The Bay Area is often described as a ‘bubble,’ an area of people echo-chambering themselves with the same progressive values. This ideology makes many people view it as a progressive utopia—they believe that despite being out-of-touch with other political viewpoints, the Bay is a home for liberals, the safest place for far left-leaners. That isn’t completely incorrect— it’s home to vocal advocates for cultural and social justice, climate action, and corporate accountability. It’s exactly this outside perspective of the Bay Area that makes political polarization even worse, isolating us from the rest of America. However, behind our shiny liberalized reputation, actualized systemic change remains increasingly out of reach.
Beneath the surface, the Bay Area is not nearly as progressive as it imagines itself to be, with most people residing on the center scale of our political chart. There’s no shortage of performative support for leftist ideals—everybody wants homelessness to be solved, climate action to be taken. And yet, the actual policies and political structures in place often serve to uphold the status quo rather than disrupt it, something sneakily uprooted by the current Democratic party itself. Most of this stagnation regarding new ideas and policies can be traced back to the dominance of slow-moving, capitalistic Democrats, people who idolize the language of progress and change yet rarely challenge the economic systems that initially create inequality.
It’s extremely simple to say you are a progressive in the Bay. And yet, to critique capitalism? To, god forbid, support socialism? All of a sudden, the corporate leftists and supporters of neoliberalism seem enraged at the thought of a differently formed system. Most are content with political change, even endorse it until it requires actual sacrifice from them and other community members. Progressive housing developments in the Bay are the clearest example of this, as numerous ones have been overturned and voted down throughout history.
Take Measure D, pitched in 2013 for Palo Alto. It campaigned for a senior housing development located on Maybell Avenue, one which would host 60 units for low-income seniors and 12 single-family homes. It felt simple—how could anyone vote against homes for the lower-class elderly, the one demographic that doesn’t feel politicized at all? That’s how the Palo Alto City Council felt, with every single member championing this measure and zoning officially changed. Yet, when citizens of the city voted, the measure was overturned by nearly 1500 votes. Opponents cited traffic and preserving the ‘character’ of Palo Alto. Currently, the development—aimed to serve low-income seniors—hosts a few single-family houses, each costing 5+ million dollars.
Nearly every single liberal in the Bay is experiencing cognitive dissonance. Despite progressive claims, most people echo “fix the roads, help the poor, but lower my taxes.” The same people complaining regularly about federal inactivity on climate change live intertwined with the tech-driven consumerism of Silicon Valley. People pride themselves upon diversity and change while failing to acknowledge areas like gentrification. Ideally, this disconnect would be limited to our area, we want to hope the rest of America doesn’t carry this performative activism with them. And yet, this isn’t just an issue here; it truly is a national problem. Across the country, many self-proclaimed liberals remain more comfortable with symbolic victories than material ones, attempting to make nearly any policy or change suggested more palatable for possible centrist supporters. Oddly, this isn’t always the fault of these liberals themselves.
The Bay Area, America, and the entire planet have taken a momentous shift to the right—something we have all failed to focus on. Across the world, right-wing leaders dominate, with Javier Milei, Alice Weidel, Narendra Modi, and Viktor Orbán controlling their countries. The political spectrum itself has shifted, and the lens we are viewing through is a capitalistic, right-winged view. Most people aren’t liberal nor even centrist. They are what used to be moderate Republicans, touting beliefs held by the party not even 10 years ago. Because of our severe shift of scale and perspective, what used to be classic Democratism is now viewed as fanatical extremism, with right-wing bigotry becoming so normalized that nearly any Democratic viewpoint that isn’t perfectly palatable and non-challenging is insanity.
The Democratic Party, especially in areas like California, presents itself as the antidote to right-wing extremism. But when it comes to economic policy, many leaders operate within the confines of capitalism, afraid of pushing any bold reform. Statewide and federal leaders advocate for livable wages, yet hesitate to discuss concepts such as universal basic income, pushing for corporate regulation but accepting millions in donations from industries they claim to oversee. It isn’t that these ideas we aren’t talking about are somehow perfect—they just aren’t even being mentioned. To change and better a system, we need to debate these topics, not just dispute over the narrow range we allow.
So what’s the solution to this issue? How do we fight back against a narrowed view of what a Democrat can be? The solution is simple: acknowledge this contradiction. Discussing the hypocrisy rampant in the Democratic party puts pressure on our leaders, and forces both local and federal governments into bringing new frames of reference to the table. We young people have the power to demand more from our leaders and hold a spotlight on the fake activism spreading like a disease. It isn’t easy by any means, as it requires moving beyond the comfort of cultural liberalism, embracing economic progressivism and change, and leaving behind sympathy for genuine solidarity. This can mean pushing for policies in local areas that redistribute wealth, protect workers, and hold corporations accountable, but can also mean simply deliberating this issue with family members, neighbors, and prominent community figures. The Bay Area and this country both have the potential to be truly progressive, but that requires moving past performative politics and confronting societal structures we unknowingly uphold. Real change comes from raw action, not branding or slogans. And the way to begin? Recognizing that what we call progress isn’t always what it seems.
References
Forman, E. (2017, April 15). Fascism Is Possible Not in Spite of Liberal Capitalism, but Because of It. Truthout. https://truthout.org/articles/fascism-is-possible-not-in-spite-of-liberal-capitalism-but-because-of-it/
Khurana, M., Levitt, Z., Hernandez, M., Bloch, M., Collins, K., & Gebeloff, R. (2024, December 17). Election Results show a Red Shift Across the U.S. in 2024. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/11/06/us/politics/presidential-election-2024-red-shift.html
Kuttner, R. (2025, February 6). Corrupted Capitalism and Dithering Democrats. The American Prospect. https://prospect.org/politics/2025-02-06-corrupted-capitalism-dithering-democrats/
Sheyner, G. (2013, November 5). Voters shoot down Maybell development. Palo Alto Online. https://www.paloaltoonline.com/news/2013/11/05/measure-d-opponents-on-the-verge-of-victory/Ture, K. (n.d.). The Pitfalls of Liberalism. In Stokely Speaks: From Black Power to Pan-Africanism. https://redsails.org/the-pitfalls-of-liberalism/