A reprieve perhaps -- and a Bay Resistance show of force

For the moment, Donald Trump's invasion of San Francisco (and perhaps the rest of the Bay?) is on hold. Our billionaires apparently weighed in. 

Joe Eskenazi at Mission Local describes what might better be described as a pause than a Trump stand down. 

And, just like that, a daylong crisis and flood-the-zone news cycle across the Bay Area regarding the imminent deployment of border protection agents to the region was quelled. Or not: Oakland mayor Barbara Lee said the president didn’t call her. Lurie and other local leaders are taking the president’s words to mean that the rest of the Bay Area will be spared — but there was no overt pledge regarding that.  

It’s great for the people of San Francisco that the president has capriciously decided to unsend the troops he capriciously decided to send. But the real story here is, per the president’s summation of his discussion with Lurie on social media, that the Commander-in-Chief is overtly stating that he is basing a domestic military deployment upon what local “friends of mine” (billionaire CEOs Jensen Huang of NVIDIA and local boy Marc Benioff of Salesforce) lobbied him to do. Trump also noted that Lurie asked him “very nicely” not to establish a military beachhead in San Francisco. 

All for the good. But what if Huang and Benioff had been in the mood for a military parade and called for sending in the troops? What if Lurie had been less polite? 

If things had gone even slightly differently, it stands to reason that federal immigration agents and/or armed troops could be rolling through the city by now. ...

Though our billionaires and millionaires think they are kings of the city and the world, they do in the end want their enterprises to run with as little friction as possible. To most of us in San Francisco, the tech workers who the sector brings here look like gentrifiers. But they would not warm to a martial law state where neighbors are snatched off the street by anonymous thugs. I think we can trust that. And our billionaires don't want the hassle of their employees being upset. So they have an interest in trying to distract Trump.

What a world! 

• • •

Meanwhile, organized by the Bay Resistance coalition, we are readying ourselves for whatever the fascists bring on our area, no less today than yesterday. Several thousand of us gathered at Embarcadero Plaza last evening.

This was an activist bunch -- union members, campaigners for Prop. 50, immigrant welfare non-profits -- all riled up to act.

Yet despite the looming threat, the same joy in finding each other that we saw during the NO KINGS demos was here too.

 

Let's hope the pause granted to our billionaires (with an assist from our firm resistance) also applies to the city with a Black woman mayor and beyond.

 

The crowd looked often like friends standing together -- because that is what it was.

To be continued, for sure ...