Nicholas Kristof, a New York Times columnist and former Democratic candidate for Oregon governor, acknowledged Saturday that Democratic leaders are to blame for the “shambles” in West Coast cities.
in column Speaking to The New York Times, Kristof argued that “West Coast liberalism” focuses more on the intentions behind policies than the outcomes of those policies, leading to Democratic states like Oregon suffering from worsening homelessness and drug problems, “below average” high school graduation rates and high murder rates.
“But liberals like me need to face the painful truth that something is badly wrong in the places we hold responsible, from San Diego to Seattle,” the columnist declared at the start of the piece, adding that the West Coast offers “a version of progressivism that doesn’t deliver progress.”
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New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof blasted West Coast Democratic leaders for plunging states and cities into “chaos.” (Photo by Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images)
Kristof, who was ordered by the Oregon Supreme Court to withdraw from running for governor in 2021 because he failed to meet qualifications, made it clear he doesn’t think this is entirely about liberalism, giving the example of how he believes Democratic states generally perform better than Republican states.
“Democratic states have a two-year higher life expectancy than Republican states. Democratic states have a 29% higher GDP per capita than Republican states and lower child poverty rates. Democratic states generally have better education, with more children graduating from high school and college.”
“The happiness gap between blue and red states is widening, not narrowing,” he wrote, and concluded: “The problem is not liberalism, but West Coast liberalism.”
He also pointed to major problems in California and Oregon that Democratic-leaning states on the East Coast don’t have.
“The two states with the highest rates of homelessness are California and Oregon. The three states with the lowest rates of homelessness are all Northeastern, Democratic-leaning states: Vermont, New York and Maine. Liberal Massachusetts has some of the best public schools in the country, while liberal Washington and Oregon have below-average high school graduation rates.”
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Kristof added that mental health services for youth are declining in Democratic West Coast states but thriving on the other side of the country. Additionally, drug use is increasing in the West and decreasing in the “Northeast.” Murder rates show similar trends, he noted.
He then offered his theory as to why Democratic leadership seems “less effective on the West Coast,” saying, “My view is that the core problem on the West Coast is not that it’s not serious, but that it’s tainted by an ideological purity that focuses on intent over oversight and results.”
“Politics has always been a part of theatre, but in the West we too often indulge in the performative rather than the substantive.”
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California Governor Gavin Newsom was recently panned by critics for describing his state as a “national model” for tackling homelessness. (California Governor Gavin Newsom’s YouTube channel)
Kristof pointed to the fact that Oregon has already used money from its “tight education budget” to provide tampons in boys’ bathrooms at elementary schools, and kindergarten“
He also mentioned that the city of Portland had created the Portland Freedom Fund, a volunteer group that pays bail for people of color, and described how the fund paid the bail for a man who was arrested for allegedly threatening the life of his girlfriend, who later murdered him after he was released from jail.
Kristof went on to point out that despite being influenced by anti-racist critical race theorists like Ibram X. Kendi, West Coast leaders “have stymied housing construction, making cities unaffordable, especially for people of color.”
“We are allowing the number of people experiencing homelessness, particularly Black and brown people, to grow; Black people in Portland are murdered at higher rates than in notoriously violent cities; and Seattle and Portland have some of the widest racial disparities in arrest numbers in the country,” he wrote.
He emphasized this point, adding, “I think intentions and frameworks are important, but it’s absolutely true that good intentions alone are not enough. What matters is improving opportunity and quality of life, and the best way to do that is through rigorous positivism.”
At the end of the column, Kristof concluded, “We need to come together. Less purism and more pragmatism would go a long way. But perhaps the first step must be the humility to admit our failures.”
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