When you share stories like this one on social media, by far the most common refrain you hear is, “They voted for this.” And that’s true: Last year, Pamela Price, the far-left District Attorney for Alameda County, won her election by a decisive 53%. Sheng Thao, the current Mayor of Oakland, who once called to defund the police, won by a sliver.
But even the most ardent criminal justice voters never imagined they were voting for what Oakland has become. Crime has become a fixture of daily life in the East Bay, and nowhere more than in Oakland. In the most recent crime report available, crime was up 28% in the city over the same week last year, which was itself a huge crime year. Violent crime has increased by 19%, robbery is up 30%, burglary by 44%, and auto theft by 52%. Oakland has had 10,000 car burglaries so far this year, which is about one for every 43 residents.
Now, the explosion of crime, which has impacted just about every Oakland resident’s day-to-day life, is transforming the politics of this famously ultra-progressive city.
[Not that it isn’t a well-deserved transformation, but I’ll believe it when I see it. It’s not as if Price hid what she would do, and she won her election easily. The next time out she may have a tough time holding onto the office, but Oakland won’t elect a law-and-order conservative or even a moderate. They’ll replace Price with a Price Light that still convinces people that grievances and identity are more important than public safety and law enforcement. The next DA will just be more subtle. — Ed]
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