Seattle, Washington has become “an angry place” where liberal policies about homelessness and drug use have been destructive to the social environment, and it may be time to “take the city back” from the far left.
That seems to be the consensus among people who have read, and find themselves in agreement with, a blistering Op-Ed published in the Saturday edition of the Seattle Times. Typically, that is the least-read edition of the week, but the column authored by science writer and microbiologist Alex Berezow has so far garnered almost 1,400 reader responses.
It has also ignited a discussion on Facebook.
Berezow’s critical essay has ignited conservatives and even some moderate Democrats/liberals who are not simply upset but alarmed at what has happened in the Jet City.
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It is a story that could easily apply to other metropolitan areas around the nation that are dominated by far left politics and social policies. Berezow’s declaration was that he is fed up with the way things are going in the city and he is moving out.
“People don’t want to admit it, but as a proclaimed progressive mecca, Seattle is one of the least diverse and most unfriendly cities around.”—Seattle Centrist
He offers examples of social decay including self-described socialist City Councilwoman Kshama Sawant’s recent rant about a feminist organization that had the grace to wish that the late First Lady Barbara Bush “rest in peace.”
For many Washington residents, Seattle is like an island of idiocy surrounded by an ocean of common sense. City leaders are trying to establish a “safe injection” site for drug addicts, and they city has become a magnet for what some people quietly call the “professional homeless” population. People live in tent communities, or RVs parked along residential streets or in clusters under freeways, or tiny house locations. There are complaints that the area around the King County Courthouse is no longer safe, and the city has to hose the area a few times every week to wash away the urine and feces.
News reports have revealed the dangerous environment downtown, where KOMO News – the local ABC affiliate – said there had been more than 500 criminal assaults around the courthouse.
Social media occasionally carries an observation that Seattle is turning into a place where nobody will want to live, and the middle class is being forced out by high property taxes and an influx of unsavory people.
“Seattle has changed dramatically over the last 30 years as leftist radicals have taken over the politics of the city.”—‘ericbl’
Berezow related his experience meeting with the city councilwoman who represents his north Seattle district. At that meeting, he recalled, he “suggested that Seattle find a way to make it easier to provide treatment to” people who seem incapable of helping themselves, so that they do not “suffer and die on the street.”
The reaction from his council representative: “What is this? Nazi Germany?”
“Appalled,” the writer explained, “in part because my grandparents survived Nazi Germany, I got up and walked out.”
For Evergreen State gun owners and Second Amendment activists, Seattle is the hub of anti-gun Northwest politics, despite the fact that it is located in the county with the most active concealed pistol licenses of any county in the state. It is home to the billionaire-bankrolled Alliance for Gun Responsibility, and the longer running Washington CeaseFire, both gun prohibition lobbying groups.
There is no small irony in the fact that just to the east, on the far side of Lake Washington, the City of Bellevue is home to a couple of the nation’s most active gun rights organizations, the Second Amendment Foundation and the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms.
Two reader responses to the Times Op-Ed sum it up, perhaps not just about Seattle, but other liberal hubs:
From Seattle Centrist: “People don’t want to admit it, but as a proclaimed progressive mecca, Seattle is one of the least diverse and most unfriendly cities around. Say what you want about the south and places like Texas, but people are genuine and friendly. I would argue that some of the most prejudice and judgmental people in this country are hipsters in places like Seattle and Portland. The comment in the article about having two points of view is dead accurate. If you are not 100% liberal, you are Hitler or some Trump lover, or a racist bigot. People are so closed minded in Seattle it’s unbelievable.”
And from “ericbl” comes this: “Seattle has changed dramatically over the last 30 years as leftist radicals have taken over the politics of the city. Seattle used to be the cleanest and safest city in the county. Now it’s overrun by bums defecating in the street, leaving used needles in the street, and aggressively panhandling. The politicians won’t allow the police to do anything about it. I saw it every day for seven years when I was working in Belltown…
“Unfortunately, it really does matter who we elect to public office. And the people of Seattle have been electing the very worst people for a long time.”
Morning talk host John Carlson at KVI suggested Tuesday that the Berezow article could fire people up to take their city back from the “leftist radicals” whose policies are taking the city down. Or is it too late?
