San Francisco’s Democratic mayor, Daniel Lurie, says he’s a proud progressive, but in a recent interview, Lurie acknowledged to CNN’s Dana Bash that on issues like crime, homelessness, drug use, housing, and affordability, the city getting “so entrapped in our progressive values” caused it to lose its way and go down the wrong path.
Lurie, a Levi Strauss heir with no political experience, was elected in November 2024, defeating the much better-known incumbent Democratic mayor, London Breed, in part because he promised to clean up the drug-infested streets and be tougher on crime.
In one situation from October 2025 that got a lot of national attention, Lurie was able to convince President Trump to back off sending a “surge” of National Guard troops into the city to help combat crime, successfully arguing to allow local law enforcement to work to turn things around in “continued partnerships” with the FBI, ATF, etc.:
“We have work to do, and we would welcome continued partnerships with the FBI, DEA, ATF, and U.S. Attorney to get drugs and drug dealers off our streets, but having the military and militarized immigration enforcement in our city will hinder our recovery,” he added. “We appreciate that the president understands that we are the global hub for technology, and when San Francisco is strong, our country is strong.”
In the CNN interview, Lurie noted that there was nothing progressive about overdose deaths, car break-ins, women feeling unsafe walking to their cars, and local businesses having to close because of repeat offenders:
I’ve been clear, we lost our way as a city. We were focused on the wrong things. And today we’re focused on common sense. We’re focused on good governance. We’re focused on delivering results for the people of San Francisco.[…]I mean, we got so entrapped in our progressive values and talking about progressivism that we weren’t taking stock of what was happening on our streets. We had 810 people die of overdose in San Francisco three years ago. There’s nothing progressive about that.There’s nothing progressive about 30,000 car break ins. Everyone had to deal with whether or not their car was going to be broken into. That number, by the way, has dropped by 90 percent. And instead of talking about ideological issues and instead of talking about like all the dysfunction, like, we are focused.If you ask me a question, I’m going to focus on how do we keep that mother walking their child to the bus stop safe and also not seeing open air drug use? How are we going to make it easier for families to stay and afford to live in San Francisco? Because our families are creative class. Our artists make San Francisco the unique place it is.[…]I mean, I can’t tell you how many small business owners I’ve talked to that years ago would say that City Hall was an opponent to their being successful. And now we’re cutting red tape. We’re cutting permitting requirements so that small businesses can thrive.[…]There’s nothing progressive about small businesses having to shudder because they’re a victim of crime over and over again.
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His critics would argue that he hasn’t done nearly enough, and it’s true that at the end of the day, Democrats do Democrat things, with Lurie proving to be no exception to that rule.
But at a time when we’ve got woketivist mayors in deep blue cities like Chicago and New York who have tripled down on soft-on-crime, high-cost-of-living approaches, it’s refreshing to see one that seems to understand in some instances that the best way to make your city great again is not to keep trying the same failed policies in different ways in hopes that they work.
– Stacey Matthews has also written under the pseudonym “Sister Toldjah” and can be reached via X. –
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