Remember how you scrambled to clean up your college dorm room when the adults paying your way were scheduled to visit?
We now learn the same phenomenon can happen to an entire city.
You just have to invite the right Chinaman.
Xi Jinping, chairman of the Chinese Communist Party, will be coming to San Francisco in November to meet with Joe Biden to discuss economic agreements that Xi has no intention of honoring.
Preparing for this visit has thrown city hall into a dorm-level, cleaning frenzy.
The squalor, drug addicts, crazy people, tent cities, public nudity, and public pooping may be just fine for the taxpayers of San Francisco to endure, but allowing Xi to see how Gov. Gavin Newsom, D-Calif., really manages his state is simply unthinkable.
That’s why the New York Post can report, "Drug addicts, dealers and homeless who have plagued San Francisco’s downtown have miraculously disappeared this week as the city cleans up for a huge international event."
This should cause you to conclude the degradation of the city by its least responsible elements was a choice.
A choice that put cleanliness, beauty and respect for the law–abiding citizens of the city at the bottom of the list.
If you don’t conclude that, you are a knee-jerk Democratic voter, beyond help and probably missing the gritty aroma of San Francisco sidewalks.
If only John Chachas, the CEO of Gump’s luxury department store, had thought to invite a foreign authoritarian to tour the city, instead of writing a letter to the governor and the mayor, the open-air toilet surrounding his flagship store might have been cleaned up.
Chachas’ letter would have been a wake-up call for any reasonable civic or state leader, but we’re talking California, so it fell on deaf ears.
Chachas didn’t beat around the bush, "An Open Letter to Governor Newsom, Mayor Breed and the San Francisco Board of Supervisors: Gump's has been a San Francisco icon for more than 165 years.
"Today, as we prepare for our 166th holiday season at 250 Post Street, we fear this may be our last because of the profound erosion of this city's current conditions."
He then goes into specifics which the recipients of his letter know all too well, but simply don’t care enough to solve the problem.
"San Francisco now suffers from a 'tyranny of the minority' — behavior and actions of the few that jeopardize the livelihood of the many.
"The ramifications of COVID policies advising people to abandon their offices are only beginning to be understood.
"Equally devastating have been a litany of destructive San Francisco strategies, including allowing the homeless to occupy our sidewalks, to openly distribute and use illegal drugs, to harass the public and to defile the city's streets.
"Such abject disregard for civilized conduct makes San Francisco unlivable for its residents, unsafe for our employees, and unwelcoming to visitors from around the world."
The letter then urges the "leaders" to clean the streets and sidewalks, clear homeless encampments and enforce the law. Their response was to ignore a business that has been creating jobs and paying taxes since 1858.
These politicians aren’t embarrassed by San Francisco conditions when you point them out, because you simply don’t count. They are as unresponsive and arrogant as Chairman Xi himself.
It takes a dictator with slave labor camps promising to visit the city for California to finally make an effort.
Michael Reagan, the eldest son of President Reagan, is a Newsmax TV analyst. A syndicated columnist and author, he chairs The Reagan Legacy Foundation. Michael is an in-demand speaker with Premiere speaker's bureau. Read Michael Reagan's Reports — More Here.
Michael R. Shannon is a commentator, researcher for the League of American Voters, and an award-winning political and advertising consultant with nationwide and international experience. He is author of "Conservative Christian's Guidebook for Living in Secular Times (Now with added humor!)" Read Michael Shannon's Reports — More Here.