When Will Politicians Stop Calling Themselves ‘Progressives’? A brand can only survive so many deadly disasters. James Freeman
This column has searched and searched for years and still cannot find evidence for the existence of any great civilization built by progressive leftists. Your humble correspondent does not want to be called a quitter and is determined to maintain an open mind. But it’s hard to keep hope alive. Seeing the destruction wrought by progressive policies on great cities and towns across this country, one wonders how long it will be before even the most radical elected officials refuse to self-identify with the tarnished label.
The brand now stands for human degradation, yet there are still a few hardy comrades willing to wear it proudly. As U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) campaigns for a third term this year, her campaign website proclaims her “one of the country’s leading progressive voices.”
When it comes to policy, she shows no sign of altering her course. To take one example, Sen. Warren still wants fewer cops and more treatment providers responding to drug-related 911 calls. But on the other side of the country another high-profile experiment in progressive drug policy has gone catastrophically wrong.
Katia Riddle reports for the Guardian:
When voters approved Measure 110 in 2020, they made Oregon the scene of a novel social experiment in the US by decriminalising the possession of small amounts of hard drugs and funneling hundreds of millions of dollars into substance abuse treatment.
The vote was celebrated as a groundbreaking step toward a compassionate approach to substance use disorders, one that prioritised treatment over punishment. But nearly three years after its passage, the law has become the subject of fierce debate as Oregon, like many US states, grapples with a spiralling opioid crisis…Lawmakers are now considering a number of bills that would reinstate criminal penalties such as fines and jail time for drug possession – a decision that could come any day.
No one is saying that treatment isn’t vital, but removing law enforcement from the equation now appears to be anything but compassionate. Ms. Riddle adds:
At a community forum in January, the Eugene district attorney Christopher Parosa summed up the recent prevailing mood. “What has developed in the last three years is not the utopian Shangri-La that we have been promised with ballot measure 110,” said Parosa, “but rather a dystopian nightmare that is akin to a grim Hollywood movie.”
The dystopian nightmare isn’t just haunting people in Eugene. Fedor Zarkhin reports this week for the Oregonian:
Yearly fentanyl overdose deaths in Oregon grew by an estimated 1,500% since before the pandemic, by far the largest increase in the United States, federal data show.
There were 77 known fentanyl overdose deaths in the state during the 12 months ending September 2019. Oregon deaths from the cheap, super-powerful opioid, mostly produced in China and Mexico and smuggled into the United States, ballooned to an estimated 1,268 during the 12 months ending September 2023, according to a federal analysis of the most recent available overdose-death data.
“That is a staggering statistic,” said Multnomah County Commissioner Sharon Meieran, who is also an emergency room doctor. “I knew it was bad, but I honestly did not know it was that bad.”
Of course Fentanyl is destroying lives all over the United States, but the pace of destruction is rising fastest in Oregon. Mr. Zarkhin reports:
Measure 110, the law intended to improve access to treatment at least in part by decriminalizing drug possession, has been widely criticized as a failure.
Even the state’s leading progressive has come around. Last month Dirk VanderHart reported for Oregon Public Broadcasting:
Gov. Tina Kotek signaled Wednesday she is willing to sign a bill that would once again make possessing small amounts of drugs a criminal offense in Oregon.
But as Kotek looks at any bill the Legislature sends her way, she warned she will be most concerned with what other steps lawmakers take to ensure drug users are being given the option of receiving addiction services…
The remarks are the strongest Kotek has made to date about her stance on rolling back the drug decriminalization policies that were a key piece of 2020′s Ballot Measure 110. Under the law, possessing illicit drugs like fentanyl and heroin became a violation, punishable by a toothless ticket.
Ms. Kotek didn’t endorse repeal of Measure 110 as a candidate in 2022, but she seems to be growing in office. Mr. VanderHart and his public broadcasting colleague Lauren Dake reported earlier this year:
Once considered one of the most progressive legislative leaders in the country, Kotek has spent the last year preaching pragmatism over ideology…
“I think this is about: Can you make stuff work?” she told reporters in December, after a lengthy presentation to state business leaders about a plan to revive downtown Portland. ”I am very progressive when it comes to public policy, but I am pragmatic and I’m tired of things not working.”
One thing pretty much everyone agrees with: Things are still not working.
That’s a nice summation of progressive policy. Maybe by the next election Ms. Kotek will be running under a new banner.
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