How Billionaire Wealth Redefined Moderate Democrats [First Half]

On this episode of Critical Baby Theory, host Francesca Root-Dodson sits down with childhood friend Anna Durrett, a New York City-based communications consultant, to unpack how billionaire wealth has quietly redefined what it means to be a "moderate" Democrat—particularly in the hothouse of San Francisco tech politics.

Also discussed: tracing San Francisco's arc from pandemic-era "progressive nihilism" to a billionaire-funded surveillance state, the sinking Millennium Tower as a symbol of zoning compromise gone wrong, the death of the middle-class creative life, why leaning on philanthropy instead of taxation might be the most dangerous political bet of all, growing up in San Francisco, terminal diagnoses, drug addiction in the Tenderloin, and why Francesca thinks billionaires should be a lot more frightened of history than they currently are.

Discussed:

“How San Francisco Became a Failed City” by Nellie Bowles in The Atlantic 

“The Billionaire Who Wired San Francisco” by Lauren Smiley in New York Magazine

“The Strange Emptiness of the Crowded Governor’s Race in California” by Nathan Heller in The New Yorker

The first half of every episode of CBT is free wherever you get your podcasts. If you'd like to become a subscriber and hear the second half, please go to www.patreon.com/criticalbabetheory. Thank you for your support xo