Speaker 1: Uh, it could happen. Here is a podcast that you're
Speaker 1: listening to right now. If this is a surprise to you,
Speaker 1: if you if you thought this was the Joe Rogan experience,
Speaker 1: let me assure you everyone here does eat a diet
Speaker 1: of nothing but elk meat. Uh. And to talk to
Speaker 1: me about the health value of elk meat uh is
Speaker 1: um no? Uh so about I don't know. A week
Speaker 1: or so ago. UM, we're talking with Sarah Young. Sarah,
Speaker 1: how are you doing good? How are you? I'm I'm
Speaker 1: pretty good. Sarah. You're a deputy features editor at The Verge.
Speaker 1: You are a lawyer and a journalist, so you have
Speaker 1: embraced the two most cursed vocations in two um and
Speaker 1: you you've number one most recently written an incredible piece
Speaker 1: UM about the Portland and abductions, which is like brutal
Speaker 1: and um, very important for the Verge. People ought to
Speaker 1: check it out. It is Uh. I don't know. I've
Speaker 1: had trouble getting through all of it because it is
Speaker 1: very good and because I was there. But everyone needs
Speaker 1: to read it. It's an important piece. We're not talking
Speaker 1: about that today. We're talking about a post that you
Speaker 1: made on the Twitter dot com about a week or
Speaker 1: so ago that I I messaged you about wanting to
Speaker 1: to chat about you want to kind of talk about
Speaker 1: what that post was and what you were trying to
Speaker 1: get across. Yeah, the audience. So, if you live in
Speaker 1: Portland right now, it's, um, it's absolutely fucking rancid. Like
Speaker 1: I think the discourse well sometimes sometimes a city, but
Speaker 1: the discourse is rancid. Uh. It's like this in a
Speaker 1: lot of other cities as well. Um, but is like
Speaker 1: the discourse around homeless people, right, yeah, Yeah, every every
Speaker 1: conversation you have with any random person, it's like eventually
Speaker 1: goes to oh, it's gotten so bad here lately, and
Speaker 1: it's always about homeless people. Um, and they it always
Speaker 1: goes to this place where they're like, oh, we should
Speaker 1: start rounding people up into camps and getting rid of them.
Speaker 1: And it's like people are a little too excited for
Speaker 1: literally murder homeless people. You get just saying the most
Speaker 1: insane things like oh, I'm not going to break my
Speaker 1: car if I see one of those homeless people. It's
Speaker 1: it's awful and like, yeah, it's really really awful and
Speaker 1: like and then you get people going like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: you know how things are and like pulling out murders
Speaker 1: that have happened in like New York, um of Asian
Speaker 1: women at me to like justify why it is that
Speaker 1: I need to start supporting the cops and so on
Speaker 1: and so forth. Um, And it's just there's this thing
Speaker 1: where I think that they're well meaning leftists really want
Speaker 1: to sort of pull out like let's humanize almost people,
Speaker 1: which like, yes, but the people you're talking to they
Speaker 1: don't deal with empathy actually, right, they already don't see
Speaker 1: most of the population as people. So what you're doing
Speaker 1: is you're not even speaking the language that they speak.
Speaker 1: The issue for me is that what they're what people
Speaker 1: are doing when they dehumanize the homeless or like turn
Speaker 1: them into like a problem that you can just sweep
Speaker 1: away or like kill or put in danger or drop
Speaker 1: into a camp where they're more likely to die or
Speaker 1: get sick or be harmed. Um, it's it's that you're
Speaker 1: making a vast class of people based on like superficial characteristics. Right, Um,
Speaker 1: they might be dirty, they're intense. Whatever you felt threatened
Speaker 1: by one of them once, So now everyone who's ever
Speaker 1: been homeless deserves to have a worse off life because
Speaker 1: you didn't feel great about it this one time and
Speaker 1: or two times, and it's it's really absurd to me
Speaker 1: because like, yeah, I I've had many instances in my
Speaker 1: life where I haven't felt very safe, um, because of
Speaker 1: someone who was homeless, because of someone who was an addict.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm a small Asian woman. I take public transit.
Speaker 1: It is, the vibes are off in every fucking city
Speaker 1: right now for people who look like me. Um, But
Speaker 1: that doesn't mean that everyone who looks like the person
Speaker 1: who's making me uncomfortable deserves to be swept up into
Speaker 1: a fucking camp. And in fact, like if I like,
Speaker 1: roll the tape back and look at sort of, oh,
Speaker 1: let's look at people who have made me feel threatened,
Speaker 1: afraid whatever. I've gone through big old sprints in my
Speaker 1: life where I'm getting a lot of death threats from
Speaker 1: white supremacists. I mean, I'm sure you've life too. I
Speaker 1: can see I see it, But like you, I don't
Speaker 1: know because you're a woman writing on the internet, Like
Speaker 1: you'll get more in a couple of months than I
Speaker 1: do in an average like year. I mean it depends, right,
Speaker 1: Like it depends. I was just looking at your mentions yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't really look to carefully, so
Speaker 1: I don't even know what the numbers are. Like this is.
Speaker 1: I did have an incredible, like six month period where
Speaker 1: it was really intense because Tucker Carlson was like putting
Speaker 1: me on his show for a while, so it was
Speaker 1: it was really bad, like people like some guy called
Speaker 1: into my office and threatened to fire bomb it, and
Speaker 1: the people who got the phone call like, we're stressed
Speaker 1: out enough that they called the cops and there's like
Speaker 1: a police report and like, um, there was a bunch
Speaker 1: of stuff that happened during this period that was pretty
Speaker 1: scary and uh. And it was always like guys who
Speaker 1: all sort of looks the same, right, It's like all
Speaker 1: the you know, the Oakley sunglasses, like taking a selfie
Speaker 1: of themselves in the car, like that sort of stereotype, right,
Speaker 1: And you know, I gotta say, for a while, i'd
Speaker 1: see that like that little profile picture, I'd see someone
Speaker 1: in person and like my heart would start beating faster. Right.
Speaker 1: Took a while for me to like be able to
Speaker 1: dial that back. Um, during that six month period, I'd
Speaker 1: hear someone yell a racial slur, and I would almost
Speaker 1: have a panic attack because I fem like, oh no,
Speaker 1: like like someone's gonna come and make good on these threats,
Speaker 1: and I don't, like, I don't want to round people
Speaker 1: up into camps for looking like a shitty, racist, suburbanite
Speaker 1: white cut Like it's like it's the because I'm not
Speaker 1: a fucking Nazi. Like it's like it doesn't matter what
Speaker 1: you've experienced. You're like, what legitimate harm you faced from
Speaker 1: people who look a certain way, Like you don't round
Speaker 1: them up into camps or like talk about like how
Speaker 1: you're not going to break on the straw on the street.
Speaker 1: I'm glad I was happy for kind of your perspective
Speaker 1: on the matter, because I do try. Like whenever people
Speaker 1: talk about how scary Portlands are, how scary the homeless
Speaker 1: camps are, Like, the thing I want to say is like,
Speaker 1: like I have like five or six different running routes
Speaker 1: in the city, and most of them have homeless encampments
Speaker 1: on them, and I run through them at night. I
Speaker 1: went through them at the day, never had a problem. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, sometimes there's like trash, and I would like
Speaker 1: it if it were cleaner, but also primarily the people
Speaker 1: cleaning up are usually like autonomously organized groups of formerly
Speaker 1: houseless folks, which is the thing that happens in a
Speaker 1: couple of the neighborhoods that I go to, um and like.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, I don't want to bring
Speaker 1: that in when there's an argument about it, because like,
Speaker 1: I'm a six ft three pound white guy, right, Like,
Speaker 1: of course I'm as a general rule in a lot
Speaker 1: of situations, I don't feel worried what other people do
Speaker 1: because I'm a big white dude and that's UM. But
Speaker 1: what I will say, I had an experience a couple
Speaker 1: of months back. A person that I live near, like
Speaker 1: a neighbor of mine, is a young woman within like
Speaker 1: a six month old infant, and she was out jogging
Speaker 1: on one of the trails near our house, and two
Speaker 1: guys uh in new Kawasaki like motorcycles, dirt bikes, whatever
Speaker 1: you want to call them. I assume rich kids because
Speaker 1: these were very new bikes drove up and shot at
Speaker 1: her and her baby with baby guns. Hit her in
Speaker 1: the face, nearly hit her baby. Um, And it was
Speaker 1: like homeless folks and people at an illegal skate park
Speaker 1: who came to her aid and like made sure she
Speaker 1: was okay, and when I got out there, because I
Speaker 1: I rolled out there with a fucking beat stick and
Speaker 1: a handgun just to be like, if I see these motherfucker's,
Speaker 1: we're gonna have words. And I started talking to homeless
Speaker 1: folks that I knew on the route who were all like, yeah,
Speaker 1: those people like they come by to shoot at us,
Speaker 1: and it's and I have heard this in multiple encampments.
Speaker 1: I've heard this at Laurel Nurst a number of places
Speaker 1: that like kids from the suburbs will come in to
Speaker 1: shoot homeless people with baby guns and mace them, and um,
Speaker 1: I have I'm not gonna say again. I've also been
Speaker 1: in a situation where like an agitated, houseless woman was
Speaker 1: like swinging a machette at some folks, and you know,
Speaker 1: everything was de escalated. But like, I get it. The
Speaker 1: fact that there are people out there who are having
Speaker 1: like mental health difficulty means that people are going to
Speaker 1: have encounters that can be frightening. Um. But by and large,
Speaker 1: the people that I find myself most threatened by are
Speaker 1: like kids, people like those assholes rolling by and shooting
Speaker 1: people with baby guns, and of course folks driving gigantic
Speaker 1: trucks in tiny streets like assholes often while wasted. Um,
Speaker 1: Like those are the things that scare me in Portland,
Speaker 1: not the encampments. Yeah, and honestly, like there there are
Speaker 1: some increasing safety issues in Portland, but like a lot
Speaker 1: of it is also just like from cars, right, Like
Speaker 1: it is a it's more there's more of a car
Speaker 1: culture than there used to be. Um. And people get
Speaker 1: hit and uh, they go to the hospital or they die,
Speaker 1: like it's it. There's like they're they're big changes in
Speaker 1: the city for sure, but like it's there's so much
Speaker 1: focus on homelessness as being like the root of all
Speaker 1: of that, and like, I don't know, they'll say, oh,
Speaker 1: Portland has gotten so bad and the same breath as
Speaker 1: like talking about how high rents are or like how
Speaker 1: expensive houses have gotten just not even connecting those two things, right,
Speaker 1: Like why is it that housing is so expensive now?
Speaker 1: Like clearly people are placing bets on real estate either
Speaker 1: that or just we haven't built out enough. Could that
Speaker 1: be something? Um? Or maybe things aren't as bad as
Speaker 1: you think, and it's it's a desirable place to live.
Speaker 1: Um it's really like it is. It's extremely frustrating. Um.
Speaker 1: I I also think that there's this weird thing where
Speaker 1: you just don't really think about the fact that you
Speaker 1: might have one or two encounters where it's upsetting you
Speaker 1: feel scared, and then like the vast majority of people
Speaker 1: who are unhoused are just trying to stay the funk
Speaker 1: out of your way, right and like there you're not
Speaker 1: going to see them, you're not going to talk to
Speaker 1: them unless you go out of your way to talk
Speaker 1: to them and reach out, and like they're probably scared
Speaker 1: of you because they don't know who you are, Like
Speaker 1: you're a stranger. You might be one of those assholes
Speaker 1: on Kawasaki's like out to to shoot you, out to
Speaker 1: shoot them, and like it's it's really frustrating, like it's halfway.
Speaker 1: I don't know. Some some of the people who buy
Speaker 1: into this kind of discourse are just outright terrible human beings, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're just they're just fashions, they're just they're just fast.
Speaker 1: This is useful. But then there's like it's really frustrating
Speaker 1: how many people in the city right now are just
Speaker 1: useful idiots for the fascists have just like gone down
Speaker 1: that gone down that rabbit hole and aren't thinking past
Speaker 1: like what it means to quote unquote take care of
Speaker 1: the homeless problem, Like what do you what do you
Speaker 1: want to do here? What do you actually want to do?
Speaker 1: Where are these people going to go? Like what's going
Speaker 1: to happen to them? And it's it's super frustrating. We're
Speaker 1: focusing on Portland because it's where we live, but all
Speaker 1: of these things are evidence of like broader trends. You
Speaker 1: can see a lot of the same tactics being used
Speaker 1: in Los Angeles and Austin um in Minneapolis. And one
Speaker 1: of the things is kind of this conflation of like disorder,
Speaker 1: drug use, homelessness with like deadly violence and a number
Speaker 1: of things, like we've talked about kind of jailing and
Speaker 1: putting into camps the homeless is is one thing people
Speaker 1: suggest There's also a lot of like suggestions around massively
Speaker 1: increasing the number of police. And this all also goes
Speaker 1: into you know, you've got this kind of series of
Speaker 1: of right wing uh cups against elected leaders who have
Speaker 1: any kind of other suggestions. We saw this in San
Speaker 1: Francisco with the DHS abode and the police like just
Speaker 1: refusing to enforce like the law when they were when
Speaker 1: CESSA was attempting to carry things out in a different way.
Speaker 1: And like what we're seeing in Portland right now, We've
Speaker 1: got um, a city Commissioner, Joan Hardesty, who uh number
Speaker 1: one is the only black woman in the city council. UM,
Speaker 1: the only person on the city council who rents, uh
Speaker 1: and the only person in the city council who was
Speaker 1: in debt and who is endured. And I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: say she's a perfect counselor a perfect politician. There's plenty
Speaker 1: of things to criticize Hardesty over UM, but there has been,
Speaker 1: like number one, this kind of unhinged campaign of attacking
Speaker 1: her because of the fact that, like her financial situation
Speaker 1: isn't great, which I see actually as a plus UM,
Speaker 1: because a lot of people in Portland are in rough
Speaker 1: financial condition. Maybe it's nice if they're represented on the
Speaker 1: fucking city council. But also she's instituted as people keep
Speaker 1: fetching about, you know, violence and gun violence, which are
Speaker 1: problems that have gotten worse in Portland. Although it is
Speaker 1: important to note Portland is one of the safest cities
Speaker 1: in the entire United States, even after the quote unquote
Speaker 1: surge and violent crime. I don't think that mitigates that.
Speaker 1: I just think it's important to keep like things in perspective.
Speaker 1: But hardesty has instituted the only effective program that has
Speaker 1: reduced gun violence in the city of Portland in the
Speaker 1: recent past, which was essentially a series of traffic calming measures, right, Like,
Speaker 1: I think that's probably a fair to say it. It It
Speaker 1: was sort of altering the way in which um traffic
Speaker 1: worked in a neighborhood to kind of try and reduce
Speaker 1: some of the situations that were like leading to violence.
Speaker 1: And um, she's undergoing this massive attack right now by
Speaker 1: a candidate, a right wing candidate. I mean, he, like
Speaker 1: everyone who runs importantly, he claims to be a Democrat. Um,
Speaker 1: he's donated to Republicans. He is called named Renee Gonzalez,
Speaker 1: who's being backed by a lot of the same business
Speaker 1: interests that are pushing this anti homeless agenda, pushing the
Speaker 1: mayor's proposal to put homeless people in encampments. And UM,
Speaker 1: I don't know, it's just I feel like I can
Speaker 1: see it all coming together, and that I hate how
Speaker 1: many people are, as you said, kind of useful idiots
Speaker 1: about it, where they're like, you know, look it, clearly
Speaker 1: these people who are talking about rehabilitation or who are
Speaker 1: trying to, like, actually, who are not suggesting a car
Speaker 1: serrale solution to the fact that it's unpleasant to see
Speaker 1: people suffering on the street. Um are wrong because look
Speaker 1: at what the news tells me about how much worse
Speaker 1: violence has gotten and stuff like, I it's very frustrating.
Speaker 1: Don't vote for reagans hoas but yeah, please please don't
Speaker 1: vote for a man who donated to a Republican pack
Speaker 1: six months after January six Let's please please, let's not
Speaker 1: do that. But god, it's it's I think, like really
Speaker 1: sad that. I mean, like people I think really just
Speaker 1: don't want to think about how damaged all of society
Speaker 1: is right now. Yeah, Like wait, like we lived through
Speaker 1: you know, currently had one of the worst responses to COVID. Uh.
Speaker 1: Millions of people are dead. Um, our mental health is
Speaker 1: fucking shot through. Uh, even people who didn't experience sort
Speaker 1: of federal jack boots on the ground. Um, we're not
Speaker 1: well right like it it's any number of housed perfectly
Speaker 1: like financially stable people turned to substance abuse during this period, UM,
Speaker 1: and UH are are still you know, recovering. UM. People
Speaker 1: who are unhoused also turned to substance abuse if they
Speaker 1: weren't um already there, and their mental health is also
Speaker 1: shot there. And uh, sort of the upshot of this
Speaker 1: is everyone is fucking sick and taking it out on
Speaker 1: each other and it really sucks to see. It really
Speaker 1: sucks to see people be their worst selves reasingly and increasingly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I first off, I want to try to provide
Speaker 1: people with some objective numbers. And this is just on
Speaker 1: the city of Portland. So Portland number one never defunded
Speaker 1: its police. There are police currently get the most money
Speaker 1: they've ever gotten. Um. But we do have one thing
Speaker 1: it is accurate to say is we have fewer police
Speaker 1: per capita than any major city in the United States,
Speaker 1: and we have the fewest number of police on the
Speaker 1: force in living memory. I'm fairly certain right now there's
Speaker 1: like seven hundred Portland police officers, which is significantly down
Speaker 1: from because it's not a pleasant job, because people hate
Speaker 1: the cops here in Portland, so they keep quitting and
Speaker 1: moving to other cities. Um. And it is true that
Speaker 1: when the pandemic hit, violent crime in Portland raised by
Speaker 1: about two hundred and seven percent from January nine through June,
Speaker 1: which is the largest increase compared to five comparable cities.
Speaker 1: This is from an article in the Oregon Capital Chronicle, Minneapolis, Atlanta,
Speaker 1: San Francisco, Denver, and Nashville. UM. However, it's also worth
Speaker 1: noting that over the course of the last year, we're
Speaker 1: at seven a fewer homicides than we were the year before. UM. Overall,
Speaker 1: the number of homicides in two has fallen two percent
Speaker 1: from one, even as we continue to have fewer and
Speaker 1: fewer police, almost as if the Surgeon violent crime was
Speaker 1: not a result in policing, but as you said, the
Speaker 1: result of a lot of other factors around the pandemic
Speaker 1: and around the economic situation, and like the rate of
Speaker 1: violence has been continuing to decrease. It's also worth noting
Speaker 1: that while we're talking about homicides here and Portland did
Speaker 1: see a surgeon homicides during the pandemic, that's not the
Speaker 1: only kind of crime or the only kind of violent crime. UM.
Speaker 1: And I want to quote here from Travel Oregon. In
Speaker 1: February one, the Major Cities Chiefs Association issue to report
Speaker 1: noting that sixty three of sixty six major cities saw
Speaker 1: at least one violent crime category grow in Among cities
Speaker 1: of comparable size, Portland generally experiences violent crime at somewhat
Speaker 1: lower rates. Like the A lot of this is media driven,
Speaker 1: and it's specifically the thing that you highlighted in the
Speaker 1: post that that made me reach out to you was
Speaker 1: was talking about how particularly white suburbanite homeowners are driving
Speaker 1: this panic and are driving these kind of surge and
Speaker 1: very like fascist solutions to the fears that they have
Speaker 1: about homelessness and about crime. And one of the reasons
Speaker 1: why this ship works is is people don't go into
Speaker 1: the city. They live in the suburbs. They see the
Speaker 1: scary news. And that's the thing I don't know how
Speaker 1: to actually combat because it is a nationwide problem. Shootings
Speaker 1: and deaths due to shootings. They have increased since the pandemic,
Speaker 1: but if you look at them on like a twenty
Speaker 1: year graph, fairly flat nationwide. Um, but what has got right,
Speaker 1: like nobody statistics of gun crimes like what in like
Speaker 1: the last couple of years, And then now they're saying
Speaker 1: that gun violence has increased, like it's it's yeah, yeah, anyway,
Speaker 1: what had What we know what has increased vastly more
Speaker 1: than gun crime is reporting on gun crime, which has surged.
Speaker 1: It like and and that's because you know, if it bleeds,
Speaker 1: it leads in whatever. But it is this thing of
Speaker 1: like that's the stuff that gets people to pay attention,
Speaker 1: and it's the stuff that spreads on social media, just
Speaker 1: like pictures of like poop on the streets of San
Speaker 1: Francisco can spread on social media, and it it all
Speaker 1: exists to keep these kind of suburban voters at a
Speaker 1: constant state of agitation, which makes them easy to manipulate.
Speaker 1: And like that's the thing that scares me the most. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean things are almost shittier with Portland because well, like, okay,
Speaker 1: the same Nisco poop situation, So how you live in
Speaker 1: the Bay area, that was a real situation. Francis is
Speaker 1: just human there's just human ship everywhere. Um, it's you know,
Speaker 1: you you live with it. It's it just is what
Speaker 1: it is. And you know someone's from New York when
Speaker 1: they start complaining about it, right, like, it's uh and
Speaker 1: it I think New York which smells like p everywhere,
Speaker 1: but I mean it's it's most like hot garbage because
Speaker 1: they don't they don't take their garbage. They like just
Speaker 1: put their garbage out on the curb. And when it's summertime.
Speaker 1: It just smells fucking terrible. Um But uh so everyone's
Speaker 1: got their problems, but it's it's this weird thing we're
Speaker 1: just because of the way that we're drawn up geographically.
Speaker 1: We've got all of these people like like you said,
Speaker 1: like out in the burbs who vote, who have control
Speaker 1: over the way the wind blows, who just never come
Speaker 1: out here. Ever in this they never come out here,
Speaker 1: and uh in San Francisco, Like yeah, they've got outlying
Speaker 1: areas as well, But it's it's not drawn up exactly
Speaker 1: the way that we are quite right, Like like the
Speaker 1: people who are going to be the most alarmist about
Speaker 1: San Francisco are like not going to be in the
Speaker 1: area where they're voting about the things that happened to
Speaker 1: San Francisco, the way the Chasis stuff went down, Like
Speaker 1: I mean, that's complicated, right, Like I mean it was
Speaker 1: it was a witch hunt and it made me really
Speaker 1: in Srancis and made me really want to never move back.
Speaker 1: But it it was like we've we've just got a
Speaker 1: different sort of set up here where the people who
Speaker 1: are the most upset about all of the crime in Portland,
Speaker 1: like they don't come out to where they think the
Speaker 1: crime is happening at all, Like they like they just
Speaker 1: don't really interact with the city. They're off somewhere else,
Speaker 1: and it's it is truly strange, really annoying. Uh yeah,
Speaker 1: and it is this is like, I don't know, this
Speaker 1: is part of why, this is part of why politically
Speaker 1: I tend to align myself with like libertarian municipalism. Um.
Speaker 1: I think one of the problems we have is that
Speaker 1: places that have very little to do with each other
Speaker 1: get to pass laws that impact how people live in
Speaker 1: those those places, Like which is a problem, um as
Speaker 1: we all just got overseeing with fucking Donald Trump, right,
Speaker 1: Like that's a that's a version of the problem in
Speaker 1: a version of another version of the problem is that
Speaker 1: like people in Los Angeles can pass a gas tax
Speaker 1: that makes total sense for cities in California, but fox
Speaker 1: Over people who live in the middle of nowhere. Um,
Speaker 1: and all of these things are like, I don't know,
Speaker 1: it's the you get the it's two simultaneous issues. Like
Speaker 1: one of them is you've got these liberals in Portland,
Speaker 1: who the rest of the state resents for dominating politics
Speaker 1: in the entire state, even in areas that are very
Speaker 1: little to do with like western Oregon. And then you
Speaker 1: have these these outlying like you have these folks who
Speaker 1: don't live in Portland who you know, are pushing for
Speaker 1: like you know, who are responsible with the fact that
Speaker 1: we might get a Republican governor in the state right,
Speaker 1: who are reacting to like what they hear about Portland
Speaker 1: even though it's not accurate. And I don't know, I
Speaker 1: I this is we're getting past like what people can
Speaker 1: do in terms of like voting on local elections. But
Speaker 1: I wish we had a system in which, like folks
Speaker 1: weren't constantly pitted against each other in this way, because
Speaker 1: I don't think it's very productive. Well, we're chopped up
Speaker 1: in a really by the way I vote to Charter reform, etcetera.
Speaker 1: If you're living in Portland. Uh, like we've we've got
Speaker 1: some some other other things going on with our our
Speaker 1: city government that makes things additionally weird and um suboptimal.
Speaker 1: There's a bunch of things that I'm kind of dreading
Speaker 1: in the near future or from the midterm elections, including
Speaker 1: you know Renee Gonzalez. Um. You know, I I have
Speaker 1: strong feelings on the proposed gun control measure but um,
Speaker 1: I'm broadly optimistic about charter reform. That actually seems like
Speaker 1: something good that we're likely to do. Yeah. Um yeah,
Speaker 1: let's talk about that a little bit, because Portland would
Speaker 1: be the first city in the United States to reform
Speaker 1: its city council along these lines, if I'm not mistaken,
Speaker 1: Along which lines like the way the chry to reform
Speaker 1: is like set up. Um. So basically Portland's currently has
Speaker 1: a commission form of government in which we have a
Speaker 1: very powerful mayor and for city council people who are
Speaker 1: handed portfolios by the mayor and they basically run the
Speaker 1: city government. Um. Which is it's a pretty dysfunctional system. Um.
Speaker 1: It leads to a a small number of people running
Speaker 1: very large bureaucracies that they usually don't know how to handle,
Speaker 1: which is one of the reasons why the city is
Speaker 1: so dysfunctional. In addition to the fact that our Mayor
Speaker 1: Ted Wheeler is uh politely speaking dogshit. Under the new
Speaker 1: form of government that's that's being voted on right now,
Speaker 1: the Charter, the commission structure will be jettisoned. City council
Speaker 1: members will not directly manage bureaus. Instead, they'll pass laws
Speaker 1: and meet with constituents. The mayor will no longer be
Speaker 1: part of the city council. Instead, he'll lead the executive branch.
Speaker 1: I'm not wild about the amount of power that the
Speaker 1: mayor will still have, UM, but I think broadly speaking, uh,
Speaker 1: it's it's a much better system and there will be
Speaker 1: like a larger group of people involved in actually like
Speaker 1: managing the city's affairs. UM. I don't know what we
Speaker 1: have currently certainly is not particularly effective. Um. And I
Speaker 1: would like to see a more democratic system put into place. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and like obscenely outdated, right, it's like, Yeah, I don't
Speaker 1: know who else does things like Portland currently does. But
Speaker 1: the charter reform is greatly needed. Yeah, and it's going
Speaker 1: to bring in rank choice voting as well when on yeah,
Speaker 1: on their on their like city like which is uh.
Speaker 1: Like one of the issues that we've had here is
Speaker 1: that like that we're having right now with like the
Speaker 1: gubernatorial race is that, Um, you've got three candidates running,
Speaker 1: one of whom is kind of positioning themselves as an
Speaker 1: independent Betsey Johnson, who does not really have a chance
Speaker 1: to win um and seems to be being funded by
Speaker 1: people like the Nike guy in order to take voids
Speaker 1: away from Tina co Tech who's the Democratic candidate, so
Speaker 1: that Christine Drayson, who's the Republican candidate, will be more
Speaker 1: likely to win. I don't know, Like, um, I still
Speaker 1: don't know how much I believe Drayson actually has a shot.
Speaker 1: But the polls show them neck and neck, so are
Speaker 1: pretty terrifying. Um, yeah, we're we're kind of like covering
Speaker 1: on the cusp of of the governor seat going red
Speaker 1: to Yeah, it's yeah, I don't know. Um, yeah, that's
Speaker 1: the election that scares me. Like I really I really
Speaker 1: don't want to see Renee Gonzala's win. But the if
Speaker 1: Charter reform passes, like the the harm that he can
Speaker 1: inflict on the city becomes limited, just because right now,
Speaker 1: city council seats just have outsized power in a very
Speaker 1: dysfunctional way. And uh, it's and that that changes with
Speaker 1: Charter reform, like we just get a little bit more
Speaker 1: of a normal city. Um. And uh but the state,
Speaker 1: the state election though, that is that's pretty scary stuff. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the state, especially since if the Democrats stay in power
Speaker 1: at the state level, then there's a good chance that
Speaker 1: I mean as far as like what people are talking
Speaker 1: about then we're going to actually see like Portland's become
Speaker 1: or Oregon become a sanctuary for reproductive health. Right, Like,
Speaker 1: that's one of the things that's that's on the ballot
Speaker 1: it um, So if you uh, like, if you care
Speaker 1: about that, that's kind of the whole game, right Like,
Speaker 1: regardless of the fact that co Tech has a history
Speaker 1: with our current governor that's not entirely positive. Our current
Speaker 1: Democratic governor has been a ship governor and handled the
Speaker 1: pandemic terribly. Like, at the end of the day, it's
Speaker 1: it kind of has to be all about um uh,
Speaker 1: all about reproductive health, right because like the Republicans would
Speaker 1: not have handled the pandemic any better, um, but they
Speaker 1: will also support a crackdown against people having access to abortion.
Speaker 1: We also have the craziest Republicans out here like it,
Speaker 1: And I mean part of that is the areas are
Speaker 1: representing or whatever, but part of it is also just
Speaker 1: we've been under Democratic control for so long that like
Speaker 1: the minority party gets weirder and weirder and weirder. Like
Speaker 1: we've got we've got the guys who like what ran
Speaker 1: away from the legislative session rather then vote on a
Speaker 1: climate change bill. Alright, like it's it's not it's not good.
Speaker 1: It's really bad. Like handing ending them the keys of
Speaker 1: the kingdom is a terrible move. Yeah. I don't know
Speaker 1: what else to say. Uh, you get anything else to say?
Speaker 1: As we as we head into the midterm elections here
Speaker 1: in Oregon, I felt like, I don't know, this is
Speaker 1: broadly speaking, I really want to hear about your your
Speaker 1: your feelings on that gun control measure. Yeah. So we've
Speaker 1: got Measure one fourteen coming up, which is um gun control.
Speaker 1: So for people who don't know, and this may surprise folks,
Speaker 1: even how blue it is, Oregon basically does not have
Speaker 1: any kind of like gun control laws. Um. This is
Speaker 1: a this is a state in which any kind of
Speaker 1: gun that's legal to own in the United States and
Speaker 1: any kind of magazine you can own in the state
Speaker 1: of Oregon. Um. We are a shall issue state, which
Speaker 1: means if you are a law abiding citizen and you
Speaker 1: apply for concealed carry permit, they have to give it
Speaker 1: to you. Um. Gun owners have quite a few protections
Speaker 1: at present. Uh. The first major there was a gun
Speaker 1: control law passed in most reasonable gun owners had no
Speaker 1: issue with it because all it did was say you
Speaker 1: have to get a background check to you. So there's
Speaker 1: this thing called face to face sales, whereby in a
Speaker 1: lot of states like Texas, you can just hand somebody
Speaker 1: a gun for cash as long as you're not a
Speaker 1: professional gun dealer. That's that's legal, and that's that's bad. Generally.
Speaker 1: It's how a lot of guns get across the border.
Speaker 1: That was removed as a legal possibility in Oregon back
Speaker 1: in But other than that, we haven't had a whole
Speaker 1: lot of gun control UM. In the wake of the
Speaker 1: Vivaldi shooting. A an organization I think Lift Every Voice
Speaker 1: is what they're called, led by some church leaders, pushed
Speaker 1: for what a ballot measure. So this is not something
Speaker 1: where and I do think this is interesting, there is
Speaker 1: not a situation where Democratic politicians in the state of
Speaker 1: Oregon are trying to pass gun control. This is a
Speaker 1: situation in which a ballot measure was proposed and enough
Speaker 1: people voted that the entire state is voting on whether
Speaker 1: or not h to have gun control UM, which, regardless
Speaker 1: of my opinions on the measure itself, I think is
Speaker 1: a better way for stuff like this to work than
Speaker 1: a bunch of legislators just like making a law. But anyway,
Speaker 1: the measure itself is, in my opinion, deeply flawed in
Speaker 1: the way that it's written. It does a couple of things.
Speaker 1: For one thing, it requires that every person who buy
Speaker 1: a gun pass a background check, which is already the
Speaker 1: law that's in the bill, and it shouldn't be because
Speaker 1: it's already the law. I think. One of the things
Speaker 1: that reasons I think that's dishonest is because it always
Speaker 1: gets summarized and like, this is what the bill will do.
Speaker 1: It will require that everybody pass a background ship. Well,
Speaker 1: they're all They're already required. It does not actually do
Speaker 1: anything there. Um. It adds in a magazine capacity restrictions,
Speaker 1: and you won't be able to buy or take out
Speaker 1: in public magazines that have a higher capacity than ten rounds.
Speaker 1: We can talk about that in a second. And then
Speaker 1: the primary thing it does is it requires people pass
Speaker 1: a series of tests in order to purchase firearms, and
Speaker 1: the people who will be a ministering those tests and
Speaker 1: running the whole program are the police. So the police
Speaker 1: essentially get control over who gets to own firearms. UM.
Speaker 1: I do consider that that is particularly the thing that
Speaker 1: I find problematic. Um. For one, thing. Regardless of your
Speaker 1: opinions on gun control. The right to bear arms is
Speaker 1: similar to the right to freedom of speech and guaranteed
Speaker 1: in the same way, and so the fact that the
Speaker 1: police are being made the arbiters of who gets to
Speaker 1: exercise that right is deeply problematic to me. UM. I
Speaker 1: think given what we know about how often police in
Speaker 1: Oregon work with far right groups, work with organizations like
Speaker 1: the Proud Boys, UM, it is very likely that we
Speaker 1: will see uneven enforcement and uneven um. Uh like the
Speaker 1: police granting the ability to bear arms very unevenly, which
Speaker 1: concerns me greatly. We had a mass shooting earlier this
Speaker 1: year at a protest in cha right winger killed a woman, UH,
Speaker 1: sixty one year old woman and injured five other people.
Speaker 1: That person was stopped by a left wing demonstrator with
Speaker 1: an a R fifteen style rifle. UM. What was actually
Speaker 1: technically a handgun, but that's anyway whatever, it was an
Speaker 1: a R fifteen style weapon. UM. I'm concerned that under
Speaker 1: this new law, the right winger would have still had
Speaker 1: the ability to acquire firearms, but the person who stopped
Speaker 1: and would not. UM. So that's why I have an
Speaker 1: issue with it. I also think if you're going to
Speaker 1: I'm not. I don't personally advocate magazine capacity restrictions, but
Speaker 1: also I don't speak out against them. Washington recently passed
Speaker 1: a law restricting magazine capacity. I didn't say anything about that.
Speaker 1: I think maybe I I think if it like, if
Speaker 1: it works, I will be happy. Um. I think the
Speaker 1: way the Washington law was written was a lot more
Speaker 1: sensible than the Oregon law because it was written in
Speaker 1: such a way that it stops the additional sale of
Speaker 1: expand of standard capacity magazines of thirty on magazines and
Speaker 1: higher without giving the police an opportunity to harass and
Speaker 1: arrest people over what they own, um, which I think
Speaker 1: is important. The way the law is written, if you had,
Speaker 1: like whatever you had prior to the band taking effect,
Speaker 1: you can keep and continue to use as normal. Um,
Speaker 1: just no more it can be sold. And so the
Speaker 1: thing that the thing you're trying to stop with a
Speaker 1: magazine capacity band at this point is someone doing what
Speaker 1: the Vivaldi shooter did, right, where a kid goes out
Speaker 1: and buys a weapon and a bunch of thirty round
Speaker 1: magazines and then goes on a mass shooting. Right, you
Speaker 1: want them to not be able to go and immediately
Speaker 1: acquire those magazines. Um it is. I think by making
Speaker 1: it illegal to take them out in the world if
Speaker 1: you already own them, what you're doing is giving police
Speaker 1: pretext to stop and search people, um to like search
Speaker 1: people going out and shooting in the woods like folks
Speaker 1: do in Oregon, um, without having an impact on mass
Speaker 1: shooters because they're not going to care about violating that
Speaker 1: particular law. If you want to stop more of those
Speaker 1: things from being old, I think a law written the
Speaker 1: way the Washington law is written does the maximum in
Speaker 1: order to restrict people from purchasing the thing you don't
Speaker 1: want them to purchase, without giving police the ability to
Speaker 1: like harass and arrest people. Um. Anyway, That's that's my
Speaker 1: thinking of one fourteen. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's that's
Speaker 1: like an important as an important series of distinctions to
Speaker 1: get out there. Yeah, um anyway, I I I voted
Speaker 1: against it. I try, really, I actually do try, despite
Speaker 1: my opinions not to talk about gun control too much
Speaker 1: on this show. But like that's my my thinking on
Speaker 1: the matter. Folks can do whatever they want. Will know
Speaker 1: when on January or November eight how they voted. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean like, it's hardly the most disturbing things on
Speaker 1: the balet right now. Yeah, no, no, no, And I
Speaker 1: am like like I there's there's so much going on
Speaker 1: right now, and it's one of those things. I guess
Speaker 1: we'll all learn in the near future, Like we're gonna
Speaker 1: learn a lot from this election in Oregon, Like if
Speaker 1: Hardesty stays on, if we get charter reform, and if
Speaker 1: co Tech wins, then kind of regardless of what happens
Speaker 1: with one fourteen, I will be broadly optimistic heading into
Speaker 1: because it will show that the campaign of fear didn't
Speaker 1: work entirely. Yeah. Um, and if Gonzales and and drays
Speaker 1: and win and Chatter Reform gets defeated, I will be
Speaker 1: really pessimistic heading in. Yeah. Yeah, if if drays and wins,
Speaker 1: like that's yeah, it's ah yeah, it's it's bad. It's
Speaker 1: really bad. It's bad news for a lot of fucking reasons.
Speaker 1: Um yeah, I mean row, that's huge. Um yeah, but yeah,
Speaker 1: like it's the sky is the limit for a state
Speaker 1: that has been under democratic control for this long, right,
Speaker 1: Like it's it's they've just gotten so complacent, is all
Speaker 1: I can think. Um. Oh, I mean the spoiler candidate.
Speaker 1: Obviously that that did change a lot. Um, but it's
Speaker 1: the complacency was is alarming. Yeah, um, well, is there
Speaker 1: anything else you wanted to say about what we're heading into? Well,
Speaker 1: I mean, don't let your fear control you. Um, don't
Speaker 1: be a useful idiot for Nazis, and uh, don't put
Speaker 1: people into camps. I guess yeah, that's that's my thinking.
Speaker 1: Don't like, if somebody is trying to make you scared
Speaker 1: about a group of people who are the most powerless
Speaker 1: people in your community, you might want to assume that
Speaker 1: the per in doing that as trying to take advantage
Speaker 1: of you. Um, that's that's That's kind of where I
Speaker 1: land on this sort of stuff. Um, yeah, don't put
Speaker 1: people into camps. We really shouldn't have to say that anymore,
Speaker 1: but yeah, we should have to tell people to not
Speaker 1: be Patrick Bateman from fucking American right, Like it's like
Speaker 1: we should people should like but no, it's yeah, we've
Speaker 1: we should not be regressing this hard in terms of
Speaker 1: our moral compasses. But that's where we are. That's where
Speaker 1: we are. Well, do you want to plug your plug
Speaker 1: double Sarah? Yeah? So, uh, Rebert mentioned that I just
Speaker 1: put out a big feature about the Portland van abductions
Speaker 1: published on the Verge. Um. It's part of a longer series,
Speaker 1: uh that we did this year about the Department of
Speaker 1: Homeland Security, which is twenty years old this year. UM,
Speaker 1: so we did a bunch of features, some about Puerto
Speaker 1: Rico and FEMA, UH, some about Essay. Of course I
Speaker 1: did a short little thing about how Chad Wolfe was
Speaker 1: illegally ahead of the DHS for a hot minute. Um.
Speaker 1: And so there's some fun stuff in there. Um. We've
Speaker 1: still got another feature that will go up by the
Speaker 1: end of this year. I think your your listeners would
Speaker 1: enjoy going through some of those excellent all right, Well,
Speaker 1: that has been the episode. This has been It could
Speaker 1: happen here, um by it could happen here as a
Speaker 1: production of cool Zone Media. Well more podcasts from cool
Speaker 1: Zone Media. Visit our website cool zone media dot com,
Speaker 1: or check us out on the I Heart Radio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can
Speaker 1: find sources for It could Happen Here, updated monthly at
Speaker 1: cool zone Media dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening.