regardless of how they voted on Aug. 27, do not buy her explanation that the endorsement vote was repeatedly moved and repeatedly delayed purely through a series of unfortunate events.
Joel Engardio talks to voters at Sunset Dunes on Aug. 21, 2025. Photo by Junyao Yang.
If Prop. K exposed the fissures in the moderates’ urbanist-old school coalition, the strange and terrible recall endorsement saga may have snapped them.
Urbanists were already deeply irritated by the San Francisco Democratic Party opting to simply drop Prop. K off of 2024 mailers sent to the Westside — party recommendations blithely skipped from Prop. J to Prop. L, like excising the 13th floor from a high-rise.
Following the endorsement debacle and the probable defeat of Engardio come Sept. 16 (anything could happen — but if you bet on Engardio, you should ask for odds), expect internecine conflict and further dysfunction within San Francisco’s Democratic Party: “Moderate cannibalism,” in the words of one observer.
Following the Aug. 27 Democratic Party meeting, a number of the members who voted to not make a recall endorsement went out for drinks. A smiling group photo was, inexplicably, posted on social media. “We got through our vote!” was the gaudy caption.
It’s a hell of a thing to be caught between your billionaire donor base and the city’s most vehement and outspoken voters. A drink is understandable. But it doesn’t alleviate the problem.
After Sept. 16, this Democratic Party will have to move on to the next problem, and the one after that.
San Francisco, alas, is not wholly immune from our national condition: Whatever’s coming down the pike figures to be more consequential than the fate of a windswept highway and the elected official who, with our county Democratic Party’s blessing, moved to close it.
In the weeks and months to come, we may all need a drink.
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Managing Editor/Columnist. Joe 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
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