There's a difference between national and local politics. Pretending that everything is a national issue, or resorting to "But look at Alabama!", is intellectually dishonest and whenever somebody tries to pull national politics into a local politics debate, it's usually a disingenuous ploy to spike a legitimate debate.

In my opinion, one of the reasons the Bay Area has become a poster child for issues like socio-economic inequality and housing market distortions is that instead of addressing the local issues that they were elected to address, many politicians here prefer to focus on national politics that are outside of their purview.

"For fuck's sake," the Berkeley City Council recently spent time passing a five-page resolution calling for Trump to be impeached. It was an insult to the electorate in Berkeley, which faces no shortage of problems, but sadly par for the course in the Bay Area.