Progressivists favor abolition, an ideology that would have us abolish cops and jails. Think defund the police and block the bunker. As a moderate Dem Seattleite, I’m glad the King County Council is finally sniffing the wind and realizing that Dow Constantine’s stubborn adherence to progressivist policies and strategies isn’t working.
The council voted 8-0 to abandon the idea of closing the brand-new youth jail in favor of keeping the jail open with more supports to help steer young criminals back to productive lives.
The legislation was proposed by King County Councilmember Reagan Dunn, a moderate Republican who has been somewhat of a lone ranger for sensible legislation that progressivist electeds repeatedly voted down. Put one in the W column for Dunn.
The emotionally driven progressivist approaches – like defunding the police, releasing criminals and closing the jails – have had a universally negative impact on our cities, our region, and our state. Mostly performative, illiberal and theory-based – and oft-times unconstitutional in one or more ways – the progressivist approach is a kind of political fundamentalism espoused by “true believers” (progressivist political zealots) who people meetings and make a lot of noise online.
But it now looks like that approach is no longer blanketly supported by the electorate. Could be because their eyes don’t lie. Programs precipitated from the progressivist policies have been using all our resources and solving none of our problems. Meanwhile, there’s no accountability other than at the ballot box. They’ve literally been marching through our institutions – destroying people’s lives, businesses and communities along the way – while the voters kept electing them.
Perhaps we’ve turned the corner on progressivist electeds throwing random things at the wall to see what sticks while firing up their political base with red meat rather than making the sensible course corrections that would move us toward productive reforms that actually fix problems.
The next step should be to elect a moderate to replace Dow in 2025. Mark Mullet would make a great King County Executive, so would Reagan Dunn. The idea of a moderate D or a moderate R running King County is dreamy.