In my last blog post, I looked at Marie Hurabiell’s dubious claims of being a moderate Democrat rallying others around a centrist agenda. Hurabiell isn’t the only one playing this game. In San Francisco,“moderate Democrat” or just “moderate” should be considered code for Republicans pushing far-right policies against an imaginary progressive establishment. These moderate groups are no strangers to Republican money, for example, Neighbors for a Better San Francisco has received $1 million from a Mitch McConnell supporter – along with Neighbors’ co-founder and current board president – William Oberndorf. The biggest names in this space display the modern Republican party’s signature authoritarian tendencies that range from bullying and threats of violence to utter disregard for democratic processes.

The most visible moderate thug, Garry Tan, a major donor and board member of GrowSF, gave away the game earlier this year with his infamous “Die slow” tweet directed at seven members of the Board of Supervisors. Tan’s strange brand of techno-authoritarianism has seen much coverage. (In case you missed it, Tan and other tech billionaires are planning a parallel, technocratic society called “The Network State.”) 

Tan’s bullying is part of a playbook being used by other so-called moderates against their progressive foes. District 1 Supervisor Connie Chan shared a police report filed in 2023 against Forrest Liu, a campaign staffer for her opponent Marjan Philhour. On two occasions, Liu physically threatened Chan, challenging her to a fight and verbally abusing her while standing only an inch from her face. 

Liu and ally Jade Tu, the campaign manager for conservative mayoral candidate Mark Farrell, led a small protest at Supervisor Aaron Peskin’s mayoral campaign kickoff. Liu and Tu, armed with fly swatters, called Farrell’s progressive rival, “Pesky Peskin,” using an anti-semitic slur to criticize the BOS president. Liu berated Peskin’s Chinese-American supporters in Cantonese, telling them “to bow” before their “master.”

Liu and Tu are former staffers for Together SF, the group founded, funded, and currently directed by billionaire venture capitalist Michael Moritz. The current chief executive of TogetherSF is longtime political operative Kanishka Cheng, a former staffer herself for both past supervisor and now-mayoral candidate Mark Farrell, along with current Mayor London Breed.

This kind of harassment has become par for the course for so-called city moderates. Earlier this year, political activist Alan Burradell and Mayor London Breed’s staffer Conor Johnston shouted down and intimidated Chan after a press conference. Burradell and Johnston are vocal supporters of Philhour and Breed. Johnston’s defense of the mayor has earned him the nickname of “Breed’s guard dog.” He is said to have donned a hippopotamus costume at campaign events for Breed’s challengers, shouting “hungry, hungry super PAC hippocrates.” (Breed, it should be noted, accepts PAC money.) As for Burradell, he was recently removed from San Francisco’s prestigious Civil Grand Jury for online bullying.

Burradell’s Twitter/X bio reads “I'm politically moderate & wonder what the hell happened to SF. I'm a registered Democrat. DSA Progressives failed our City.” Contrary to this bio, it turns out that Burradell is an all-out MAGA supporter. He has donated hundreds of dollars to Donald Trump’s two presidential campaigns. In a profile on Bloomberg on San Francisco’s rare Republicans, Burradell is proudly posed with his dog, clad in a MAGA jacket. Burradell has taken to Twitter/X to call respected reporter Gil Duran a George Soros operative, parroting an antisemitic and far-right conspiracy theory. Burradell touts his connection to Activ8, a District 8 branch of Hurabiell’s ConnectedSF, funded by money from her right-wing ally Oberndorf and Neighbors for a Better SF. 

In addition to his right-wing advocacy, Burradell has received $1,625 for consulting to various “moderate” campaigns including mayoral bids of Levi Strauss heir Daniel Lurie and former District 2 Supervisor Mark Farrell.

Two other leading political operatives in the so-called moderate circle are Jay and Kanishka Cheng, the husband and wife who, respectively, run Neighbors for a Better San Francisco and TogetherSF. The duo attempted to skirt campaign finance laws to offer guidance for former Supervisor Mark Farrell, the candidate who has had the most conservative messaging of the five leading candidates for mayor.

Jay and Kanishka crossed the line when they offered consulting services to Farrell’s campaign despite guidelines prohibiting coordination between independent expenditure campaigns and candidates. A leaked text from a consultant for Farrell’s campaign went as far as to say Kanishka was “guiding the ship” on the campaign. There’s a not so subtle irony to political operatives and a mayoral candidate who advocate for more “law and order” policing and tough crackdowns on drug use and homelessness, turning around and violating campaign laws. Jay Cheng also had a previous brush with the law when he was accused by a former girlfriend of attempted rape. 

Kanishka Cheng was also the mastermind for the much criticized “It’s Fentalife!” ad campaign, a tasteless attempt to lampoon the city’s addiction crisis to force the Board of Supervisors to increase the San Francisco Police Department budget.

It wasn’t the first time Kanishka Cheng betrayed her contempt for the city’s most vulnerable.In a 2023 CBS News piece, Cheng opposed a proposed park for Tenderloin families — the San Francisco neighborhood with the highest concentration of children in the city – “I’m not going to go down there and hang out with my kid. I’m just not. I don’t think any of the families that we work with are interested in that, too.” No surprise then that Moritz has poured at least $2.5 million into TogetherSF when both he and Kanishka share similar disdain for contributing to low income San Franciscans. Other campaigns Moritz has funded include opposing a tax on ultra-wealthy corporations to fund homelessness services, and raising the eligibility requirements for affordable housing.

The “moderates” claim to be fighting against an entrenched progressive establishment. The reality is that San Francisco has one of the strongest mayor systems in the country, with “moderates” at the helm since Art Agnos in 1992. Additionally, self-described “progressives” do not, and historically have not, made up a majority on the Board of Supervisors. 

Since their principal argument is how awful the city has become, shouldn’t they reserve their anger for the years of pro-business governance from the Mayor’s office and the Board? It’s laughable that the supposedly tough-on-crime, “sensible majority” figureheads are the ones who can’t seem to respect the rule of law or political disagreement. Instead, they force their way into power through threats of violence, bad-faith representations, and above all barrels of dark money funneled in from Republican mega-donors.