Victor Davis Hanson sounds off on Walgreens downsizing in San Francisco amid theft spike
'The Dying Citizen' author offers analysis on 'Fox News Primetime'
Mayor London Breed and the rest of California's Democratic political majority have turned once clean and safe San Francisco from "paradise to purgatory," author and historian Victor Davis Hanson told Fox News Thursday.
Hanson, author of "The Dying Citizen," said he and others have long wondered what the timeframe is between "hothouse ideas" like the Green New Deal, Americanized socialism and critical race theory being cooked up in academia – and when their predictably disastrous effects begin to be felt.
"I think Joe Biden showed us it is about nine months," Hanson said, pointing to $5-per-gallon gas in his home state of California and an announcement that Walgreens will close five stores in the city of San Francisco amid widespread theft following passage of a new law that slackens penalties for larceny under $900.
"With critical legal theory; that the law is not based on innate morality – theft is theft and violence is a construct – then you get looting at Walgreens and poor people can’t fill up prescriptions -- or you can’t drive your car to San Francisco because the window will be bashed in, $900 conveniently below the $1,000 felony limit will be stolen, then people won’t go to San Francisco," the Fresno-area native said.
Host Jesse Watters said Democratic Mayor London Breed effectively "tied the hands of the cops" with soft-on-crime policies and pointed to Walgreens' landmark departure.
"They took, you know, a paradise and turned it into purgatory, because all these theories, when they are actually tried in the real world, and only a place like California and San Francisco will go the whole nine yards and do it, then it's a wreck," said Hanson.
"The San Francisco school district is $100 million in hock — yet what are they doing, Jesse? [They have] filthy bathrooms, filthy classrooms, and they tried to rename Jefferson, Washington and Lincoln -- they tried to cover up or even destroy the beautiful New Deal mural of George Washington, and when they can’t address these existential problems."
Among a city advisory committee's plan to rename as many as 44 schools, historical figures are not the only ones garnering attention, as liberal Sen. Dianne Feinstein – the state's 88-year-old senior senator – may also have her name erased.
In an October 2020 statement, however, Breed said she wanted schools to focus on getting kids back into the classrooms after COVID-19 rather than renaming buildings.
"They go to these extraneous issues, and nobody wants it anymore," Hanson said of the macro view. "Half the people polled in San Francisco want out – and these are very liberal progressives that want out of what they once thought was paradise."