WEBVTT - Oregon's Terrible No Good Very Bad Midterms 0:00:05.280 --> 0:00:09.959 Uh, it could happen. Here is a podcast that you're 0:00:10.000 --> 0:00:13.680 listening to right now. If this is a surprise to you, 0:00:13.800 --> 0:00:17.440 if you if you thought this was the Joe Rogan experience, 0:00:18.040 --> 0:00:22.000 let me assure you everyone here does eat a diet 0:00:22.079 --> 0:00:24.400 of nothing but elk meat. Uh. And to talk to 0:00:24.440 --> 0:00:28.680 me about the health value of elk meat uh is 0:00:30.480 --> 0:00:35.200 um no? Uh so about I don't know. A week 0:00:35.320 --> 0:00:38.440 or so ago. UM, we're talking with Sarah Young. Sarah, 0:00:38.479 --> 0:00:42.000 how are you doing good? How are you? I'm I'm 0:00:42.080 --> 0:00:45.200 pretty good. Sarah. You're a deputy features editor at The Verge. 0:00:45.720 --> 0:00:48.280 You are a lawyer and a journalist, so you have 0:00:48.440 --> 0:00:54.040 embraced the two most cursed vocations in two um and 0:00:54.280 --> 0:00:57.640 you you've number one most recently written an incredible piece 0:00:58.080 --> 0:01:04.679 UM about the Portland and abductions, which is like brutal 0:01:04.959 --> 0:01:08.600 and um, very important for the Verge. People ought to 0:01:08.680 --> 0:01:11.080 check it out. It is Uh. I don't know. I've 0:01:11.120 --> 0:01:13.520 had trouble getting through all of it because it is 0:01:13.640 --> 0:01:17.360 very good and because I was there. But everyone needs 0:01:17.400 --> 0:01:20.039 to read it. It's an important piece. We're not talking 0:01:20.040 --> 0:01:22.760 about that today. We're talking about a post that you 0:01:22.840 --> 0:01:25.920 made on the Twitter dot com about a week or 0:01:25.959 --> 0:01:28.400 so ago that I I messaged you about wanting to 0:01:28.400 --> 0:01:30.319 to chat about you want to kind of talk about 0:01:30.360 --> 0:01:32.440 what that post was and what you were trying to 0:01:32.440 --> 0:01:36.440 get across. Yeah, the audience. So, if you live in 0:01:36.480 --> 0:01:41.319 Portland right now, it's, um, it's absolutely fucking rancid. Like 0:01:42.600 --> 0:01:48.280 I think the discourse well sometimes sometimes a city, but 0:01:48.600 --> 0:01:51.480 the discourse is rancid. Uh. It's like this in a 0:01:51.520 --> 0:01:56.040 lot of other cities as well. Um, but is like 0:01:56.400 --> 0:02:00.120 the discourse around homeless people, right, yeah, Yeah, every every 0:02:00.160 --> 0:02:04.120 conversation you have with any random person, it's like eventually 0:02:04.160 --> 0:02:07.240 goes to oh, it's gotten so bad here lately, and 0:02:07.280 --> 0:02:11.520 it's always about homeless people. Um, and they it always 0:02:11.560 --> 0:02:14.760 goes to this place where they're like, oh, we should 0:02:14.800 --> 0:02:18.440 start rounding people up into camps and getting rid of them. 0:02:18.480 --> 0:02:20.679 And it's like people are a little too excited for 0:02:20.840 --> 0:02:25.480 literally murder homeless people. You get just saying the most 0:02:25.520 --> 0:02:27.600 insane things like oh, I'm not going to break my 0:02:27.680 --> 0:02:30.440 car if I see one of those homeless people. It's 0:02:31.360 --> 0:02:36.440 it's awful and like, yeah, it's really really awful and 0:02:36.520 --> 0:02:41.760 like and then you get people going like, oh, well, 0:02:42.040 --> 0:02:44.760 you know how things are and like pulling out murders 0:02:44.800 --> 0:02:47.799 that have happened in like New York, um of Asian 0:02:47.800 --> 0:02:50.760 women at me to like justify why it is that 0:02:50.800 --> 0:02:53.040 I need to start supporting the cops and so on 0:02:53.080 --> 0:03:01.839 and so forth. Um, And it's just there's this thing 0:03:01.919 --> 0:03:06.359 where I think that they're well meaning leftists really want 0:03:06.400 --> 0:03:10.720 to sort of pull out like let's humanize almost people, 0:03:10.720 --> 0:03:13.480 which like, yes, but the people you're talking to they 0:03:13.520 --> 0:03:18.080 don't deal with empathy actually, right, they already don't see 0:03:18.120 --> 0:03:20.920 most of the population as people. So what you're doing 0:03:21.000 --> 0:03:23.360 is you're not even speaking the language that they speak. 0:03:24.480 --> 0:03:28.040 The issue for me is that what they're what people 0:03:28.040 --> 0:03:31.800 are doing when they dehumanize the homeless or like turn 0:03:31.840 --> 0:03:33.840 them into like a problem that you can just sweep 0:03:33.880 --> 0:03:39.120 away or like kill or put in danger or drop 0:03:39.160 --> 0:03:41.280 into a camp where they're more likely to die or 0:03:41.320 --> 0:03:47.040 get sick or be harmed. Um, it's it's that you're 0:03:47.080 --> 0:03:54.360 making a vast class of people based on like superficial characteristics. Right, Um, 0:03:54.400 --> 0:03:58.760 they might be dirty, they're intense. Whatever you felt threatened 0:03:58.800 --> 0:04:02.240 by one of them once, So now everyone who's ever 0:04:02.320 --> 0:04:06.040 been homeless deserves to have a worse off life because 0:04:06.520 --> 0:04:10.760 you didn't feel great about it this one time and 0:04:11.120 --> 0:04:16.000 or two times, and it's it's really absurd to me 0:04:16.080 --> 0:04:20.520 because like, yeah, I I've had many instances in my 0:04:20.560 --> 0:04:24.240 life where I haven't felt very safe, um, because of 0:04:24.279 --> 0:04:26.719 someone who was homeless, because of someone who was an addict. 0:04:27.240 --> 0:04:29.560 I mean, I'm a small Asian woman. I take public transit. 0:04:30.160 --> 0:04:33.239 It is, the vibes are off in every fucking city 0:04:33.360 --> 0:04:36.560 right now for people who look like me. Um, But 0:04:37.200 --> 0:04:39.920 that doesn't mean that everyone who looks like the person 0:04:39.960 --> 0:04:45.400 who's making me uncomfortable deserves to be swept up into 0:04:45.400 --> 0:04:49.400 a fucking camp. And in fact, like if I like, 0:04:49.520 --> 0:04:51.800 roll the tape back and look at sort of, oh, 0:04:51.880 --> 0:04:54.960 let's look at people who have made me feel threatened, 0:04:55.080 --> 0:05:00.080 afraid whatever. I've gone through big old sprints in my 0:05:00.200 --> 0:05:03.000 life where I'm getting a lot of death threats from 0:05:03.040 --> 0:05:07.080 white supremacists. I mean, I'm sure you've life too. I 0:05:07.120 --> 0:05:10.279 can see I see it, But like you, I don't 0:05:10.279 --> 0:05:13.320 know because you're a woman writing on the internet, Like 0:05:13.400 --> 0:05:15.320 you'll get more in a couple of months than I 0:05:15.360 --> 0:05:19.000 do in an average like year. I mean it depends, right, 0:05:19.000 --> 0:05:24.720 Like it depends. I was just looking at your mentions yeah, 0:05:24.760 --> 0:05:26.839 I don't know. I don't really look to carefully, so 0:05:26.839 --> 0:05:28.640 I don't even know what the numbers are. Like this is. 0:05:29.120 --> 0:05:34.120 I did have an incredible, like six month period where 0:05:34.120 --> 0:05:39.159 it was really intense because Tucker Carlson was like putting 0:05:39.160 --> 0:05:42.760 me on his show for a while, so it was 0:05:42.839 --> 0:05:45.760 it was really bad, like people like some guy called 0:05:45.800 --> 0:05:49.200 into my office and threatened to fire bomb it, and 0:05:49.320 --> 0:05:52.000 the people who got the phone call like, we're stressed 0:05:52.000 --> 0:05:53.680 out enough that they called the cops and there's like 0:05:53.680 --> 0:05:58.080 a police report and like, um, there was a bunch 0:05:58.080 --> 0:06:00.480 of stuff that happened during this period that was pretty 0:06:00.480 --> 0:06:04.920 scary and uh. And it was always like guys who 0:06:04.920 --> 0:06:07.760 all sort of looks the same, right, It's like all 0:06:07.800 --> 0:06:10.880 the you know, the Oakley sunglasses, like taking a selfie 0:06:10.920 --> 0:06:14.279 of themselves in the car, like that sort of stereotype, right, 0:06:14.839 --> 0:06:19.600 And you know, I gotta say, for a while, i'd 0:06:19.600 --> 0:06:23.080 see that like that little profile picture, I'd see someone 0:06:23.080 --> 0:06:26.560 in person and like my heart would start beating faster. Right. 0:06:26.960 --> 0:06:29.520 Took a while for me to like be able to 0:06:29.600 --> 0:06:34.440 dial that back. Um, during that six month period, I'd 0:06:34.440 --> 0:06:37.520 hear someone yell a racial slur, and I would almost 0:06:37.520 --> 0:06:39.760 have a panic attack because I fem like, oh no, 0:06:39.920 --> 0:06:44.240 like like someone's gonna come and make good on these threats, 0:06:44.920 --> 0:06:50.800 and I don't, like, I don't want to round people 0:06:50.920 --> 0:06:56.720 up into camps for looking like a shitty, racist, suburbanite 0:06:56.720 --> 0:07:00.960 white cut Like it's like it's the because I'm not 0:07:01.000 --> 0:07:05.080 a fucking Nazi. Like it's like it doesn't matter what 0:07:05.160 --> 0:07:08.680 you've experienced. You're like, what legitimate harm you faced from 0:07:09.040 --> 0:07:13.120 people who look a certain way, Like you don't round 0:07:13.160 --> 0:07:15.840 them up into camps or like talk about like how 0:07:15.880 --> 0:07:20.400 you're not going to break on the straw on the street. 0:07:20.400 --> 0:07:23.440 I'm glad I was happy for kind of your perspective 0:07:23.440 --> 0:07:25.760 on the matter, because I do try. Like whenever people 0:07:25.800 --> 0:07:28.200 talk about how scary Portlands are, how scary the homeless 0:07:28.240 --> 0:07:31.120 camps are, Like, the thing I want to say is like, 0:07:31.120 --> 0:07:33.440 like I have like five or six different running routes 0:07:33.480 --> 0:07:36.280 in the city, and most of them have homeless encampments 0:07:36.320 --> 0:07:38.320 on them, and I run through them at night. I 0:07:38.320 --> 0:07:41.680 went through them at the day, never had a problem. Um, 0:07:41.720 --> 0:07:44.160 you know, sometimes there's like trash, and I would like 0:07:44.200 --> 0:07:46.679 it if it were cleaner, but also primarily the people 0:07:46.720 --> 0:07:50.280 cleaning up are usually like autonomously organized groups of formerly 0:07:50.360 --> 0:07:52.280 houseless folks, which is the thing that happens in a 0:07:52.280 --> 0:07:55.640 couple of the neighborhoods that I go to, um and like. 0:07:56.080 --> 0:07:58.360 But at the same time, I don't want to bring 0:07:58.440 --> 0:08:00.800 that in when there's an argument about it, because like, 0:08:00.840 --> 0:08:03.920 I'm a six ft three pound white guy, right, Like, 0:08:03.960 --> 0:08:06.360 of course I'm as a general rule in a lot 0:08:06.400 --> 0:08:09.120 of situations, I don't feel worried what other people do 0:08:09.160 --> 0:08:12.200 because I'm a big white dude and that's UM. But 0:08:12.440 --> 0:08:15.640 what I will say, I had an experience a couple 0:08:15.680 --> 0:08:18.280 of months back. A person that I live near, like 0:08:18.320 --> 0:08:20.880 a neighbor of mine, is a young woman within like 0:08:20.920 --> 0:08:24.800 a six month old infant, and she was out jogging 0:08:25.440 --> 0:08:28.520 on one of the trails near our house, and two 0:08:28.560 --> 0:08:34.600 guys uh in new Kawasaki like motorcycles, dirt bikes, whatever 0:08:34.640 --> 0:08:37.480 you want to call them. I assume rich kids because 0:08:37.480 --> 0:08:40.480 these were very new bikes drove up and shot at 0:08:40.480 --> 0:08:42.680 her and her baby with baby guns. Hit her in 0:08:42.720 --> 0:08:47.120 the face, nearly hit her baby. Um, And it was 0:08:47.280 --> 0:08:51.400 like homeless folks and people at an illegal skate park 0:08:51.520 --> 0:08:53.720 who came to her aid and like made sure she 0:08:53.840 --> 0:08:56.240 was okay, and when I got out there, because I 0:08:56.240 --> 0:08:58.160 I rolled out there with a fucking beat stick and 0:08:58.200 --> 0:09:01.080 a handgun just to be like, if I see these motherfucker's, 0:09:01.080 --> 0:09:05.120 we're gonna have words. And I started talking to homeless 0:09:05.120 --> 0:09:07.320 folks that I knew on the route who were all like, yeah, 0:09:07.320 --> 0:09:09.360 those people like they come by to shoot at us, 0:09:09.400 --> 0:09:11.600 and it's and I have heard this in multiple encampments. 0:09:11.600 --> 0:09:14.439 I've heard this at Laurel Nurst a number of places 0:09:14.520 --> 0:09:16.400 that like kids from the suburbs will come in to 0:09:16.440 --> 0:09:19.200 shoot homeless people with baby guns and mace them, and um, 0:09:20.160 --> 0:09:23.240 I have I'm not gonna say again. I've also been 0:09:23.280 --> 0:09:26.000 in a situation where like an agitated, houseless woman was 0:09:26.080 --> 0:09:29.400 like swinging a machette at some folks, and you know, 0:09:29.480 --> 0:09:32.000 everything was de escalated. But like, I get it. The 0:09:32.000 --> 0:09:34.600 fact that there are people out there who are having 0:09:34.640 --> 0:09:37.160 like mental health difficulty means that people are going to 0:09:37.200 --> 0:09:40.559 have encounters that can be frightening. Um. But by and large, 0:09:40.840 --> 0:09:44.600 the people that I find myself most threatened by are 0:09:44.679 --> 0:09:47.440 like kids, people like those assholes rolling by and shooting 0:09:47.440 --> 0:09:51.080 people with baby guns, and of course folks driving gigantic 0:09:51.120 --> 0:09:55.160 trucks in tiny streets like assholes often while wasted. Um, 0:09:55.559 --> 0:09:57.600 Like those are the things that scare me in Portland, 0:09:57.720 --> 0:10:03.320 not the encampments. Yeah, and honestly, like there there are 0:10:03.400 --> 0:10:07.280 some increasing safety issues in Portland, but like a lot 0:10:07.280 --> 0:10:09.680 of it is also just like from cars, right, Like 0:10:09.720 --> 0:10:12.120 it is a it's more there's more of a car 0:10:12.160 --> 0:10:15.719 culture than there used to be. Um. And people get 0:10:15.800 --> 0:10:18.640 hit and uh, they go to the hospital or they die, 0:10:18.760 --> 0:10:22.760 like it's it. There's like they're they're big changes in 0:10:22.800 --> 0:10:26.840 the city for sure, but like it's there's so much 0:10:26.880 --> 0:10:29.400 focus on homelessness as being like the root of all 0:10:29.440 --> 0:10:31.920 of that, and like, I don't know, they'll say, oh, 0:10:31.960 --> 0:10:34.120 Portland has gotten so bad and the same breath as 0:10:34.200 --> 0:10:37.319 like talking about how high rents are or like how 0:10:37.360 --> 0:10:41.959 expensive houses have gotten just not even connecting those two things, right, 0:10:42.280 --> 0:10:47.120 Like why is it that housing is so expensive now? 0:10:47.280 --> 0:10:50.880 Like clearly people are placing bets on real estate either 0:10:51.040 --> 0:10:55.440 that or just we haven't built out enough. Could that 0:10:55.559 --> 0:10:58.720 be something? Um? Or maybe things aren't as bad as 0:10:58.760 --> 0:11:01.400 you think, and it's it's a desirable place to live. 0:11:02.040 --> 0:11:07.679 Um it's really like it is. It's extremely frustrating. Um. 0:11:07.960 --> 0:11:10.720 I I also think that there's this weird thing where 0:11:12.760 --> 0:11:16.800 you just don't really think about the fact that you 0:11:16.920 --> 0:11:20.559 might have one or two encounters where it's upsetting you 0:11:20.880 --> 0:11:25.000 feel scared, and then like the vast majority of people 0:11:25.040 --> 0:11:27.800 who are unhoused are just trying to stay the funk 0:11:27.800 --> 0:11:32.160 out of your way, right and like there you're not 0:11:32.200 --> 0:11:34.080 going to see them, you're not going to talk to 0:11:34.120 --> 0:11:36.160 them unless you go out of your way to talk 0:11:36.160 --> 0:11:40.520 to them and reach out, and like they're probably scared 0:11:40.520 --> 0:11:42.160 of you because they don't know who you are, Like 0:11:42.200 --> 0:11:44.960 you're a stranger. You might be one of those assholes 0:11:44.960 --> 0:11:49.160 on Kawasaki's like out to to shoot you, out to 0:11:49.160 --> 0:11:54.959 shoot them, and like it's it's really frustrating, like it's halfway. 0:11:55.720 --> 0:11:57.960 I don't know. Some some of the people who buy 0:11:57.960 --> 0:12:02.360 into this kind of discourse are just outright terrible human beings, right, Yeah, 0:12:02.400 --> 0:12:04.720 they're just they're just fashions, they're just they're just fast. 0:12:04.840 --> 0:12:08.680 This is useful. But then there's like it's really frustrating 0:12:08.720 --> 0:12:10.920 how many people in the city right now are just 0:12:11.040 --> 0:12:14.800 useful idiots for the fascists have just like gone down 0:12:14.880 --> 0:12:19.319 that gone down that rabbit hole and aren't thinking past 0:12:19.400 --> 0:12:22.480 like what it means to quote unquote take care of 0:12:22.480 --> 0:12:26.000 the homeless problem, Like what do you what do you 0:12:26.040 --> 0:12:29.600 want to do here? What do you actually want to do? 0:12:30.840 --> 0:12:33.000 Where are these people going to go? Like what's going 0:12:33.040 --> 0:12:48.199 to happen to them? And it's it's super frustrating. We're 0:12:48.240 --> 0:12:50.839 focusing on Portland because it's where we live, but all 0:12:50.880 --> 0:12:53.200 of these things are evidence of like broader trends. You 0:12:53.200 --> 0:12:55.160 can see a lot of the same tactics being used 0:12:55.160 --> 0:13:00.080 in Los Angeles and Austin um in Minneapolis. And one 0:13:00.120 --> 0:13:03.079 of the things is kind of this conflation of like disorder, 0:13:03.920 --> 0:13:09.319 drug use, homelessness with like deadly violence and a number 0:13:09.360 --> 0:13:12.440 of things, like we've talked about kind of jailing and 0:13:12.800 --> 0:13:15.439 putting into camps the homeless is is one thing people 0:13:15.480 --> 0:13:19.200 suggest There's also a lot of like suggestions around massively 0:13:19.280 --> 0:13:23.280 increasing the number of police. And this all also goes 0:13:23.360 --> 0:13:26.760 into you know, you've got this kind of series of 0:13:26.760 --> 0:13:31.840 of right wing uh cups against elected leaders who have 0:13:31.920 --> 0:13:34.400 any kind of other suggestions. We saw this in San 0:13:34.440 --> 0:13:37.600 Francisco with the DHS abode and the police like just 0:13:37.679 --> 0:13:41.840 refusing to enforce like the law when they were when 0:13:41.920 --> 0:13:45.280 CESSA was attempting to carry things out in a different way. 0:13:45.320 --> 0:13:47.400 And like what we're seeing in Portland right now, We've 0:13:47.440 --> 0:13:52.679 got um, a city Commissioner, Joan Hardesty, who uh number 0:13:52.679 --> 0:13:57.160 one is the only black woman in the city council. UM, 0:13:57.200 --> 0:14:00.319 the only person on the city council who rents, uh 0:14:00.320 --> 0:14:02.000 and the only person in the city council who was 0:14:02.040 --> 0:14:05.080 in debt and who is endured. And I'm not gonna 0:14:05.120 --> 0:14:07.880 say she's a perfect counselor a perfect politician. There's plenty 0:14:07.880 --> 0:14:11.880 of things to criticize Hardesty over UM, but there has been, 0:14:11.920 --> 0:14:14.440 like number one, this kind of unhinged campaign of attacking 0:14:14.480 --> 0:14:16.920 her because of the fact that, like her financial situation 0:14:16.960 --> 0:14:20.600 isn't great, which I see actually as a plus UM, 0:14:20.640 --> 0:14:23.120 because a lot of people in Portland are in rough 0:14:23.160 --> 0:14:25.720 financial condition. Maybe it's nice if they're represented on the 0:14:25.720 --> 0:14:30.080 fucking city council. But also she's instituted as people keep 0:14:30.120 --> 0:14:33.360 fetching about, you know, violence and gun violence, which are 0:14:33.400 --> 0:14:35.640 problems that have gotten worse in Portland. Although it is 0:14:35.640 --> 0:14:37.760 important to note Portland is one of the safest cities 0:14:37.760 --> 0:14:40.400 in the entire United States, even after the quote unquote 0:14:40.440 --> 0:14:43.160 surge and violent crime. I don't think that mitigates that. 0:14:43.200 --> 0:14:46.640 I just think it's important to keep like things in perspective. 0:14:46.800 --> 0:14:51.200 But hardesty has instituted the only effective program that has 0:14:51.200 --> 0:14:54.080 reduced gun violence in the city of Portland in the 0:14:54.160 --> 0:14:58.720 recent past, which was essentially a series of traffic calming measures, right, Like, 0:14:58.800 --> 0:15:00.480 I think that's probably a fair to say it. It It 0:15:00.640 --> 0:15:03.960 was sort of altering the way in which um traffic 0:15:04.000 --> 0:15:06.640 worked in a neighborhood to kind of try and reduce 0:15:06.720 --> 0:15:11.200 some of the situations that were like leading to violence. 0:15:11.400 --> 0:15:16.440 And um, she's undergoing this massive attack right now by 0:15:18.160 --> 0:15:20.440 a candidate, a right wing candidate. I mean, he, like 0:15:20.520 --> 0:15:23.760 everyone who runs importantly, he claims to be a Democrat. Um, 0:15:23.800 --> 0:15:27.600 he's donated to Republicans. He is called named Renee Gonzalez, 0:15:27.640 --> 0:15:29.840 who's being backed by a lot of the same business 0:15:29.880 --> 0:15:32.680 interests that are pushing this anti homeless agenda, pushing the 0:15:32.680 --> 0:15:37.480 mayor's proposal to put homeless people in encampments. And UM, 0:15:38.640 --> 0:15:41.120 I don't know, it's just I feel like I can 0:15:41.160 --> 0:15:45.160 see it all coming together, and that I hate how 0:15:45.160 --> 0:15:47.240 many people are, as you said, kind of useful idiots 0:15:47.240 --> 0:15:50.280 about it, where they're like, you know, look it, clearly 0:15:50.360 --> 0:15:53.160 these people who are talking about rehabilitation or who are 0:15:53.160 --> 0:15:56.400 trying to, like, actually, who are not suggesting a car 0:15:56.480 --> 0:16:00.000 serrale solution to the fact that it's unpleasant to see 0:16:00.160 --> 0:16:04.680 people suffering on the street. Um are wrong because look 0:16:04.720 --> 0:16:06.600 at what the news tells me about how much worse 0:16:06.720 --> 0:16:10.760 violence has gotten and stuff like, I it's very frustrating. 0:16:11.920 --> 0:16:15.440 Don't vote for reagans hoas but yeah, please please don't 0:16:15.560 --> 0:16:17.960 vote for a man who donated to a Republican pack 0:16:18.680 --> 0:16:21.880 six months after January six Let's please please, let's not 0:16:21.920 --> 0:16:29.600 do that. But god, it's it's I think, like really 0:16:29.760 --> 0:16:33.680 sad that. I mean, like people I think really just 0:16:33.760 --> 0:16:37.520 don't want to think about how damaged all of society 0:16:37.640 --> 0:16:40.440 is right now. Yeah, Like wait, like we lived through 0:16:41.280 --> 0:16:48.240 you know, currently had one of the worst responses to COVID. Uh. 0:16:48.640 --> 0:16:53.240 Millions of people are dead. Um, our mental health is 0:16:53.280 --> 0:16:57.160 fucking shot through. Uh, even people who didn't experience sort 0:16:57.200 --> 0:17:02.480 of federal jack boots on the ground. Um, we're not 0:17:02.560 --> 0:17:08.520 well right like it it's any number of housed perfectly 0:17:08.840 --> 0:17:13.800 like financially stable people turned to substance abuse during this period, UM, 0:17:13.880 --> 0:17:18.440 and UH are are still you know, recovering. UM. People 0:17:18.480 --> 0:17:21.959 who are unhoused also turned to substance abuse if they 0:17:22.000 --> 0:17:26.600 weren't um already there, and their mental health is also 0:17:26.640 --> 0:17:31.000 shot there. And uh, sort of the upshot of this 0:17:31.119 --> 0:17:34.240 is everyone is fucking sick and taking it out on 0:17:34.240 --> 0:17:41.680 each other and it really sucks to see. It really 0:17:41.720 --> 0:17:47.119 sucks to see people be their worst selves reasingly and increasingly. Yeah, 0:17:47.240 --> 0:17:49.480 and I first off, I want to try to provide 0:17:49.480 --> 0:17:51.520 people with some objective numbers. And this is just on 0:17:51.560 --> 0:17:54.200 the city of Portland. So Portland number one never defunded 0:17:54.200 --> 0:17:56.920 its police. There are police currently get the most money 0:17:56.960 --> 0:17:59.920 they've ever gotten. Um. But we do have one thing 0:18:00.000 --> 0:18:02.639 it is accurate to say is we have fewer police 0:18:02.680 --> 0:18:05.160 per capita than any major city in the United States, 0:18:05.480 --> 0:18:07.639 and we have the fewest number of police on the 0:18:07.720 --> 0:18:11.520 force in living memory. I'm fairly certain right now there's 0:18:11.520 --> 0:18:14.920 like seven hundred Portland police officers, which is significantly down 0:18:14.960 --> 0:18:19.400 from because it's not a pleasant job, because people hate 0:18:19.400 --> 0:18:21.359 the cops here in Portland, so they keep quitting and 0:18:21.400 --> 0:18:25.359 moving to other cities. Um. And it is true that 0:18:25.400 --> 0:18:28.560 when the pandemic hit, violent crime in Portland raised by 0:18:28.600 --> 0:18:32.960 about two hundred and seven percent from January nine through June, 0:18:33.080 --> 0:18:36.520 which is the largest increase compared to five comparable cities. 0:18:36.760 --> 0:18:40.000 This is from an article in the Oregon Capital Chronicle, Minneapolis, Atlanta, 0:18:40.040 --> 0:18:45.399 San Francisco, Denver, and Nashville. UM. However, it's also worth 0:18:45.440 --> 0:18:49.000 noting that over the course of the last year, we're 0:18:49.040 --> 0:18:53.360 at seven a fewer homicides than we were the year before. UM. Overall, 0:18:53.400 --> 0:18:56.879 the number of homicides in two has fallen two percent 0:18:57.040 --> 0:19:00.359 from one, even as we continue to have fewer and 0:19:00.400 --> 0:19:03.680 fewer police, almost as if the Surgeon violent crime was 0:19:03.720 --> 0:19:06.879 not a result in policing, but as you said, the 0:19:06.920 --> 0:19:09.440 result of a lot of other factors around the pandemic 0:19:09.480 --> 0:19:13.720 and around the economic situation, and like the rate of 0:19:13.840 --> 0:19:17.439 violence has been continuing to decrease. It's also worth noting 0:19:17.480 --> 0:19:20.960 that while we're talking about homicides here and Portland did 0:19:21.040 --> 0:19:24.399 see a surgeon homicides during the pandemic, that's not the 0:19:24.440 --> 0:19:27.760 only kind of crime or the only kind of violent crime. UM. 0:19:27.800 --> 0:19:30.639 And I want to quote here from Travel Oregon. In 0:19:30.680 --> 0:19:34.160 February one, the Major Cities Chiefs Association issue to report 0:19:34.200 --> 0:19:36.520 noting that sixty three of sixty six major cities saw 0:19:36.560 --> 0:19:40.040 at least one violent crime category grow in Among cities 0:19:40.040 --> 0:19:43.240 of comparable size, Portland generally experiences violent crime at somewhat 0:19:43.280 --> 0:19:47.199 lower rates. Like the A lot of this is media driven, 0:19:47.240 --> 0:19:49.439 and it's specifically the thing that you highlighted in the 0:19:49.480 --> 0:19:52.960 post that that made me reach out to you was 0:19:52.960 --> 0:19:57.720 was talking about how particularly white suburbanite homeowners are driving 0:19:57.720 --> 0:20:00.639 this panic and are driving these kind of surge and 0:20:00.720 --> 0:20:05.760 very like fascist solutions to the fears that they have 0:20:05.840 --> 0:20:08.600 about homelessness and about crime. And one of the reasons 0:20:08.640 --> 0:20:10.800 why this ship works is is people don't go into 0:20:10.840 --> 0:20:12.840 the city. They live in the suburbs. They see the 0:20:12.880 --> 0:20:15.760 scary news. And that's the thing I don't know how 0:20:15.760 --> 0:20:19.639 to actually combat because it is a nationwide problem. Shootings 0:20:19.680 --> 0:20:23.520 and deaths due to shootings. They have increased since the pandemic, 0:20:23.600 --> 0:20:25.119 but if you look at them on like a twenty 0:20:25.200 --> 0:20:31.840 year graph, fairly flat nationwide. Um, but what has got right, 0:20:31.840 --> 0:20:35.200 like nobody statistics of gun crimes like what in like 0:20:35.240 --> 0:20:37.280 the last couple of years, And then now they're saying 0:20:37.320 --> 0:20:42.440 that gun violence has increased, like it's it's yeah, yeah, anyway, 0:20:43.400 --> 0:20:46.040 what had What we know what has increased vastly more 0:20:46.080 --> 0:20:49.440 than gun crime is reporting on gun crime, which has surged. 0:20:49.560 --> 0:20:52.240 It like and and that's because you know, if it bleeds, 0:20:52.240 --> 0:20:53.959 it leads in whatever. But it is this thing of 0:20:54.000 --> 0:20:56.800 like that's the stuff that gets people to pay attention, 0:20:56.920 --> 0:20:59.399 and it's the stuff that spreads on social media, just 0:20:59.480 --> 0:21:01.320 like pictures of like poop on the streets of San 0:21:01.359 --> 0:21:04.920 Francisco can spread on social media, and it it all 0:21:04.960 --> 0:21:08.600 exists to keep these kind of suburban voters at a 0:21:08.640 --> 0:21:12.080 constant state of agitation, which makes them easy to manipulate. 0:21:12.119 --> 0:21:15.719 And like that's the thing that scares me the most. Yeah, 0:21:15.800 --> 0:21:20.480 I mean things are almost shittier with Portland because well, like, okay, 0:21:20.520 --> 0:21:23.000 the same Nisco poop situation, So how you live in 0:21:23.040 --> 0:21:27.920 the Bay area, that was a real situation. Francis is 0:21:27.960 --> 0:21:31.159 just human there's just human ship everywhere. Um, it's you know, 0:21:31.480 --> 0:21:33.800 you you live with it. It's it just is what 0:21:33.920 --> 0:21:36.000 it is. And you know someone's from New York when 0:21:36.000 --> 0:21:38.800 they start complaining about it, right, like, it's uh and 0:21:39.200 --> 0:21:42.960 it I think New York which smells like p everywhere, 0:21:43.000 --> 0:21:45.359 but I mean it's it's most like hot garbage because 0:21:45.400 --> 0:21:47.359 they don't they don't take their garbage. They like just 0:21:47.400 --> 0:21:50.320 put their garbage out on the curb. And when it's summertime. 0:21:50.359 --> 0:21:56.600 It just smells fucking terrible. Um But uh so everyone's 0:21:56.600 --> 0:22:00.840 got their problems, but it's it's this weird thing we're 0:22:00.920 --> 0:22:03.360 just because of the way that we're drawn up geographically. 0:22:03.359 --> 0:22:05.920 We've got all of these people like like you said, 0:22:06.119 --> 0:22:09.480 like out in the burbs who vote, who have control 0:22:09.600 --> 0:22:13.240 over the way the wind blows, who just never come 0:22:13.280 --> 0:22:17.040 out here. Ever in this they never come out here, 0:22:17.680 --> 0:22:22.760 and uh in San Francisco, Like yeah, they've got outlying 0:22:22.800 --> 0:22:27.280 areas as well, But it's it's not drawn up exactly 0:22:27.320 --> 0:22:30.359 the way that we are quite right, Like like the 0:22:30.400 --> 0:22:32.640 people who are going to be the most alarmist about 0:22:32.640 --> 0:22:36.399 San Francisco are like not going to be in the 0:22:36.520 --> 0:22:39.680 area where they're voting about the things that happened to 0:22:40.040 --> 0:22:42.880 San Francisco, the way the Chasis stuff went down, Like 0:22:45.440 --> 0:22:48.720 I mean, that's complicated, right, Like I mean it was 0:22:48.920 --> 0:22:52.639 it was a witch hunt and it made me really 0:22:55.840 --> 0:22:58.000 in Srancis and made me really want to never move back. 0:22:58.960 --> 0:23:03.520 But it it was like we've we've just got a 0:23:03.560 --> 0:23:06.800 different sort of set up here where the people who 0:23:07.080 --> 0:23:10.560 are the most upset about all of the crime in Portland, 0:23:10.800 --> 0:23:14.000 like they don't come out to where they think the 0:23:14.000 --> 0:23:17.440 crime is happening at all, Like they like they just 0:23:17.720 --> 0:23:21.119 don't really interact with the city. They're off somewhere else, 0:23:21.520 --> 0:23:29.119 and it's it is truly strange, really annoying. Uh yeah, 0:23:29.160 --> 0:23:31.399 and it is this is like, I don't know, this 0:23:31.480 --> 0:23:34.440 is part of why, this is part of why politically 0:23:34.480 --> 0:23:39.240 I tend to align myself with like libertarian municipalism. Um. 0:23:39.320 --> 0:23:41.640 I think one of the problems we have is that 0:23:43.640 --> 0:23:45.960 places that have very little to do with each other 0:23:46.119 --> 0:23:49.520 get to pass laws that impact how people live in 0:23:49.560 --> 0:23:53.680 those those places, Like which is a problem, um as 0:23:53.680 --> 0:23:56.360 we all just got overseeing with fucking Donald Trump, right, 0:23:56.359 --> 0:23:58.399 Like that's a that's a version of the problem in 0:23:58.400 --> 0:24:00.359 a version of another version of the problem is that 0:24:00.440 --> 0:24:03.520 like people in Los Angeles can pass a gas tax 0:24:03.600 --> 0:24:06.240