Reversing Oregon's losing momentum
State and local policies must consistently and loudly promote personal responsibility and order to reverse Oregon's slide.
Football analogies abound in electoral politics: red team versus blue team; polling as score board; “getting over the goal line;” “hail Mary.” “Momentum” is also apt, as, in the course of an election campaign good things tend to beget good things, and bad things bad things. But momentum has a broader significance than for just one race or one election cycle, or even one political party. Places can have momentum, or a lack of it.
The State of Oregon, to put it mildly, lacks momentum. Or, if momentum can be negative, Oregon has that. Big majorities of Oregonians think the state is headed in the wrong direction. More people are leaving the state than moving are moving in, reversing decades of growth.
This does not mean everything in Oregon is bad (its two main college football teams appear to be quite good, for example). It’s still a beautiful place and there are many, many people leading happy and productive lives here. And even in beleaguered Portland, good things happen all the time.
Make no mistake, though, the direction of the place — its momentum — is negative. Want proof? Tina Kotek, Oregon’s governor, ran successfully in 2022 on a platform, remarkably enough, of change. She was a very influential and powerful Speaker of the state house for nine years leading into her governor run, and was running to replace a term-limited incumbent in Kate Brown who is in many ways Kotek’s political doppelganger. And yet, Kotek correctly surmised, a 1988 George H. W. Bush style “let’s keep the party going” campaign wouldn’t fly. The electorate knew things were headed in the wrong direction, and Kotek offered just enough promise of change to pull off the victory.
Oregon’s momentum hasn’t turned around in the intervening 11 months. No, that’s not all Kotek’s fault because the state does not control everything that happens in Oregon. In fact, it controls very little, at least in a direct way. But it does set the tone in ways particularly relevant to what ails Oregon.
The Beaver State’s bad mojo is, at its root, caused by the disorder (or the appearance of it - it doesn’t matter which) resulting from a rapid decay in personal accountability and responsibility on the part of some Oregonians. The state’s slide toward highly visible instances of disorder began, in earnest, in 2020.
That most miserable of years delivered not one but two historic external shocks to Oregon: Covid and the murder of George Floyd in Minnesota. The state’s response to the former deprived people of productive things to do; the latter gave them a handy excuse to do less productive, and in many cases outright harmful, things. Federal, state and local governments reacted to both with a slew of policies the effect of which was to reduce the cost of behaving badly, of ignoring responsibilities, of checking out.
Officials became much more lenient about homeless camping in cities and on public lands. Prisoners were released early. Rent was abated and eviction outlawed for months or years. Unemployment benefits increased, tax credits flowed and money was printed. Public schools were closed and when they reopened, graduation requirements relaxed. Police, the symbol of order in America and yes even in Oregon, were, as disorder spiraled, castigated and cowed. Every message sent by government to citizens in 2020 and 2021, at least, effectively told citizens it didn’t really matter that much what they did, or didn’t do.
Oregon did all those things more aggressively than almost any other state. Its voters also passed, in November 2020, the nation’s first hard drug decriminalization measure, for good, um, measure. No longer would possession of user amounts of hard drugs be punishable with jail. In 2020, Oregon just flat out screamed at anyone who would listen that anything went here. Don’t worry, be happy, even if you end up sleeping in a tent alongside the interstate.
This amalgam of policies was sprinkled into a rapidly changing reality. Crime, nationally, was on the upswing. Political confrontation became more common. Housing became even more expensive. Most importantly, Oregonians looking to check out of reality were able to avail themselves of newly popularized fentanyl and a more potent form of methamphetamine. Portland went from the place where 30-somethings went to retire to the place they go to die of a fentanyl overdose. The rest of the state is not so far behind.
To be sure, the vast majority of Oregonians have gone on living their lives responsibly because there remain many good economic, social and moral reasons to do so. But the last three years has tipped enough into oblivion, and into very public displays of oblivion, that the distinct odor of disorder is in the air. And once the disorder doom loop begins, it is exceedingly difficult to reverse. It’s really hard for a place to get momentum back, once it’s lost it. Look at California, for example, now projected to lose some five congressional districts by 2030 because so many people are fleeing.
But all is not lost. New York City was, famously, in a disorder-fueled doom loop until about 30 years ago, when a wholesale change in city policies and rhetoric combined with changing economic conditions and national trends to turn things around.
Just as Oregon’s state and local governments have contributed to the bad mojo, they can contribute to turning the state around. No one policy change will do the trick, just as no one policy change begat our current predicament.
What is needed is for government actors in Oregon to promote policies that directionally, consistently and loudly encourage Oregonians to act responsibly. Those policies should include making it more difficult for people to sleep, and often to die, on city streets; more difficult for people to possess hard drugs that render them incapable of personal responsibility and ultimately kill them; more beneficial to work, less comfortable not to.
And, for goodness sake, make it very very obvious to anyone and everyone that there will be hell to pay if you hurt someone else in the State of Oregon.
The sum of such pro-responsibility policies will be greater than the parts. Over time, they will help to reverse Oregon’s image, internally and externally, as a place that welcomes, or at least tolerates, chaos.
Oregon can get its momentum back. It won’t be easy. It won’t be fast. There will be pushback from those committed financially, emotionally or ideologically to the status quo. But languishing in the status quo equals further decline, which is, or should be, unacceptable to those of us who call Oregon home.
P.S. - Thanks to all who responded to the reader survey I sent out last week. It gave me LOTS of good info that will help me make this here Oregon Roundup better. I’ll probably share some of the results over time, but for now I will share with you the following suggestion about a possible improvement to the newsletter:
“Nudes, tasteful or otherwise.”
Don’t worry, I’m not going to do that in part because when it comes to the Oregon Roundup staff of one, “tasteful” and “nude” do not belong in the same thought, let alone sentence.
one quibble: it started with kitzhaber enthralled by his Svengali-like mistress. there MUST be consequences, serious consequences, for offenses to the public weal.
You are right, of course, change is needed to improve the trajectory of Oregon’s current downward aim. But there is no political desire for it. Our political elites cannot admit what they’ve wrought and so cannot call out the terrible decisions for needed correction. They also don’t play to the majority of Oregonians but to the farthest left, tiny minority of radical anti-American tweeters. Our state’s decline will continue, in free fall, as cities and countries hesitate to bring law and order back. The divide between good working people and freeloading semi-socialists will only grow. There are no more public institutions: public health, public school, public safety, public benefit are all shams. I wonder how long it will take to rid ourselves of these wolves.