Portland and Oregon Doubled-Down on Progressive Politics as the Rest of the Country Went the Other Way

What this means for the future of the Portland Metro

The big story in Oregon’s 2024 November election seems to be Trump’s momentous and blowout victory over Vice President Kamala Harris in the US presidential election. Portland area social media is abuzz with panic and incredulousness about what Trump’s victory might mean, and progressives hysteria continues to grow over the conspiracies of Project 2025, the loss of women’s rights, mass deportations of not only illegal immigrants, but legal ones as well, and their bizarre concern over Trump potentially stopping forever wars in Ukraine and the Middle East. In fact, according to KOIN News, calls to local crisis lines have reached a fever pitch as the usual hand wringers lose their collective minds. (https://www.koin.com/news/oregon/oregon-crisis-lines-surge-amid-presidential-election/)

While all this is happening, Portland metro progressives seem to ignore to the fact that they won big in their state, county, and city. In fact, as the rest of the country went decidedly right politically with the Republicans winning the White House, the Senate, and apparently, the US House of Representatives, much of Oregon and the Portland metro area (Clackamas included) doubled down on the far-left progressive experiment…one that has obviously failed the region and its residents.

Here are the real winners in the local elections:

·      The Portland Chapter of the DSA (Democratic Socialists of America). Six of the 12 apparent winners of the positions on Portland’s city council were on the DSA’s election slate. As much as we like to make fun of Portland as being the People’s Republic of Portland, it is apparently obvious that the socialist/communist contingency of Portland pulls some serious weight in this region.

·      The Homeless Industrial Complex non-profit cabal is alive and well. Both Multnomah County councilors elected in District 1 and 2, Meghan Moyer and Shannon Singleton support a “compassionate” response to homelessness and street addicts. If you haven’t been paying attention for the last 10 years, that means that the problem is virtually ignored while investing in programs such as harm reduction and Housing First, which has not only not helped Portland recover from this crisis, but has made it exponentially worse.

·      The Public Unions continue to be one of the most powerful influences on Oregon, and especially, Portland politics. If you look at the big winners in this election season, everyone from Dan Rayfield (Attorney General), Janelle Bynum (US House District #5), nearly every Portland city council winner, both Multnomah County winners, and Craig Roberts, the new Clackamas County Chair, were all endorsed by public unions.

Today, Keith Wilson was declared victorious as Portland’s new mayor. He immediately loudly reiterated that his plan was to solve Portland homelessness within one year. Wilson won the position mostly by default, due to ridiculously poor campaigns run by the expected front runners. Rene Gonzalez, who seemed to be a lock for mayor just a few months ago, made silly mistake after silly mistake and somehow thought that if he just repeated over and over, “but I’m a Democrat” he would somehow win over the electorate. He just couldn’t withstand the city’s far left attacks by its non-profit and public union sector, and it’s very effective “Don’t Rank Rene” PAC sent him into the dust bin of Portland politics after his incredible rise just two short years ago, upsetting far-left race-baiting former city councilwoman, Jo Ann Hardesty. Carmen Rubio also appeared to be a serious candidate, but her atrocious driving record that continues to suggest a complete lack of personal accountability, which was only outweighed by her bizarre excuses for her behavior. Mingus Mapps, a decent guy who showed regular rational thought in his time on the city council, was rejected by the woke left for apparently not being black enough.

If Wilson thinks he is going to be a successful mayor with his one policy politics, he is clearly not aware that, 1) the new mayor will have almost no real power (under the new city government, the mayor won’t even have veto power) except that he has power over the budget. Unfortunately for Wilson, Portland is broke. The only reason the leftist city council will have to work with Wilson is if he and the “professional city manager” that he will be responsible for hiring will rubber stamp any new financial proposals that they ask for, and Wilson simply won’t be able to accommodate these requests. His first order of business will be to cut the current budget, which is hemorrhaging tax dollars due to Portland’s tanking population and economy.

I give Wilson 100 days of good-natured rapport with the city council while they figure out where the bathrooms are and until many of the city council members, such as Angelita Morillo, Candace Avalos, Sameer Kanal, and others, recognize Wilson to be who he is: a rich white guy with a pencil neck who looks and acts much like the last mayor, Ted Wheeler. After this realization, they are going to eat him for lunch and completely lock him out of any decisions. Rene Gonzalez should count himself lucky that he DIDN’T win.

Added to this conundrum is the fact that if Wilson is going to make any headway on the homelessness catastrophe is that he is going to have to work directly with the county, which is the entity almost entirely responsible for homeless services. This might have been possible with Sharon Meieran and Julia Brim-Edwards on the council, but Meieran is now termed out. Now, Brim-Edwards will be the only rational voice on the council. When Shannon Singleton found out she won the 2^nd District, she promised to “roll her sleeves up” and get working on the homelessness crisis. Unfortunately, Singleton, who’s last job was the executive director of JOHS (Joint Office of Homeless Services) and by every indication is nearly impossible to work with, rolling her sleeves up means supporting the same failed programs that has made JOHS a pariah in Portland politics. Wilson doesn’t have a chance, unless the unlikely scenario comes to pass that county chair Jessica Vega-Pederson is recalled and Meieran takes over the chair position. Many politicos have talked about such a recall, but recalls in Oregon are historically impossible to pull off.

My prediction is this: Wilson will be a lame duck by Spring of 2025, and he will be relegated to twiddling his political thumbs while the real power of Portland politics will reside in the President of the City Council. Portland will continue to degrade as the real winners in all of this will get wealthy and more powerful. Those who haven’t already left, will also find a way to jump ship, especially now that the Federal Reserve continues to slash interest rates and people won’t have to worry about higher interest mortgage loans in better climes - which is exactly what the Fed did the day after Trump was announced as the winner of the presidency. Residents of Portland will continue to be frustrated and broken down by crime, open drug use and urban camping, as well as never-ending increases in taxes. Portland won’t be 1960’s and 1970’s Detroit, mostly because Detroit was a much more wealthy and cultured city than Portland is now - or ever was for that matter. It won’t crash. It will simply wither away on the vine. Businesses are already closing by the dozens all over the city. Jobs are already few and far between. Housing costs continue to climb. I believe that historians will consider the development of the new city government along with the ’24 elections to be the straw that broke the city’s back