It Didn’t Start Two Months Ago

At the Wall Street Journal Oregon native Mark Hemingway provides a backgrounder on Portland city government you might find enlightening:

Violent radicalism had been flourishing in the city for years before the rest of the country paid attention, and Mayor Ted Wheeler’s feckless leadership is no anomaly. The situation in Portland has been enabled by 50 years of political leadership that has been as corrupt and depraved as it has been “progressive.”

Danielson’s killing was a culmination of more than 90 days of unruly protests in Portland. It occurred the day after Mr. Wheeler sent President Trump a letter belligerently rejecting federal help to restore order. “When you sent the Feds to Portland” in July, Mr. Wheeler wrote, “you made the situation far worse.”

In truth, the increased federal police presence around the Mark O. Hatfield U.S. Courthouse was justified. The city had stood by when rioters burned the Multnomah County Justice Center jail and the Portland Police Bureau headquarters a few blocks away. Violence has accelerated since the federal government secured a protection agreement with the city and withdrew its increased security presence on July 31. In August, Portland police declared at least 14 riots, more than in June and July combined.

The day after the shooting, Mr. Wheeler blamed Portland’s violence on Mr. Trump, saying the president “created the hate” that led to violence. He blamed the riots on Mr. Trump’s rhetoric, asserting that the president had praised white supremacists after the ugly “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Va., three years ago. In fact, Mr. Trump said “they should be condemned totally.”

It’s one thing to attack Mr. Trump, but Mr. Wheeler can’t even guarantee the right of ordinary Republicans to walk down the street. In April 2017, four months after becoming mayor, Mr. Wheeler canceled the city’s annual rose parade after “antifascists” threatened violence because among the many civic groups marching in the parade was the Multnomah County GOP. “You have seen how much power we have downtown and that the police cannot stop us from shutting down roads so please consider your decision wisely,” read the threat sent to the city.

In 2018 Mr. Wheeler, who in his capacity as mayor also serves as police commissioner, ordered officers to take a hands-off approach to protesters who had set up a camp in front of the city’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement building, trapped federal employees inside, and vandalized their cars. Though the protest camp generated nearly 60 calls to police over 39 days, Mr. Wheeler publicly supported the protesters.

Incredibly, Mr. Wheeler may not be the Portland’s worst recent mayor. In 2008 the city elected Sam Adams, who, shortly after he was elected, admitted to having been romantically involved with an underage boy—though Mr. Adams asserted the relationship didn’t turn sexual until after the boy turned 18. Not only did Mr. Adams survive the scandal; criticism of his behavior was routinely branded homophobic and he survived two recall attempts.

Mr. Adams’s agenda was so environmentally progressive that he approved a city budget that did no major road paving for five years. He set the precedent for Mr. Wheeler by allowing Portland’s massive Occupy Wall Street camps to take over city parks for weeks after it was obvious they were a threat to public health and safety. Mostly, Mr. Adams will be known for presiding over Portland’s burst into national consciousness when it became the cultural mecca known as “Portlandia.” He was a regular guest star on the TV comedy of the same name.

The most influential modern mayor of Portland was Neil Goldschmidt, who held the office from 1973 to 1979. Mayor Goldschmidt earned notoriety for redirecting federal highway funds to a new and exorbitantly expensive form of public transportation that became known as light rail. He later became Jimmy Carter’s transportation secretary.

Elected governor in 1986, Mr. Goldschmidt shocked the state by announcing he wouldn’t seek re-election in 1990. He quickly became the biggest lobbyist in the state. As mayor and governor, he was the architect of the state’s celebrated “smart growth,” which became a model for urban planning around the country—and which has been criticized for dramatically raising the cost of housing.

As a result of his connections and expertise, Mr. Goldschmidt had a hand in many of the state’s biggest development projects. But in 2004 Portland newspapers reported that the state’s integrated land use and transportation planning regulations were being manipulated to award Mr. Goldschmidt’s lobbying clients hundreds of millions of dollars of state contracts. Portland regulators dubbed Mr. Goldschmidt, his developer clients and state regulators “the light-rail mafia.”

Soon after, the Willamette Week newspaper reported that when Mr. Goldschmidt was mayor, he raped his children’s babysitter over the course of three years starting when she was 14. His surprising exit from public life in 1990 was part of a private settlement he’d negotiated with the victim. Mr. Goldschmidt had taken the girl to parties, and his relationship was known to many of the state’s power brokers, many of whom are still active in Oregon politics. No one said anything for decades. In a May 2004 statement to the Oregonian, Mr. Goldschmidt acknowledged having had what he called “an affair with a high school student for nearly a year.”

By 2004 the statute of limitations had expired, so Mr. Goldschmidt faced no criminal charges. “I predict he’ll be back,” Vera Katz, another former Portland mayor, told reporters. Michael Schrunk, then Multnomah County’s district attorney, said: “Outrage over the affair will fade with time. I think he still has something to offer.”

In the years after the scandal, Mr. Goldschmidt retreated to his estate in the South of France. His victim, Elizabeth Lynn Dunham, lived a life of tragedy and addiction and died in hospice in 2011 at 49. Her only consolation was the removal of Mr. Goldschmidt’s official portrait from the Capitol.

I don’t believe that the transition from committed cause to personal enrichment is rare in government or reserved for one political party. The general who retires from the military to take a job with a defense contractor lobbying his former colleagues for the same weapons system he promoted while serving is as guilty of that particular form of corruption as is Al Gore. And it didn’t just begin recently. Eric Hoffer identified it when he wrote “What starts out here as a mass movement ends up as a racket, a cult, or a corporation.” I think that officeholders view it as a perk of the job.

1 comment… add one
  • TarsTarkas Link

    It would be interesting to learn what all Ted Wheeler is invested in and what his current wealth is compared to pre-politics.

    Glad to see a plug for Eric Hoffer. Nobody seems to mention him on the other sites I frequent. He described in 1951 almost exactly what is going on today. His background of being self-taught and living through the ascendancy of Communism, Nazism, and Fascism in the 1930’s and 1940’s gave him a unique perspective on the nature of Mass Movements and the ability to explain their allure and pitfalls in everyday language without resorting to jargon.

    “Outrage over the affair will fade with time. I think he still has something to offer.”

    Neil Goldschmidt should be glad I don’t have power over him. I would have tied to one of the light rail tracks he stole public money for and run over repeatedly. Bit by bit. I guess I’m just not one of those ‘sophisticates’ who enjoy having their way with children.

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