As Trump debates, Oakland’s Sheng Thao struggles to survive

Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao speaks to the media during a press conference at Oakland City Hall in Oakland, Calif., on Monday, June 24, 2024. Monday’s statement was the first by Thao after federal authorities raided her home last week. (Jose Carlos Fajardo/Bay Area News Group via AP)

Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao must be wondering how can a convicted felon with 34 guilty verdicts be riding high, while an uncharged Thao fights for her political life?

That’s how strange politics is in America today. Bad Behavior is relative, and sometimes rewarded.

On the national stage, the convicted Trump will be debating this week as President Joe Biden makes an historic ask of Americans. It’s summer, and everyone is in “low information” voter mode. But for the sake of the country, and the future of democracy, it’s time to pay attention and get nerdy now.

Biden is essentially tied with Trump, the newly convicted felon. But instead of policy, much of the talk has been bluster like Trump calling for a pre-debate drug test because he’s sure Biden is going to be “jacked up” on some kind of performance enhancing drug. I don’t think he was joking. It’s just a shameless lie.

But that kind of thing gets attention. Not whether you’re going to do a damn thing to improve people’s lives.

It means we’re likely doomed to a phony debate. Trump will be jeering and baiting with half-truths, making faces when his mike gets cut off.

Biden will be so focused on being policy perfect, but any flaw in his demeanor will be amplified.  Biden backers are praying he simply stays upright

Even a slight drool from Joe will be a point for the fool.

But rest assured, if Donald Trump is elected for a second time, the blueprint is already out. The Heritage Foundation’s plan calls for a “Department of Life,” and a theocratic-based world view where abortion is illegal and minorities of all stripes are disempowered.

A vote for Trump represents a radical reformatting of democracy. Time to pay attention.

Politics in Oakland, California

In the meantime, local Oakland, Calif. politics is slightly different, but no less confounding.

Sheng Thao, 18 months into her tenure as the first Hmong American to be mayor of a major US city is recovering from the worst week in her life.

First, a group of Oakland citizens, mostly angered over how Thao has handled police issues and crime, qualified enough signatures to hold a recall election of Thao. Then on Wednesday, 15 people were shot at an unauthorized Juneteenth celebration in the city’s Lake Merritt area. The topper came Thursday, when the FBI executed a pre-dawn raid of a number of houses including Thao’s, all connected to a case reportedly involving improper campaign donations from Andy Duong, a Vietnamese American businessman whose company, CalWaste, won the contract to run the city’s recycling program. No arrests were made, just boxes and computers hauled from the various homes. Not a good look.

Thao: ‘I am innocent’ 

For five days, Thao was silent, but on Monday, she came out firing her best shot.

“I have done nothing wrong,” Thao said at a news conference. “I can tell you with confidence that this investigation is not about me. I have not been charged with a crime and I am confident that I will not be charged with (a) crime because I am innocent.”

Thao said she was seeking answers from the US attorney as to why she wasn’t “offered the opportunity to cooperate voluntarily.”

Good question. Unless they thought she was hiding something.

Thao addressed the shootings last week first with care, then said she won’t be distracted from the real issues of Oakland. Like safety or the selling of the Oakland Coliseum to a Black-owned group.

But she went back to questioning the timing of last week.

“I want to know more about the handful of billionaires from San Francisco and Piedmont who are hell bent on running me out of office,” she said, questioning how the recall announcement and the raid seemed orchestrated with the media “to fan the flames and bend the facts to shape a narrative.”

Thao didn’t elaborate or provide any evidence but said it wouldn’t have happened the way it did “if I was rich, if I had gone to elite public schools, or if I had come from money.”

Then she charged again, without evidence. “Former elected officials are sitting safely in their houses in the hills right now with campaign finance violations piling up,” Thao said citing a double standard. “They will never face this indignity.”

Thao segued into how she knows this from growing up poor in America, where one feels “injustice in every bone in your body. Knowing if you cry out and demand for answers you will do nothing but cement the judgment they have for you deep in their minds.”

It was an attempt to rebuild empathy with her constituents. “I see you,” she said. “I really see you.”

It’s a great story that Thao has used before to bond with Oaklanders who can relate to her. She’s the woman who ran away from an abusive relationship while still pregnant at 16; who worked her way as a single mom through junior college, then UC Berkeley.

The fact is while the political moment is tough, Thao has faced much worse in her less than model minority early life.

“When my parents came to this country fleeing genocide, they never could have imagined that their daughter would one day be mayor of Oakland,” she said in closing.  “I am my ancestors’ wildest dreams. And I am your mayor Mayor Sheng Thao.”

Yes, but for how much longer?  The story is good. But is her story good enough to survive all this?

Trump, the convicted felon, overcomes his bad reality by being  propelled by “friends” who donate millions of dollars and provide unwavering support. They see him as a winner.

For better or for worse, Thao doesn’t have what Trump has. She was voted in through RCV, rank-choice-voting. She won because she was most people’s second choice.  But that’s how rank choice voting works. The process saves money but the winner is not the majority’s first choice.

Maybe that’s explains why few allies are standing up behind her now.  Attorney General Rob Bonta – the leading Filipino American Democratic politico – has been practically mute. Nor has there been much support from Bonta’s Assembly member wife, Mia. Instead of support, the Oakland NAACP, and even one Asian group are calling for Thao to resign.

Without knowing the facts of the case currently under seal, all Thao could do to respond to her situation this week was rely on her story.  Her truth.

Will it be enough?

After her public appearance, Thao lost her first lawyer, who said he knew nothing about the Monday press conference until it happened. And then on Wednesday, Thao’s communications guy resigned. Did he get in the way of Thao’s story?

Her story is  the one thing that got her this far, but it will be severely stress-tested by the politics of the day.

In the meantime, Trump, the convicted felon, debates this week for the highest office in the land. And what of all his transgressions? Millions of Americans don’t seem to care.

But in the land of the rule of law, they should.

Emil Guillermo is a journalist and commentator. He writes a column for Inquirer.net’s US Channel. See him on www.amok.com.