A San Francisco supervisor candidate received backlash after calling a Jewish journalist a Nazi.
The San Francisco Chronicle reported that Leanna Louie, who is running for election in District Four, referred to Mission Local editor and columnist Joe Eskenazi as a Nazi twice in social media posts.
Louie posted in a message on Instagram, saying, “Have I shared these fun photos we took at KQED? It was so nice to talk to a journalist who actually had a dialogue with me.”
She added, “Unlike Joe EskeNAZI who called me and talked over me and didn’t even write any of my responses.”
Repeating the nickname again, Louie claimed that he “totally wrote what he wanted and called his friends and members of the Weather Underground from Michigan, Berkeley, and other places to validate his points.”
The Chronicle pointed out that it was “unclear” why Louie referenced the Weather Underground, considering they were a violent militant group active decades ago.
Read the post below:
How toxic are San Francisco politics? Leanna Louie, candidate for Board of Supervisors, just posted this. It refers to Joe Eskenazi, who is Jewish, as EskeNAZI.
— gil duran (@gilduran76) August 24, 2022
He’s the @MLNow reporter who broke the story about her serious legal troubles.
Time to end the campaign, Leanna. pic.twitter.com/zBq9UDXDE9
Eskenazi reacted to the posts, saying, “I am used to stuff like this ever since grade school when they teach non-Jews what the Holocaust is,” as the outlet reported.
He continued, “I think Ms. Louie owes an apology to Chris Thomas, the famously non-partisan 36-year election director of Michigan and Ann Ravel, an Obama appointee to the Federal Election Commission, whom she described as terrorists.”
The Chronicle noted that other San Francisco political leaders denounced Louie’s comments.
“There’s no place in San Francisco for this kind of discourse,” Supervisor Aaron Peskin told the outlet.
Peskin is Jewish.
The statement continues, “I’ve been around electoral politics for a quarter of a century and I’ve seen some rough stuff, but this is beyond the pale and it has to be condemned in the strongest terms.”
Supervisor Myrna Melgar reacted to the post on Twitter.
“Wow the D4 race, already ugly, has gotten somehow even worse and 2 more months to go. No place for this virulent antisemitism in our political discourse,” Melgar tweeted.
Wow the D4 race, already ugly, has gotten somehow even worse and 2 more months to go. No place for this virulent antisemitism in our political discourse. Support @D4GordonMar. So sorry this happened to @EskSF. https://t.co/5VtxlSr2Zz
— Myrna Melgar ???? (@myrnamelgar) August 24, 2022
Additionally, the Chronicle mentioned that the posts came after the journalist reported on questions about whether Louie meets the residency requirements to show up on the ballot and whether she voted in an election that she was not eligible to vote in.
