Reading the news used to be my favorite past time. My standing answer to the question “what do you want for your birthday?” has been “a comfy chair, the Sunday New York Times, and a snifter of brandy.”
But it’s been hard to even look at the paper for the last few months. A climate denier leading the EPA, a racist as our Attorney General, an ignorant billionaire in charge of the Department of Education, and a neo-Nazi white supremacist pulling all the strings.
And then there’s Trump himself. There are no words.
In the weeks and months since the election, I’ve seen people struggling with the question: “What do I do about it?” We know this is not normal, far outside the bounds of the usual policy disagreements that arise in civil society. The situation is dire, and calls for a more active response than simply waiting for the next election cycle to get the train back on the rails, hoping things will be still be reparable. But what?
To help people find an answer to that question, I’m organizing a career fair-style networking event for newly activated activists: Find Your Lane: Seattle.
It’s coming up on Wednesday, March 15 from 7:00 – 10:00 pm at Metropolist (2931 1st Ave S) in SODO, and we have 15 activist and humanitarian organizations signed up thus far to have representatives there to talk with you about what they do, how they do it and, hopefully to recruit you! Participating groups include Gender Justice League, Washington Wild, World Relief, Cascadia Rising, Seattle Indivisible and Wallingford Indivisible. We’ve been adding new organizations at a fair clip these past few days, and plan to cap it around 20.
But what if there’s something you want to do, and there isn’t a group already doing it? Well, start your own group! We’ll have a “Crazy Ideas Open Mic” session, where everyone with an idea gets 1 minute to pitch it, then retires to our lounge area to meet with their new potential collaborators.
Fremont Brewery is sponsoring the bar in the lounge area to encourage people to stick around and network, with music to revolt to by one of my favorite local DJ’s, Marc vH. Retired City Councilman Nick Licata and Director of the Seattle’s Office of Arts & Cultural Affairs Randy Engstrom will also be on hand to get you pumped.
The event is free, but if you do plan to attend, please register on the Facebook Event Page so we can get an estimated headcount. If you’re not on Facebook, a) you’re my hero and b) don’t worry about it, just come.
Trying to do something nationally is 100% useless though. As someone who grew up in political circles in DC I can tell you how much people in DC think about the other Washington: not all all. It’s best to return the favor. We’re politically locked democrat and too far away. They appreciate our cash during political races but that’s it. As Obama told some students in California who were asking how they could help: He said move to the midwest.
Trying to do something in state politics is also useless- our district is locked democrat and irrelevant. If democrats in Washington swing districts could flip the state senate to being democratic they could pass Inslee’s excellent tax package of a carbon tax plus a capital gains tax, fully funding education and crafting a state wide obamacare replacement. Again though, Seattle liberals are as irrelevant to that fight as Eastern Washington white nationalists are.
Our only shot to improve things is at the city level, and even there we are in trouble as we got saddled with Rob Johnson until 2019. Our best shot is to replace Tim Burgess with Jon Grant this year, that’s where I put my democracy vouchers at least. Jon Grant wants to raise upzone affordable housing requirements from less than 10% of new units to 25%, which will be good for low income folks, good for dampening speculative developer teardowns, and good for Wallingford.
I’m with you for the most part here, but we’re going to need more than just Jon Grant, to change the council. The 25% thing is easy for him to say, but unlikely he could do it. A new mayor, though, could change things. Are we “locked” there, too?
I see we need all new high tech growth to occur in eastern Washington, as there’s a compelling and paramount need for educated voters to not be concentrated in one spot.
I’ve seen nobody running for mayor that has any chance of winning. I’m hoping Jon Grant would have flipped that recent U-District upzone vote that went 4-3 in favor of expanding the upzone while keeping affordability requirements under 10%. Here’s eligible candidates for vouchers:
http://www.seattle.gov/democracyvoucher/info-for-seattle-residents/eligible-candidates
efbrazil, I agree with you that the place to make effective political change is at the state and local level. After all, it is these jurisdictions that hold the “police power” that is the primary responsibility for the health and safety of their citizens. However, I doubt any developer is going to agree to a 25% affordable set aside. I’m for working on a city income tax. We have plenty of wealthy people here who could afford to set aside a little for others. I know it would be a difficult legal battle, being contrary to the state constitution, but you have to start somewhere.
After getting their upzones developers are going to sue against MHA regardless of the set aside percentage. The good thing is Jon Grant won’t be funded by and beholden to speculative developers, so he’s more likely to side with O’Brien, Sawant, and Herbold in questioning the most blatant upzone giveaways.
Great that you’re working on a city income tax! I published a work around idea on that in this article:
http://www.wallyhood.org/2015/09/how-seattle-could-have-an-income-tax/#gsc.tab=0
Sounds like a good start. But a maximum $1500 deduction on an over $5000 tax bill is not huge, as the Donald would say.
I read about an idea this morning to offset property tax impact with a “refund”, that would be greater for lower income households. There’s a fair chance that could be defended as not amounting to “tax on net income” (RCW 36.65.030.) Not entirely unlike Eric’s idea.
http://budgetandpolicy.org/schmudget/creating-a-safeguard-rebate-is-key-to-equitable-property-tax-reform
Thanks Donn. I’ll look it up. Only because I could not afford to move, I’ve been living in the same Wallingford house for the past 40 years. I now pay twice as much in monthly taxes as I paid for my original mortgage. My husband and I pay 25% of of our gross income for property taxes alone. This is why I always work 2 & 3 part-time jobs just to pay the mortgage and the bills. I love my house and my neighborhood but doubt I’ll be able to die here. Presently. most old folks like me end up using proceeds from our houses to pay for our too long lives. I feel lucky to have the house to pay for that.
Check your priveledge, Berta. As any good urbanist can tell you, you don’t deserve that increase in equity.
I’m sure I don’t, but it wasn’t like I bought my house to invest. I feel lucky to have been able to have afforded it in 1976 on my $11,000 income, when banks counted women’s income as only half what it actually was. Pin money, you know. I had to get married, which I didn’t want to do, in order to buy my first and only house.
The State Senate should be very flippable as early as this year.
With the death of Andy Hill (R) last year, the 45th Legislative District (Kirkland, Sammamish, Woodinville) is having a special election in November. Dino “the Dinosaur” Rossi is filling the seat for now, but that district is trending more and more liberal in recent years. If a Democrat wins the seat, the Democrats will take back the Senate with a 25-24 majority.
The 45th district is just a few miles from Wallingford. If you need to find a lane, the 520 bridge has several heading that direction.
True, you can drive to a district that matters, but I’m not sure how you’d have influence on the Andy Hill district. Are people living there and caught up in the most expensive and contested state senate race ever going to be eager to hear from a doorbelling Seattle liberal? Hopefully!
It does help–a lot. People pay surprisingly little attention to state legislative races, and person-to-person contact is the most effective means of getting out votes.
We can only hope. It seems a cruel joke that the Republicans control our legislature.
It might be your DC experience that biased your thoughts, but what you said really has no relationship with the recent issues. Why would people feeling inspired by current political issues find the need to protect the special interest of Wallingford homeowners? Where is the link?
There are many people fearing for negative impacts from the Trump presidency directly. For example, there are a lot of Somalis in Lake City and Rainier Valley. We might be sheltered in the North part of the Seattle with white hipsters being the main service work force, there are lots of Latinos in South part of the Seattle with immigration concerns. I have some paranoid friends that are talking about housing illegal immigrants in their houses if a big Trump move came.
We should use the emotion generated by the recent political issues to combat directly on those specific issues, as opposed to channel it to the same old political turf wars.
Good point. I didn’t mean to say you shouldn’t work to reduce your carbon footprint and help those in need and so forth. All I’m saying is that our opinions are entirely ignored in DC, so marching against Trump or whatever else along those lines is pointless. In terms of political impact, local politics is where activism can make a difference. I get that dealing with the corruption in city council and the mayor’s office is less sexy than confronting the crypto-facism brewing in DC, but in terms of political activism it’s where you can actually have an impact.
Thank you, Jordan, for helping to organize this constructive event for folks needing to find a way to register their alarm and seek ways to combat the ominous direction our country is being steered by those in control of the federal government. I don’t agree with efbrazil that trying to do something nationally is 100% useless.
It seems to me that knitting together networks of resistance and coordinated, thoughtful responses to what is happening and will happen through this deliberate dismantling of civil rights, consumer protections, environmental protections, human rights, and democratic governance while the billionaires are enriched and our earth is scorched is absolutely crucial.
Our little blue pocket of the country may seem insulated from the effects of this sinister turn of events, but I do not believe it will be.
I would jump in to say it’s pretty soul crushing to see images of kids being rolled out of daycares due to bomb threats while our president says nothing.
To put things in perspective, rightwingers just endured 8 years of steam coming out of their ears. If Trump fails then all you have is 4 years of steam coming out of yours.