I read the article last night. I lived there from '98-'01, during a somewhat different cultural moment, in the Willie Brown era. It was if anything more corrupt and dysfunctional. The music writer Bill Wyman wrote a good article on this back in 1999, which probably still holds up:
I don't think there's that much ideology to it. The place is corrupt and dysfunctional because it's conditioned itself to be corrupt and dysfunctional. Brownback's Kansas government had similar problems; same in Ohio.
https://www.salon.com/1999/11/03/sf/
I don't think there's that much ideology to it. The place is corrupt and dysfunctional because it's conditioned itself to be corrupt and dysfunctional. Brownback's Kansas government had similar problems; same in Ohio.