Yes, that is a Simpsons meme in Supervisor Joel Engardio’s latest campaign video to fight the recall election, as some seemingly race-based messaging and alleged dirty tricks mark the final three-week sprint toward that special election.

We are now in the final three weeks until the September 16 vote on recalling Joel Engardio as District 4 supervisor. And tonight is a pretty big night for both sides of that campaign. The usually moderate and pro-Engardio local SF Democratic Party will vote on whether to support, oppose, or abstain on endorsing the recall, after they delayed that vote last month, and seemingly left Engardio twisting in the wind.

Today’s Chronicle reports on some behind-the-scenes drama leading up to tonight's vote. They cite the video below that was reportedly sent to voting members of the local Democratic Party commission, and the Chron notes that the race is being tinged with some heated rhetoric about the Chinese American community, and maybe some online dirty tricks.  

The video above was recorded by Forrest Liu, a local Asian American activist who records the video speaking in Mandarin, saying that “Progressives often distort what we want to say” (according to the video’s translation). He goes on to say that “The Democratic Party no longer cares about us,” and that “Today, the Chinese Americans on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors do not share our values.” He adds that “Joel Engardio closed a road, completely ignoring Chinese concerns,” and that the community is questioning “whether Asians are respected by city leaders.”

“Some of you may oppose the recall because Joel Engardio is your friend, but this is not about Joel Engardio alone,” Liu says. “It is about whether the Democratic Party still values Asians. If you oppose the recall, you are clearly telling us: We do not matter to you.”

Liu urges the SF Democratic party to vote Yes on endorsing the recall, or to abstain from making a recommendation. If the party committee votes to endorse a No vote on the recall, that would probably benefit Engardio with some outside spending on campaign mailers and ads and such.

Meanwhile, some of the ads supporting the recall are creating controversy of their own.

Here’s a pro-recall ad featuring hardware store owner Albert Chow, who’s rumored to be interested in running for the seat. It is frankly not that good of an ad — it’s too long and has many silent pauses (though it is not as terrible as the recall campaign’s Quentin Kopp ad that is perhaps the worst political video I have ever seen). But Chow’s choice of words strikes many as a race-based dogwhistle to the primarily Chinese American D4 voter base.

“Joel Engardio said that our demographics would change,” Chow says in the ad. “He and whoever was thinking about this, planning this out, had their sights on truly displacing the people that live here, the people that call here home, the people who have set roots here and have history of generations living in the Sunset. He wants new people here, a new demographic, a different type of people with a whole different set of values."

“I think that is very dangerous,” Chow concludes.

That drew a response from Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman, who was formerly the anti-recall campaign’s top donor, giving $175,000. (He’s since been replaced by Ripple co-founder Chris Larsen, who’s given the anti-recall campaign $200,000.) Stoppelman called Chow’s remarks “straight-up nativist,” and said of Chow’s sentiment, “That’s ugly. That’s dangerous. That’s not San Francisco.”

Engardio himself just responded to Chow’s ad in a video posted Tuesday night, a video that includes meme references to The Simpsons plus another “faces of Karens and Kens” meme. Here Engardio decries people calling him “dangerous,” and says they're doing so only because he supports “new types of people moving to the Sunset.”

The Chron also references what is likely a fake, astroturf Twitter/X account with the handle “David S,” which had an AI-generated profile photo. (That account appears to have been deleted.) The account was seemingly pro-Engardio, but made provocative comments that reflected poorly on Engardio supporters. The account once claimed that there were “Too many Asians” living in District 4, and the Chron also adds that “a recall supporter admitted in a private Facebook group conversation that ‘David S’ was 'actually helping us by making engardio look bad.'”

There have also been social media claims that Engardio's team has been somehow manipulating posts on Nextdoor to quash any criticism of Engardio.

The Recall Joel Engardio effort has clearly splintered the centrist/moderate movement that thought they had captured City Hall. It is notable that Mayor Lurie, and the other moderate supervisors, have not come out in support of keeping Engardio in his seat. Politically, Joel Engardio is a hot potato that few elected officials seem willing to touch.

But it also shows how Engardio has blown his once-strong support from the Chinese American community, mostly because of his car-free Great Highway efforts, but likely also because of his support for denser and taller housing on the west side of town. Recalls and housing were once centerpieces of the YIMBY-moderate political philosophy, and now they’re issues that will quite possibly remove a YIMBY-moderate candidate from office.    

We’re reminded of a Hamiton lyric spoken by the George Washington character: ​"Winning was easy, young man. Governing's harder."

Related: Sunset Night Market on Pause, Possibly Falling Victim to Recall Fight Involving Supervisor Joel Engardio [SFist]

Image: @JoelEngardio via Twitter