I think it would behoove "The Left" to stop feeling sorry for itself and face some basic political realities.
The last City Council Election came at a "throw the bums out" time. We were coming off the worst of the pandemic, the town was a mess, and people were tired of it. We could have had a "conservative" council and it probably would have turned out the same Is that unfair? Maybe, but that's the reality.
To make things worse, In their quest for utopia, the council neglected the bread-and-butter issues of their districts and couldn't give good reasons for why things were the way they were.
Being a council member is not just a platform for social change, especially in a district-based council. You also have to make sure the garbage is picked up, the streets get sweeped, and all the other things the residents expect from their city. It not a difficult concept to grasp.
The "left," by reaching for unrealistic "brass rings," has engaged in two egregious, puerile exercises in self-marginalization in recent memory. If more people had voted for Pete Holmes instead of the pie-in-the-sky abolitionist Nicole Thomas-Kennedy, we wouldn't have Raggedy Ann. If more people had voted for the experienced, and highly qualified, Brianna Thomas instead of the less-qualified, less experienced street preacher Nikkita Oliver, we wouldn't have the odious Sara Nelson. Writers at the Stranger need to own up to their responsibility for this part of the present situation.
@6 if you “crush” the business class how are you going to fund all your social programs? The eternal demonization of anything successful is exactly why the left can not lead. People are fine with “being a lab for progressive policy” when times are good but when thing inevitably take a down turn it’s time to put rational people back in charge. The fact Katie thinks every one of the policies she mentioned is a winner shows the lack of introspection she bemoans. Newsflash some of those policies suck and should be amended or removed. If you want to have a lab than recognize some experiments are going to fail and you should learn from that not continue to defend them.
@7 I would disagree only with the thought that we are fine for "being a lab for progressive policy." Seattle is a city, not a progressive experiment.
This city has needs that need to be met: transportation, housing, safety, infrastructure, jobs from small and large business, recreation.... just like every other city. As a Seattle native, I don't give two shits about "progressive experimentation." I care about this city being a place where people can live, work, play, and that we have leaders that actually want to make the city better for everyone, not just use their position to punish those they don't like (which, ironically, is very Trumpian).
Unserious leaders like Sawant were a stain on this city; the last election was a perfect "good riddance" to the demagogues.
This city should never be a test-ground for crackpot socialist policies; it's a real city with real problems that require real, concrete, and achievable solutions. The last council got booted because they didn't have any real solutions. Instead they had tired rhetoric (eat the rich! de-fund the police!) and yelling through bullhorns. Bullhorns aren't policy.
The left has given this city a black eye on its school system — $1.2 billion budget, 50k kids…inching ever closer to a state takeover because it is structurally outspending its revenues several years in a row now. Stranger endorsed elected board members got lost along the way with things like fighting the city to keep homeless encampments on school grounds, or crying ‘white supremacy!’ when the governor finally ordered the reopening of schools after 18 long months of COVID closures. Agree with the ^^^ meat and potatoes comments above about doing the unsexy work of running a government well over utopian ideals. We need smart, serious elected officials to do difficult, serious jobs, and we need better stewards of limited tax funds. A bankrupt school system would be heartbreaking chaos. I hope potential future progressive candidates are reading these comments and taking them to heart.
Look up what socialism wants, no private property. Everything the previous council did supports that goal.
Transit Riders Union is a ngo funded by Labor Unions. Katie Wilson is a mouthpiece for what MLK Labor wants. Just like The Stranger, Labor Union door mats and a lot of other phony groups. Look who is funding any group to know what is paying them to spread propaganda.
@8 "The last council got booted because they didn't have any real solutions."
If that's the case the current Council's days are numbered. If there were a similar article about the failings of centrists it would be about always assuming their ideas are "rational" or "real, concrete" when in reality they are differently but no less ideological. And in the case of the current City government no more "pragmatic" than anything Sawant came up with.
Saunatina told me they would make another push with a ranked choice system...I guess with what they know now. Shannon at Sightline did an interesting article on the effects of ranked choice rules influencing the behavior of Maine campaigns. I'm so happy I voted against The Stranger's wishes 2 years ago and I will never vote for Steve Hobbs again.
@2 "If more people had voted for Pete Holmes instead of the pie-in-the-sky abolitionist Nicole Thomas-Kennedy, we wouldn't have Raggedy Ann."
Or, hear me out, if more people had not voted for a critically inexperienced conservative ideologue we wouldn't have "Raggedy Ann." Why would we possibly hold anyone accountable for the election of a clownish City Attorney than the people who voted for her and political machine that uplifted her?
Every political district in this country from the state down to the municipal is considered a testing ground for new policies — it would be kind of silly to have a democracy that hives states as much power as ours if they weren’t going to try things differently based on people’s preferences — but it’s impossible to be an effective lab for progressive policy when your state has the most regressive tax code in the country. You’re always going to be boxed into a system that favors people with the most money, even more so than everywhere else.
If you don’t want to live in a city with a progressive electorate you could always move to Oklahoma City or something. Just seems weird and pointless to live in a left-leaning city only to complain about how stupid everything is all the time.
@14, I agree with you about experimental policy, to an extent. I think it’s intellectually lazy to tell someone who disagrees with you to go away; that only solves the problem of you being tired of criticism.
The city would be better off with a mix of progressives and moderates on the dais instead of the yoyo of one extreme to another. Some incrementalism wouldn’t hurt — the city passed a lot of tenant protections in the past five years with little thought how they might impact the market for example. I’ll always vote for a balanced council.
This article provides some hope the Stranger has become willing to reconsider past advocacy. Right now, the Stranger still has a ways to go:
"... actually governing is more complicated. It means passing policies, implementing them, defending their results."
No steps where the outcomes of those policies are reviewed against stated intent, via relevant, data-driven metrics, and then any changes found necessary are made per that analysis. Skip straight to "defending the results," no matter what those results are, because our policies are, by our definition, always right and just and good and fair...
... and anyone with any other ideas is simply wrong, due to their (obviously) bad moral character:
"It’s easy to bemoan the hypocrisy of Seattle liberals, the reactionary and ungenerous impulses..."
When you can go from "liberal" to "reactionary" in successive clauses, you might want to check your own beliefs against external reality.
@18 there was a lot of anger at Pete Holmes over the state of the city and he wasn’t exactly promising to do anything about it either. You were going to get a moderate (Davison) vs a progressive and TS tilted the election for NTK. When NTK won those who would have voted for Homles but found her too extreme voted for Davison. If Holmes had been the candidate the NTK voters most assuredly would have voted for him.
I really recommend reading You Say you Want A Revolution by UW own Daniel Chiort https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/718093 or Vincent Bevens If We Burn to get a better handle on this "right wing backlash" concept that keeps getting thrown around. My own union (IBEW 46) has thrown good money and endorsements at bad candidates because they are horribly misreading the mood of their own rank and file. Oh how far we have fallen from those labor rallies of the WTO days.
I look forward to some better informed discussions about this argument re. demographics and progressive strategy. Solidarity
@19 Nothing about Davison is "moderate" she was a law and order candidate Nixon or Reagan would have loved. People rejected the moderate candidate in favor of a progressive and a conservative, and the conservative ultimately won. The people responsible for that win are the people who voted for her. This is not complicated.
@22: The Stranger did not endorse Holmes, even after admitting he’d done pretty much everything they’d wanted. Anyone who didn’t want Davison to win should probably talk to the Stranger about that.
Furthermore, to extend @16, any candidate who promises to do the job automatically becomes more “moderate” than someone campaigning on not doing it.
@22, It’s naive to pretend there isnt some game theory going on here, and given the outsized influence of TS endorsements, they play a part. I am looking forward to ranked choice, which should fix some of this voting bloc triangulation (but wouldn’t have mattered in these two races). But RCV will take even longer to count votes. I predict RCV will yield more moderate office holders and I’m here for that.
Expanding on @17 and @21, immediately after calling Seattle liberals hypocrites for daring to disagree with the author, the link in the headline post takes us to another of the author's articles:
'As someone who sat on stage during the infamous Ballard town hall of 2018 — “the day Seattle Nice died” — I’ve spent a fair amount of time reflecting on why people feel the way they do about the homelessness crisis. More specifically, I’ve done some thinking about the enraged NIMBY, a specimen that was out in force that evening.'
The citizens started yelling at then-CM Mike O'Brien because he kept telling them his infamous lie, about the homeless in Seattle being mostly locals who had fallen upon hard times, driven into the streets by Amazon's rent-raising success. Seattle's late-2016 Homeless Needs Assessment had shown most of Seattle's homeless population had arrived in town already homeless (https://www.seattle.gov/documents/Departments/HumanServices/CDBG/CityOfSeattle2016-HomelessNeedsAssessment.pdf), so his continuing to present such fiction understandably raised the ire of everyone who could plainly see, with their own eyes, that it simply was not true. The author's continued victim-blaming of outspoken citizens doesn't bode well for any project to win their votes, and if the obvious failure of Seattle's homeless policy isn't obvious enough yet to the Stranger, there's really no hope this project will succeed.
Beyond even failure of policy, and victim-blaming anyone who describes it as a failure, comes the Stranger's continued intolerance for anyone who dares disagree with progressive policy. Those citizens in Ballard were literally petitioning their government for a redress of grievances, a fundamental right of all Americans. Progressives' response began -- and have ended, so far -- by telling those citizens they should just STFU, that their complaints should not be heard, or even spoken. Again, such reflexive and absolute intolerance bodes poorly for successful governance in a democracy.
Katie,
Stick to your (bus) lane. Read the purpose of your so-called union. https://transitriders.org/about/mission-and-principles/
You want cheap accessible transit paid for by tax payers you deem other. I get it. What’s that got to do with anything else?
Perhaps you have bigger career plans. Sawant 2.0?
@22 you’re trapped in your own bubble again. Davison would be liberal in any red jurisdiction. The fact enforcing the law makes a candidate conservative around here is more an indictment of how far askew progressive policies are than some swipe at Davison.
@23 what does The Stranger's endorsement have at all to do with my assertion that the people to blame for Davison being elected are the people who voted for her? Other than the fact that there is obviously no actual counter to that so you want I stead to deflect.
@27 what about Davison's policies are at all liberal? She was an explicitly tough on crime and poor people candidate and she's followed through as City Attorney. Name one thing whatsoever that she's advocated for or done that would be considered liberal (not comparatively-less-reactionary, actually liberal) in any jurisdiction in the country, please, if you can.
@28 "She was an explicitly tough on crime and poor people candidate and she's followed through as City Attorney"
Has she? I think you already have your answer. It's not what she has done, its what she hasn't done. When she won TS and progressives like yourself had a meltdown about how everyone was going to be in jail. That just hasn't happened. Even the South Seattle Emerald acknowledged that
"Despite the shift in rhetoric, the City Attorney's Office may not have changed as much under Ann Davison as you'd think."
Yes, she is enforcing the law and after the last decade we endured under Pete Holmes it may seem extreme but its still a very light touch and no where near as tough as attorneys in actual conservative jurisdictions.
@28: "what does The Stranger's endorsement have at all to do with my assertion that the people to blame for Davison being elected are the people who voted for her?"
The Stranger pointedly refused to endorse Holmes, even after recounting how he'd done pretty much everything they'd wanted. If you want to claim their non-endorsement had no effect on whether Holmes made it through the primary election, you can make that claim. It just seems odd you're implicitly claiming the Stranger's endorsement -- or intentional lack thereof -- made no difference. (It's also odd you use the word "blame" to describe her election, when you have yet to give so much as a single example of anything she's done in office you don't like, let alone give an example of how Holmes or NTK would have done better.)
Of course the election of an official depends upon the voters. That point was so obvious, I believed it did not require an explicit statement, but if you did indeed need one, there it is.
Also, expanding on @29, from the Real Change article, republished in the Emerald:
'In some ways, Davison's tough-on-crime rhetoric didn't fully align with her policy positions, which resembled a post-coronavirus return to the status quo more than a definitive lurch to the right. For example, to clear the 5,000 case "backlog" of charges referred to the CAO from the Seattle Police Department (SPD), the office quietly dismissed thousands of old cases in the spring and fall of 2022. Similarly, Davison recruited Natalie Walton-Anderson, an attorney with a more progressive reputation who has worked in the offices of the King County prosecutor and U.S. District Attorney.'
(Why they put the term "backlog" in quotes, I cannot say; nor do they recognize explicitly this backlog remained as a direct result of Holmes' chronic refusal to do his job. Still, their point remains: Davison has been more about cleaning up the vast mess left by her predecessor, than she is in imposing a radical new direction upon the city.)
Right.
If ever there was an underrepresented group in Seattle and King County it would be the left.
Grow up. Your childish rants remind me of a certain republican presidential candidate.
@31: Again, from the Emerald, as referenced above:
“…Davison has largely stayed the course when it comes to the City's pre-filing diversion programs, which provide people charged with certain crimes an opportunity to not be further involved in the criminal legal system and to access services instead. These include programs for young adults and people who drive with a suspended license in the third degree.”
So no, she hasn’t produced a lock’em-up-first approach.
How about you give an example of something objectionable she has done?
@33 are you suggesting that red states don't have pretrial diversion programs? Much less for cases as petty as driving with a suspended license? Because if so you are you objectively wrong and speaking from a place of ignorance.
Something objectionable she has done? I'll give you two: unilaterally killing community court and abusing a statutory authority to de facto remove an elected judge.
@34: I have said nothing about “red states,” nor any other state. The point is CA Davison left most of the diversionary programs intact.
(Nice to see it takes only a few direct questions before you’ll actually give examples.)
“…unilaterally killing community court…”
Because too many persons were cycling through the community court without changing behaviors, and the results were worse than for pre-trial diversions. “According to Davison's office, 22% of people who enter Community Court graduated or engaged with services. Additionally, when looking at a two-year time period, the chances of people committing a crime after participating in Community Court was 52%, compared to 23% when participating in pre-filing diversion.” (https://www.king5.com/article/news/local/seattle/seattle-ends-participation-community-court/281-ea6d2f7a-19ee-4411-9bc5-4b8980cc91cd)
“…abusing a statutory authority to de facto remove an elected judge.”
Said judge went on to write a guest rant here at the Stranger, nicely validating the City Attorney Office’s concerns about her judgment.
"...we should carve out some time for self-reflection."
This was a remarkably refreshing, thoughtful, and actually journalistic piece, largely free from screed, ideological ranting, historical event fabrication and deletion...I hope Katie sticks the landing here.
Couple quick points:
The Stranger endorsement really no longer has "outsize influence". The combination of the lurch to the hardest left position, unmoored by data, fact, or anything else PLUS the end of the hardcopy of the paper was a body blow to the influence of the Stranger.
I could read Tensorna's comments all day long. Smart, balanced, informed, backed up with data--often, I'm sure to the Stranger's chagrin, by their own past stories.
LOL ..bonus points for being funny, #39.
Queer guy on Cap Hill so neither Tensorna's mom nor dad (nor brother or cousin)
But that was funny. H/T to you. :)
I applaud the author of this piece and her commitment to creating a Progressive movement that is realistic in its aims and practical in its methods; because a Progressive who is both realistic and practical is a Moderate.
@34: This wasn’t the first time Seattle has shuttered Community Court; this wasn’t the second time Seattle has shuttered Community Court. That experiment has repeatedly failed.
There’s nothing wrong with trying an experiment again, even after it has already failed multiple times, so long as the experimenters analyze previous failures, and update accordingly. For this shuttering of Community Court, the City Attorney’s Office provided evidence they have better paths to the desired outcomes, via pre-trial diversions, and so will go that route.
As you haven’t even tried to make the case for keeping Community Court 3.0 (or is it 1.3?) open, City Attorney Davison wins by default.
“What should the left do differently in the future to regain influence and maintain it?“ That is the wrong question. The right question would be “what policies should the left propose and test that solve our problems well? Before inflicting ill thought out ideological experiments on a vulnerable public?”
Among the many deep damages that Sawant and her zealous recruits inflicted on Seattle: The extinction of the small landlord through over-regulation. As small landlords have sold or removed their properties from the market this has resulted in a further consolidation of our rental properties in a corporate stranglehold, with higher rents and fewer options for renters. The ultimate result can be seen, ironically, in the current pleas from low income housing organizations to lift Sawant’s renter regs like the prohibition on winter eviction— because the nonprofits are going under when people don’t pay rent.
I think it would behoove "The Left" to stop feeling sorry for itself and face some basic political realities.
The last City Council Election came at a "throw the bums out" time. We were coming off the worst of the pandemic, the town was a mess, and people were tired of it. We could have had a "conservative" council and it probably would have turned out the same Is that unfair? Maybe, but that's the reality.
To make things worse, In their quest for utopia, the council neglected the bread-and-butter issues of their districts and couldn't give good reasons for why things were the way they were.
Being a council member is not just a platform for social change, especially in a district-based council. You also have to make sure the garbage is picked up, the streets get sweeped, and all the other things the residents expect from their city. It not a difficult concept to grasp.
The "left," by reaching for unrealistic "brass rings," has engaged in two egregious, puerile exercises in self-marginalization in recent memory. If more people had voted for Pete Holmes instead of the pie-in-the-sky abolitionist Nicole Thomas-Kennedy, we wouldn't have Raggedy Ann. If more people had voted for the experienced, and highly qualified, Brianna Thomas instead of the less-qualified, less experienced street preacher Nikkita Oliver, we wouldn't have the odious Sara Nelson. Writers at the Stranger need to own up to their responsibility for this part of the present situation.
Less ideological purity socialism and more sewer socialism, please. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sewer_socialism
It will be interesting to see how this column plays out over time (hopefully it’s more than a weekly regurgitation of don’t punch left).
And Katie, if you want an example of what not to do, see the latest from Hannah
https://www.thestranger.com/elections-2024/2024/11/01/79763036/the-election-may-not-bring-out-the-pussyhats-but-the-keffiyehs-are-here-to-stay
Realpolitik solutions from the left would crush the far right and their business class.
Less fairy dust, more concrete.
@6 if you “crush” the business class how are you going to fund all your social programs? The eternal demonization of anything successful is exactly why the left can not lead. People are fine with “being a lab for progressive policy” when times are good but when thing inevitably take a down turn it’s time to put rational people back in charge. The fact Katie thinks every one of the policies she mentioned is a winner shows the lack of introspection she bemoans. Newsflash some of those policies suck and should be amended or removed. If you want to have a lab than recognize some experiments are going to fail and you should learn from that not continue to defend them.
@1 Fantastic comment. Perfectly stated.
@7 I would disagree only with the thought that we are fine for "being a lab for progressive policy." Seattle is a city, not a progressive experiment.
This city has needs that need to be met: transportation, housing, safety, infrastructure, jobs from small and large business, recreation.... just like every other city. As a Seattle native, I don't give two shits about "progressive experimentation." I care about this city being a place where people can live, work, play, and that we have leaders that actually want to make the city better for everyone, not just use their position to punish those they don't like (which, ironically, is very Trumpian).
Unserious leaders like Sawant were a stain on this city; the last election was a perfect "good riddance" to the demagogues.
This city should never be a test-ground for crackpot socialist policies; it's a real city with real problems that require real, concrete, and achievable solutions. The last council got booted because they didn't have any real solutions. Instead they had tired rhetoric (eat the rich! de-fund the police!) and yelling through bullhorns. Bullhorns aren't policy.
The left has given this city a black eye on its school system — $1.2 billion budget, 50k kids…inching ever closer to a state takeover because it is structurally outspending its revenues several years in a row now. Stranger endorsed elected board members got lost along the way with things like fighting the city to keep homeless encampments on school grounds, or crying ‘white supremacy!’ when the governor finally ordered the reopening of schools after 18 long months of COVID closures. Agree with the ^^^ meat and potatoes comments above about doing the unsexy work of running a government well over utopian ideals. We need smart, serious elected officials to do difficult, serious jobs, and we need better stewards of limited tax funds. A bankrupt school system would be heartbreaking chaos. I hope potential future progressive candidates are reading these comments and taking them to heart.
Look up what socialism wants, no private property. Everything the previous council did supports that goal.
Transit Riders Union is a ngo funded by Labor Unions. Katie Wilson is a mouthpiece for what MLK Labor wants. Just like The Stranger, Labor Union door mats and a lot of other phony groups. Look who is funding any group to know what is paying them to spread propaganda.
@8 "The last council got booted because they didn't have any real solutions."
If that's the case the current Council's days are numbered. If there were a similar article about the failings of centrists it would be about always assuming their ideas are "rational" or "real, concrete" when in reality they are differently but no less ideological. And in the case of the current City government no more "pragmatic" than anything Sawant came up with.
Saunatina told me they would make another push with a ranked choice system...I guess with what they know now. Shannon at Sightline did an interesting article on the effects of ranked choice rules influencing the behavior of Maine campaigns. I'm so happy I voted against The Stranger's wishes 2 years ago and I will never vote for Steve Hobbs again.
@2 "If more people had voted for Pete Holmes instead of the pie-in-the-sky abolitionist Nicole Thomas-Kennedy, we wouldn't have Raggedy Ann."
Or, hear me out, if more people had not voted for a critically inexperienced conservative ideologue we wouldn't have "Raggedy Ann." Why would we possibly hold anyone accountable for the election of a clownish City Attorney than the people who voted for her and political machine that uplifted her?
Every political district in this country from the state down to the municipal is considered a testing ground for new policies — it would be kind of silly to have a democracy that hives states as much power as ours if they weren’t going to try things differently based on people’s preferences — but it’s impossible to be an effective lab for progressive policy when your state has the most regressive tax code in the country. You’re always going to be boxed into a system that favors people with the most money, even more so than everywhere else.
If you don’t want to live in a city with a progressive electorate you could always move to Oklahoma City or something. Just seems weird and pointless to live in a left-leaning city only to complain about how stupid everything is all the time.
@14, I agree with you about experimental policy, to an extent. I think it’s intellectually lazy to tell someone who disagrees with you to go away; that only solves the problem of you being tired of criticism.
The city would be better off with a mix of progressives and moderates on the dais instead of the yoyo of one extreme to another. Some incrementalism wouldn’t hurt — the city passed a lot of tenant protections in the past five years with little thought how they might impact the market for example. I’ll always vote for a balanced council.
@13 they voted that way because the alternative was a toxic, anti SPD crack pot who literally campaigned on not doing the job.
This article provides some hope the Stranger has become willing to reconsider past advocacy. Right now, the Stranger still has a ways to go:
"... actually governing is more complicated. It means passing policies, implementing them, defending their results."
No steps where the outcomes of those policies are reviewed against stated intent, via relevant, data-driven metrics, and then any changes found necessary are made per that analysis. Skip straight to "defending the results," no matter what those results are, because our policies are, by our definition, always right and just and good and fair...
... and anyone with any other ideas is simply wrong, due to their (obviously) bad moral character:
"It’s easy to bemoan the hypocrisy of Seattle liberals, the reactionary and ungenerous impulses..."
When you can go from "liberal" to "reactionary" in successive clauses, you might want to check your own beliefs against external reality.
@16 in the primary?
@18 there was a lot of anger at Pete Holmes over the state of the city and he wasn’t exactly promising to do anything about it either. You were going to get a moderate (Davison) vs a progressive and TS tilted the election for NTK. When NTK won those who would have voted for Homles but found her too extreme voted for Davison. If Holmes had been the candidate the NTK voters most assuredly would have voted for him.
I really recommend reading You Say you Want A Revolution by UW own Daniel Chiort https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/718093 or Vincent Bevens If We Burn to get a better handle on this "right wing backlash" concept that keeps getting thrown around. My own union (IBEW 46) has thrown good money and endorsements at bad candidates because they are horribly misreading the mood of their own rank and file. Oh how far we have fallen from those labor rallies of the WTO days.
I look forward to some better informed discussions about this argument re. demographics and progressive strategy. Solidarity
Katie,
The left needs more accepting and fertile ground in which is play. Portland would be a good move as Seattle heals from the damage that "lefties" left.
@19 Nothing about Davison is "moderate" she was a law and order candidate Nixon or Reagan would have loved. People rejected the moderate candidate in favor of a progressive and a conservative, and the conservative ultimately won. The people responsible for that win are the people who voted for her. This is not complicated.
@22: The Stranger did not endorse Holmes, even after admitting he’d done pretty much everything they’d wanted. Anyone who didn’t want Davison to win should probably talk to the Stranger about that.
Furthermore, to extend @16, any candidate who promises to do the job automatically becomes more “moderate” than someone campaigning on not doing it.
@22, It’s naive to pretend there isnt some game theory going on here, and given the outsized influence of TS endorsements, they play a part. I am looking forward to ranked choice, which should fix some of this voting bloc triangulation (but wouldn’t have mattered in these two races). But RCV will take even longer to count votes. I predict RCV will yield more moderate office holders and I’m here for that.
Expanding on @17 and @21, immediately after calling Seattle liberals hypocrites for daring to disagree with the author, the link in the headline post takes us to another of the author's articles:
'As someone who sat on stage during the infamous Ballard town hall of 2018 — “the day Seattle Nice died” — I’ve spent a fair amount of time reflecting on why people feel the way they do about the homelessness crisis. More specifically, I’ve done some thinking about the enraged NIMBY, a specimen that was out in force that evening.'
The citizens started yelling at then-CM Mike O'Brien because he kept telling them his infamous lie, about the homeless in Seattle being mostly locals who had fallen upon hard times, driven into the streets by Amazon's rent-raising success. Seattle's late-2016 Homeless Needs Assessment had shown most of Seattle's homeless population had arrived in town already homeless (https://www.seattle.gov/documents/Departments/HumanServices/CDBG/CityOfSeattle2016-HomelessNeedsAssessment.pdf), so his continuing to present such fiction understandably raised the ire of everyone who could plainly see, with their own eyes, that it simply was not true. The author's continued victim-blaming of outspoken citizens doesn't bode well for any project to win their votes, and if the obvious failure of Seattle's homeless policy isn't obvious enough yet to the Stranger, there's really no hope this project will succeed.
Beyond even failure of policy, and victim-blaming anyone who describes it as a failure, comes the Stranger's continued intolerance for anyone who dares disagree with progressive policy. Those citizens in Ballard were literally petitioning their government for a redress of grievances, a fundamental right of all Americans. Progressives' response began -- and have ended, so far -- by telling those citizens they should just STFU, that their complaints should not be heard, or even spoken. Again, such reflexive and absolute intolerance bodes poorly for successful governance in a democracy.
Katie,
Stick to your (bus) lane. Read the purpose of your so-called union. https://transitriders.org/about/mission-and-principles/
You want cheap accessible transit paid for by tax payers you deem other. I get it. What’s that got to do with anything else?
Perhaps you have bigger career plans. Sawant 2.0?
@22 you’re trapped in your own bubble again. Davison would be liberal in any red jurisdiction. The fact enforcing the law makes a candidate conservative around here is more an indictment of how far askew progressive policies are than some swipe at Davison.
@23 what does The Stranger's endorsement have at all to do with my assertion that the people to blame for Davison being elected are the people who voted for her? Other than the fact that there is obviously no actual counter to that so you want I stead to deflect.
@27 what about Davison's policies are at all liberal? She was an explicitly tough on crime and poor people candidate and she's followed through as City Attorney. Name one thing whatsoever that she's advocated for or done that would be considered liberal (not comparatively-less-reactionary, actually liberal) in any jurisdiction in the country, please, if you can.
@28 "She was an explicitly tough on crime and poor people candidate and she's followed through as City Attorney"
Has she? I think you already have your answer. It's not what she has done, its what she hasn't done. When she won TS and progressives like yourself had a meltdown about how everyone was going to be in jail. That just hasn't happened. Even the South Seattle Emerald acknowledged that
https://southseattleemerald.org/feature/2023/03/21/is-it-the-era-of-ann-a-retrospective-of-ann-davisons-first-year-in-office
"Despite the shift in rhetoric, the City Attorney's Office may not have changed as much under Ann Davison as you'd think."
Yes, she is enforcing the law and after the last decade we endured under Pete Holmes it may seem extreme but its still a very light touch and no where near as tough as attorneys in actual conservative jurisdictions.
@28: "what does The Stranger's endorsement have at all to do with my assertion that the people to blame for Davison being elected are the people who voted for her?"
The Stranger pointedly refused to endorse Holmes, even after recounting how he'd done pretty much everything they'd wanted. If you want to claim their non-endorsement had no effect on whether Holmes made it through the primary election, you can make that claim. It just seems odd you're implicitly claiming the Stranger's endorsement -- or intentional lack thereof -- made no difference. (It's also odd you use the word "blame" to describe her election, when you have yet to give so much as a single example of anything she's done in office you don't like, let alone give an example of how Holmes or NTK would have done better.)
Of course the election of an official depends upon the voters. That point was so obvious, I believed it did not require an explicit statement, but if you did indeed need one, there it is.
Also, expanding on @29, from the Real Change article, republished in the Emerald:
'In some ways, Davison's tough-on-crime rhetoric didn't fully align with her policy positions, which resembled a post-coronavirus return to the status quo more than a definitive lurch to the right. For example, to clear the 5,000 case "backlog" of charges referred to the CAO from the Seattle Police Department (SPD), the office quietly dismissed thousands of old cases in the spring and fall of 2022. Similarly, Davison recruited Natalie Walton-Anderson, an attorney with a more progressive reputation who has worked in the offices of the King County prosecutor and U.S. District Attorney.'
(Why they put the term "backlog" in quotes, I cannot say; nor do they recognize explicitly this backlog remained as a direct result of Holmes' chronic refusal to do his job. Still, their point remains: Davison has been more about cleaning up the vast mess left by her predecessor, than she is in imposing a radical new direction upon the city.)
@29 "It's not what she has done, its what she hasn't done"
Ok what are some things that she hasn't done, that she has the legal authority to do, that an "actual conservative" attorney would have done?
Right.
If ever there was an underrepresented group in Seattle and King County it would be the left.
Grow up. Your childish rants remind me of a certain republican presidential candidate.
@31: Again, from the Emerald, as referenced above:
“…Davison has largely stayed the course when it comes to the City's pre-filing diversion programs, which provide people charged with certain crimes an opportunity to not be further involved in the criminal legal system and to access services instead. These include programs for young adults and people who drive with a suspended license in the third degree.”
So no, she hasn’t produced a lock’em-up-first approach.
How about you give an example of something objectionable she has done?
@33 are you suggesting that red states don't have pretrial diversion programs? Much less for cases as petty as driving with a suspended license? Because if so you are you objectively wrong and speaking from a place of ignorance.
Something objectionable she has done? I'll give you two: unilaterally killing community court and abusing a statutory authority to de facto remove an elected judge.
Bellevue is a delightful place to live. If people shoplift, the police arrest them.
@34: I have said nothing about “red states,” nor any other state. The point is CA Davison left most of the diversionary programs intact.
(Nice to see it takes only a few direct questions before you’ll actually give examples.)
“…unilaterally killing community court…”
Because too many persons were cycling through the community court without changing behaviors, and the results were worse than for pre-trial diversions. “According to Davison's office, 22% of people who enter Community Court graduated or engaged with services. Additionally, when looking at a two-year time period, the chances of people committing a crime after participating in Community Court was 52%, compared to 23% when participating in pre-filing diversion.” (https://www.king5.com/article/news/local/seattle/seattle-ends-participation-community-court/281-ea6d2f7a-19ee-4411-9bc5-4b8980cc91cd)
“…abusing a statutory authority to de facto remove an elected judge.”
Said judge went on to write a guest rant here at the Stranger, nicely validating the City Attorney Office’s concerns about her judgment.
@36 nobody was talking to you, you chose to interject your uninformed opinion. D13 wrote @27 "Davison would be liberal in any red jurisdiction."
"...we should carve out some time for self-reflection."
This was a remarkably refreshing, thoughtful, and actually journalistic piece, largely free from screed, ideological ranting, historical event fabrication and deletion...I hope Katie sticks the landing here.
Couple quick points:
The Stranger endorsement really no longer has "outsize influence". The combination of the lurch to the hardest left position, unmoored by data, fact, or anything else PLUS the end of the hardcopy of the paper was a body blow to the influence of the Stranger.
I could read Tensorna's comments all day long. Smart, balanced, informed, backed up with data--often, I'm sure to the Stranger's chagrin, by their own past stories.
@38 "I could read Tensorna's comments all day long. Smart, balanced, informed"
Found tensorna's mom
LOL ..bonus points for being funny, #39.
Queer guy on Cap Hill so neither Tensorna's mom nor dad (nor brother or cousin)
But that was funny. H/T to you. :)
I applaud the author of this piece and her commitment to creating a Progressive movement that is realistic in its aims and practical in its methods; because a Progressive who is both realistic and practical is a Moderate.
@37: Heh. That might’ve worked better, had you not clearly indicated @34 you were responding to my comment @33.
Better luck next time.
@34: This wasn’t the first time Seattle has shuttered Community Court; this wasn’t the second time Seattle has shuttered Community Court. That experiment has repeatedly failed.
There’s nothing wrong with trying an experiment again, even after it has already failed multiple times, so long as the experimenters analyze previous failures, and update accordingly. For this shuttering of Community Court, the City Attorney’s Office provided evidence they have better paths to the desired outcomes, via pre-trial diversions, and so will go that route.
As you haven’t even tried to make the case for keeping Community Court 3.0 (or is it 1.3?) open, City Attorney Davison wins by default.
Better luck next time.
Since the article and author were "dismissive" of the critiques on progressive tactics, I dismissed the rest of the aricle.
“What should the left do differently in the future to regain influence and maintain it?“ That is the wrong question. The right question would be “what policies should the left propose and test that solve our problems well? Before inflicting ill thought out ideological experiments on a vulnerable public?”
Among the many deep damages that Sawant and her zealous recruits inflicted on Seattle: The extinction of the small landlord through over-regulation. As small landlords have sold or removed their properties from the market this has resulted in a further consolidation of our rental properties in a corporate stranglehold, with higher rents and fewer options for renters. The ultimate result can be seen, ironically, in the current pleas from low income housing organizations to lift Sawant’s renter regs like the prohibition on winter eviction— because the nonprofits are going under when people don’t pay rent.