Analysis: SJ’s Political Establishment Is (Finally) Falling Apart

In 2021, the long-standing structure of local Silicon Valley politics started imploding. The old, establishment Labor vs Business dialectic revealed itself to be increasingly powerless, and a new generation of independent political leaders and thinkers started to assert themselves. Opp Now co-founder Christopher Escher talked off record with a number of City Hall watchers, analysts, and tenants about the nature of the coming metamorphosis, and summarized his findings in the following Five SJ Fault Lines for 2022.

1. The Labor v Business dynamic was never true.

Let's be honest: the Labor v Business thesis makes for an easy way of analyzing local politics: simple, reassuring, and media-friendly, to boot. But it was always intellectually lazy, deriving its validity simply from counting campaign donations. This is not to say that campaign donations don't matter, but rather that they are certainly not the only factor that drives political direction. Truth is, historically, independent political voices such as Judy Chirco, Tom McEnery, David Pandori, and Pierluigi Oliverio have always thrived in the city, charting unexpected and sometimes eccentric routes between Labor and Business.

2. The establishment organizations that embodied the Business v Labor divide are losing their punch.

Most notable, of course, is the implosion of the business-friendly SVO, which self-immolated over sloppy and offensive racist campaign ads--effectively ending the organization's involvement in politics. The South Bay Labor Council still trundles along, but insiders note it has its own issues, with internecine conflict, staff turnover, and diminishing influence. Simply put, in a more wide-open, internet-based advocacy environment, large special interest groups have trouble controlling and corralling an increasingly fractious and demanding base of supporters.

3. Hard-left progressives are creating rifts within the labor movement. Similar to the issues fragmenting the national Democratic party, local liberals are increasingly torn asunder between the over-the-top, race-baiting rhetoric and demands of Woke activists and electeds, and the traditional establishment liberal/labor wing. Hard-left activists' vicious online attacks on David Cohen after he pivoted away from their gerrymandered "Unity" map provide a bracing example of this "eat your young" sensibility on the left. Similarly, the parade of meaningless censures that emanate against fellow Democrats from the Santa Clara County Democratic Party Central Committee seem to only result in increasing the likelihood of their target's election or appointment to office).

It's important to note that local conservatives don't have this issue of internal division, mostly due to their minority local status.

4. The "Business" bloc has already splintered into a growing array of motivated, decentralized advocacy efforts.

While many political veterans worried that the collapse of the SVO might mean a systemic loss of free market/conservative/pro-growth political power, it may have turned out to be a boon for those movements. Notably, say city insiders, under the previous management, the SVO had been devolving into a squishy, timid political player as it courted high-tech donations and the approval of liberal nonprofits. Under this analysis, the SVO's demise has allowed a flowering of fresh, energized organizations which, while nowhere near as powerful as the alliance of local left-leaning nonprofits, is exerting newfound power. This renaissance on the center-right includes new advocacy groups (Solutions San Jose, Families and Homes), more powerful smaller chambers of commerce (including the Central Santa Clara CoC), centrist political action committees (Common Ground), small-business political action committees (Business San Jose Chamber PAC), new foundations (Silicon Valley Public Accountability) and a vibrant online/social media ecosystem (you're reading an example right now).

In this regard, the SVO collapse may in fact have accelerated a decentralization of the center right, making it more nimble, focused, and in tune with modern, web-based political advocacy.

5. The rise of the pragmatic, centrist, nonpartisan independent politician is already happening.

City and county politics should be about delivering services efficiently and perform best when unleashed from the influence of national blood sport politics. Indeed, local politics should be intensely and cheerfully local--area politicians are supposed be closest to the people and should reflect the wild and varied diversity they represent. To this extent, the "nonpartisan" nature of local elections may have been corrupted by the false Labor/Business divide. Because that divide essentially mimics the national two-party structure, it undermined the nonpartisan nature of local races, and flattened the complexities, the eccentricities, and authentic collection of differences city politics should be celebrating.

What we may see, political watchers suggest, with the collapse of the Labor/Business monolith, is the ascent of truly independent politicians. Politicians who aren't beholden to any particular agenda, who defy expectations, who are focused more on big change than small compromise, and who take their cues from the people--not special interests. You can see them growing in stature already: these are politicians who stare down attempts to silence debate, who want government that delivers real value instead of feel-good proclamations. and who brush off wild accusations from the extreme ends of the political spectrum.

In short, this change may usher in an era of politics more focused on direct representation of the true diversity of the valley, as opposed to old-school organizations who attempted to muscle and redirect authentic political energy into pre-existing agendas.

The establishment won't give up easily, but city hall insiders suggest, their old road is rapidly aging.

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Photo by Wikimedia Commons.