On May 12, California Governor Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, demanded that cities throughout the state adopt anti-camping ordinances that would effectively ban public homelessness by requiring unhoused individuals to relocate every 72 hours.
While presented as a humanitarian effort to reduce homelessness, the new policy victimizes California’s growing unhoused population—approximately 187,000 people—by tying funding in Proposition 1 to local laws banning sleeping or camping on public land.
In his announcement, Newsom pushed local governments to adopt the draconian ordinances “without delay.”
these out of control homeless encampments are a major and visible talking point that Republicans used to define democratic leadership. The policy of trying to avoid confrontation and hope something happens has marked some of the best cities in the world as no-go zones that are portrayed as Progressive and liberal leadership failures.
I understand why he’s chosen to do something.
We know how to fix homelessness. It’s not bulldozers; you fucking house them. Newsome has made some good strides in terms of encouraging more housing in California, but we’d be much closer to actually addressing homelessness if:
He hit the bullshit zoning laws that restrict housing in this state with as big of a hammer as he hits homeless people with, and
We stopped trickling money to the homeless via an infinitely recursing filter of non-profits and either directly administered the aid via the state government or just gave them the fucking money / housing. In LA, there’s something like 10,000 non-profits focused on homelessness that have to coordinate with each other. That’s some looney toons level shit right there, and it should be obvious to anyone that that would never work.
California’s been trying to fix homelessness with cops and bulldozers for forty or fifty years, and especially the last twenty. How long do we have to keep “accidentally” killing people and setting taxpayer cash on fire before we acknowledge that it doesn’t fucking work and never will? You cannot beat homeless people into being housed, though I can see why Gavin would think that this solution would appeal to potential Republican voters who will ultimately not vote for him anyway.
You’re falling for fascist propaganda. Notice, Newsom isn’t actually doing anything to fix the problem. He’s not providing these people housing at all. All he’s doing is sending out law enforcement to endlessly harass the homeless. That’s what his “doing something” actually is. He’s sending the police to “deal with” the homeless.
You recognize there’s a problem. But you can’t identify a solution. A fascist strongman comes along and promises to “do something,” without any real plans or promises, just the vague cult of action for the sake of action. Newsom tortures some poor people, and you walk away feeling good, believing that at last someone is “doing something.”
This won’t actually house anyone. People don’t disappear simply because you kicked them out of their camping spot. All you really do every time you disburse the homeless is make it that much harder for them to escape homelessness at all. Every time a camp is torn down, people lose invaluable possessions, resources, and documents that are really their only hope of ever pulling themselves out of homelessness. Newsom’s actions are only exacerbating the homelessness crisis.
It’s the poorest of the poor that will pay the price for Newsom’s fascist propaganda campaign. But, at least you get to feel good knowing that he’s “doing something.” You must be a big fan of the TSA.
this kind of talk, and focus on unachievable ideologically pure outcomes, is why the undeniably most-facist party is in total control right now, you dope.
Progress has always been an unachieveable ideologically pure outcome for both Democrats and Republicans
Not eating that propaganda that we can’t do better and demand better from our leaders
Do you know what fascism is? I am not saying that Newsom is exhibiting fascist behavior as some cheap and quick pejorative. I’m not using fascism as a synonym for “bad” here. I’m pointing out that this kind of policy literally is the textbook definition of fascism.
This is fascism 101. Among Umberto Eco’s 14 common features of fascism is the cult of action for action’s sake.
Your response would make sense if I was complaining that the police disbanding camps simply wasn’t going to enough good. But this action doesn’t help anyone. It doesn’t reduce homelessness at all. In fact, it actually makes homelessness worse. Every time camps are torn down, people lose possessions and documents they need to escape homelessness. If you bulldoze a homeless camp, you’re sending a fair number of personal and ID documents to the landfill. Every time you clear a camp, you’re making it that much harder for people to actually get back on their feet.
This isn’t the perfect being the enemy of the good. This is simply an unambiguously harmful policy that does no good at all for the community.
Why is this action fascist? It meets several of Eco’s points. From the linked list numbers:
(3) Cult of action for action’s sake. It is purely performative. It will actually increase the number of unhoused people, as the more unstable someone’s situation, the harder it is to return to housing. It’s an objectively negative policy, but people support it because Newsom is “doing something.” This meets Eco’s point 3, the cult of action.
(6) Appeal to social frustration. People are tired of seeing the homeless and being reminded of their own precarious state. Better sweep them out of view.
(10) Contempt for the weak. Pretty obvious. These people have simply been priced out of the housing market. But Newsom vilifies these people and treats them like animals.
(12) Machismo and weaponry. Better send in the SWAT team to tear down some tents.
This is quite literally textbook fascism. I’m not condemning camp sweeps because they fail to meet some ideological purity test. I’m condemning them because they’re completely unproductive and are a textbook definition of fascist policy.