AMAC Exclusive – By Aaron Flanigan
In one of the most ironic leftist self-owns in recent memory, the city of San Francisco indicated that it could soon repeal the 2016 ordinance that banned city-funded travel to and contracting with red states. These reports are the latest sign that woke fanaticism does not come without great financial, corporate, and cultural risk—and that more often than not, progressive cultural aggression ends up hurting themselves most of all.
The San Francisco ordinance, titled Chapter 12X, was enacted in the months following the Supreme Court’s 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges decision—which prohibited states from defining marriage as a union between one man and one woman—and was, according to Fox News, largely perceived as “a boycott to pressure other states and prevent the city from engaging in business with those whose values it deemed antithetical to its own.”
The law initially prohibited city-sponsored travel and contracting with eight conservative states, but has since been amended to include 30 states that have enacted laws upholding the sanctity of life, protection of the traditional family structure, and election integrity.
Yet, as a February report from the San Francisco City Administrator’s office reveals, this strategy is backfiring in spectacular ways.
The ordinance’s prohibition on contracting with red states has raised city-wide contracting costs by a whopping 10 to 20 percent and could grow higher if this ordinance is not repealed, according to the report. Thus, the virtue-signaling decree appears to have succeeded only in harming San Franciscans.
To offset these damages, the report proposes a range of options—including a repeal of the entire ordinance. “It’s an ineffective policy that complicates the business of San Francisco government and makes it very likely that we pay more than we should for goods and services,” said city official Rafael Mandelmanm.
But San Francisco’s Chapter 12X is far from the only instance of performative progressivism that has ended in disaster for the left. The entire state of California has imposed a “prohibition on state-funded and state-sponsored travel to states with discriminatory laws.”
The ban affects 23 conservative states, but was ignored by California Governor Gavin Newsom when he visited his in-laws’ ranch in Montana—a state included in the ban.
Woke companies have also found that their “boycotts” of conservative states have often hurt the companies themselves more than their intended targets. In 2019, for example, Netflix and the Walt Disney Company threatened to stop doing business in Georgia following the Peach State’s enactment of House Bill 481, which banned abortions in the state after six weeks.
But in the end, the proposed boycott likely would have helped the Georgia economy, while costing Netflix and Disney millions through losing lucrative tax incentives. “The irony of the situation is that the filming ban,” said Victor Matheson, an economics professor at the College of the Holy Cross, “will probably actually save the Georgia government more money than the loss of the film revenue will cost them.”
He continued: “The same was true for the NCAA bans on championships in North Carolina and other states in the wake of Confederate flag controversies and [pro-family] legislation. The sports and film industries have done such a good job exaggerating their economic impacts that boycotts become effective symbolic tools even though they have almost no real impact.”
Could one possibly ask for a better distillation of American leftism?
For years, the left has made its mark on American culture in large part through performative sloganeering, hollow virtue-signaling, and meaningless boycotts that have done very little—if anything at all—to advance their causes. And although the city of San Francisco has not yet made a final determination on the fate of its boycotting ordinance, conservatives can surely relish in the fact that—just that like so many other left-wing ploys—Chapter 12X has succeeded primarily in punishing the malicious and totalitarian left-wing spirit that inspired it.
But above all, these reports prove that—no matter how much California liberals may resent it—in the end, they cannot live without red state America.
Aaron Flanigan is the pen name of a writer in Washington, D.C.
WELLL heck…..how about them apples, californication…..How are those payments for “slaves” coming along???
Another example of the insanity of the Left. They always take perfect aim at both of their own feet! Way to Go Woke Nation!!
We haven’t visited CA for years now, for a reason.
But red states can live quite well without blue states. So let’s do it.
I lived in the San Francisco Bay area in the mid-1970s. My wife and I loved the area. I remember returning there for an anniversary trip in the 1990s. We stayed in a hotel on Union Square and watched the Chinese New Years Parade from our hotel window. We revisited some favorite restaurants and had a great time. Last year I met a gentleman from San Francisco who told me about seeing a homeless man defecate on Union Square in broad daylight. He spoke of the homeless encampments, of stores closing in the downtown area and of rampant crime. I have to ask how is all of the San Francisco virtue signalling playing out for the residents? Why are people and businesses leaving? What is the end result supposed to look like? The answer seems to be that all of the virtue signalling is supposed to result in some positive goal. If that goal is a better society, it doesn’t appear to be happening. When some of today’s liberals wake up some day in the future and find out that they too are no longer tolerated by those who have moved on to the next best cause, it will be too late for them and unfortunately everyone else. Germany in the 1930s seems to be the model. We know how that turned out.
Personally, I wouldn’t want to do business with any business in that libtard state!!! In fact, the credit union I belong to would not approve any creadit card purchases from that state, due to all the fraudulent actiivity there is.
“Make them bear their guilt, O God; let them fall by their own counsels; because of the abundance of their transgressions cast them out, for they have rebelled against you.” From Psalm 5
FU….california AND ALL THE CANCEROUS, ANTI-AMERICAN, LYING, CHEATING, libs THAT LIVE there
San Fransico is a certified loonie bin.
If u go to Frisco, be sure to wear a flower in your hair.
The left thinks what it does matters.
They are learning that they don’t matter
This should be broadcast by the MSM, of course they won’t. How the left is busy destroying America. They are creating an enemy of those with other opinions than their own, in their own country.
Wake up America. Osama Bin Laden said more than 25 years ago, America will destroy itself from within. Are we going to make his words come true????
Wel, I guess they won’t be getting any more Tesla’s. lololo
The Left can only aggress with its wicked agenda while Democrats reign. Stop voting for Democrats.
Yet Govenor Newsom just signed a new law into effect for “price gouging” by essentially deciding if the state’s oil refineries make too much gasoline, they will be fined. Which will lead the refiners to produce less of the specialty gasoline California mandates, which will end up causing gasoline prices in the state of California to rise even higher. So one bad decision by the Governor, related to the Red State ban, is repealed and then quickly replaced with an even more egregious law being signed into place. California, the state where sanity goes to die.
I used to travel to California. That was when it was almost a “normal” state and backed American values. Now California is like a very bad, strange foreign country. I try to have nothing more to do with it in any manner that will financially help it. Also, it will definitely not see any tourist dollars from me or my family .
More Democrats stupidness biting them in the butts. But they never learn do they? People still keep voting the same Democrat fools in office that destroy their lives. When will they ever wake up.
That which comes from San Francisco, the dump of the West: Gavin Newsom, kamala Harris, Diane Feinstein, Nancy Pelosi,…, need I say more?
Most everything that the progressives do ends up hurting people. But that’s because they put policies ahead of people. It’s all about their agendas which must be followed at any cost. They label their ideas with nice sounding titles but the results never match the rhetoric.
The problem lies in the fact that demoncraps are deaf, dumb, and blind to the reality of their actions. Their only aim is to destroy Red states, and their RED STATE VOTERS. They’re too stupid to weigh the consequences, before they enact ignorant laws.
How about all the Red states that were banned from doing business in SF pass bans on doing business with SF, or all of Kalifornia for that matter.
The so-called “Progressives” in our country always want to make Conservatives look stupid. They do not get that they are the stupid ones because they think they should make all the rules based upon their highly-biased outlook. Anyone who really has any intelligence will pick freedom instead of government over reach.
To think that all these out of control out of the touch with reality mentally seriously disturbed live at taxpayer expense and thriving Who is the crazy one here
Good, hope California goes bankrupt.
Last year when Tunnel vision, Damian Newscum and his Liberal brain defected minions raised the fuel prices to $6.50 per gallon, I had to take a trip to Oregon. When I arrived in Roseburg I found a place where the fuel price for diesel was $3.60 per gallon. So, I went to a local farm outlet and purchased a 100 gallon fuel tank for the back of my 3/4 ton Pickup, along with the electric pump. I then filled it with diesel. I paid $100 for the tank. The same tank in Ca. was almost $300. paid like $200 for the pump. Bottom line is this, I paid $560 for tank, pump and fuel. Had I just bought the fuel in Ca. it would have cost me $650 for just diesel. I live close to Reno NV and I’ve never bought fuel or gas in Ca since. I buy nothing in Ca. unless I absolutely have to. Just so you know, I drive a 7.3 Diesel Power stroke. My fuel mileage isn’t that much different as long as I keep my foot out of it.
Earlier this week, I spoke to one cousin who had been stationed in CA and another who still works there. Both were aghast at the STUPIDITY of CA politicians and the one currently living there is trying to find a suitable RED state to move to!
Ever notice how much Newsome can remind you of Damian from the Omen movies. Humm, funny how that is. Could it be an Omen?
The problem with liberals and progressives is that they do not understand the law of unintended consequences for their their myopic beliefs. This is a classic case of throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
Intro to & most of this article is poorly written, too jumbled, with sentences not following main topic nor supporting each statement made. Unfortunately, the word usage defeats the purpose of supplying evidence for the article topic and other sentences. I would have liked to have read it all…but too much stress for me to wade through. Thanks, but no thanks.
(Nonetheless, I do hope your 2023 year is great.)
One more instance of our country becoming ‘us vs them’ and not a harmonious union.
Let the Left destroy itself. They are nothing but nonsense and that has become clear. San Francisco is disgusting and deserves the problems it has created for itself.
I’m waiting for the moment that northern California secedes from California to form another state. After all, there’s a precedent for this when West Virginia seceded from Virginia in 1863.
WOKE = LOSER.
I do believe the WOKE left will destroy the Democratic liberal party. They look like fools.
Oh, they are fools! lol
To be ‘Woke’ is an admission you are unable to understand or use common sense!
now all the red states need to boycott California and charge a surge charge to companies doing business in or with California.
California needs to be left to rot on its own.
Divide and conquer…California was once a true Golden State…then the destroyers invaded.
Trump should have built a wall around CA.
Judging by the weather in CA, I think God is angry with Newsome.
Living in Illinois, believe it or not, is a red state except for Chicago. I know there’s conservatives in California but not enough to vote Gruesome Newsom out of office . We can’t vote Pritzker, or Foxx out of office because of Chicago. I feel for those people who support the constitution in California. My point is . . . . California can break off the nation and float away in the Pacific, just like Chicago can break off and float away in Lake Michigan. I thought Illinois was bad, but California takes the cake. Good luck with your boycotts . You have to laugh at this nonsense, or you’ll go crazy .
I define the far left ideology as “Woksters” In fact I’m looking for a t-shirt that says “No Woke Zone” with a red circle and a line through it
I hate San Francisco….they let the people poop on the streets, drop their needles in gutters, etc. Only reason I get close to there is to get to the pier to get on a cruise ship.
California has long been known as the land of fruits and nuts. The question has been asked many times which they have more of ? This last round of idiotic laws somebody pulled out of somewhere gives us a pretty good idea. They appear to be running neck and neck in a race to see who can turn up the most idiotic dreams possible.
I would imagine Newsom enjoyed his entire time in Montana. Hopefully the Beauty of the state has a lasting invasive effect.
Seems to me that a State law preventing travel to other states is plainly not Constitutional. Just another Commie liberal DemocRat Party scheme to try to restrict personal freedoms such as might characterize Communistic governance. The Commie DemocRats continue to try to put Communism in the laws of the land.
The law in California doesn’t mean civilians can’t travel to Red states. It means State employees can’t travel for State business to Red states because they use State money.