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OPINION 4A THE DAILY ASTORIAN • THURSDAY, JULY 14, 2016 The (GOP) party’s over Founded in 1873 By THOMAS FRIEDMAN New York Times News Service STEPHEN A. FORRESTER, Editor & Publisher LAURA SELLERS, Managing Editor BETTY SMITH, Advertising Manager CARL EARL, Systems Manager JOHN D. BRUIJN, Production Manager DEBRA BLOOM, Business Manager HEATHER RAMSDELL, Circulation Manager NIMBY prevails again If we agree on the need for affordable housing, what is our strategy? hree strikes and we’re out. Following the Clatsop County Planning Commission’s 3-1 vote Tuesday rejecting the Bella Ridge Apartments, it is apparent we have no long-term housing strategy. First there was Astoria’s message in its disapproval. If you scratch an employer Central School site pros- pect. Next there was the pro- or a new resident, you will hear spective purchase of the something about the short sup- Performing Arts Center and ply of affordable housing. “We the adjacent Josie Peper are well aware of the absolute house. In both of those cases, need for all types of housing in developers withdrew their Clatsop County,” wrote Kevin projects or were turned down Leahy in support of the Bella in the face of neighbors’ Ridge Apartments. Leahy is executive director of Clatsop resistance. Development The developer whose Economic project was rejected on Resources. Skip Hauke of the Tuesday is the most credible. Astoria-Warrenton Chamber Richard Krueger has done of Commerce also wrote in the Edgewater at Mill Pond support. If we have widespread Apartments and the Yacht Club Apartments. He was agreement that affordable responsive to Lewis and Clark housing is in very short sup- neighbors’ concerns by reduc- ply, what is our strategy? In the absence of a strategy, ing his initial project size of taking housing proposals one 168 units to 48 units. The Oregon Department of at a time leads to situations in Transportation signed off on which NIMBY (Not In My the project’s traf¿c impact. Back Yard) objectors have The county signed off on the the home-¿eld advantage. It is time for local govern- infrastructure work to handle ment — and the county would the new units. If a project this credible be the natural leader — to can’t make it past the Planning identify zones where housing Commission, there is a larger is a natural ¿t. T Peninsula wins, Astoria wins Sharing the gift of swimming hen the Long Beach Peninsula’s Verna Oller was getting toward the end of her long life, she began considering what legacy to leave with the millions she had quietly accumulated in savvy stock market investments. She decided to provide her neigh- bors the gift of swimming. Fortunate and generous as she was, Oller did not have money to pay for things like permanent staf¿ng, insur- ing and maintaining the facil- ity, or saving to replace major components as they eventually failed. A committee of citizens looked at every sort of option allowed under the restrictions imposed by Oller’s will. They were unable to come up with a viable sustainable option. Most crucially, informal poll- ing in that recession-plagued time strongly suggested citi- zens of Ocean Beach School District would not support a peninsula-wide recreational levy to operate a pool in Long Beach. After much additional behind-the-scenes work, W Oller’s atterney Guy Glenn Sr., his son and a new set of volunteers arrived at a workable option: Forming a partnership with Astoria to provide free access to the existing aquatics center to all Ocean Beach School District residents. The deal should also soon include the penin- sula’s own existing pool at the Dunes Bible Camp. The Astoria Aquatics Center and Dunes pool will have new paths toward long-term eco- nomic stability, the region will have avoided duplicating exist- ing infrastructure, and all pen- insula residents with an inter- est in doing so can swim to their hearts’ content, includ- ing group swimming lessons. It seems likely the Ocean Beach Education Foundation, using part of a substantial separate bequest from Oller, will make certain peninsula school chil- dren have ample opportunities to learn to swim at both pools. Oller was a smart and prag- matic person. It’s fair to say she would be proud of what is being achieved in her name. his column has argued for a while now that there is only one thing worse than one-party autocracy, and that is one-party democracy. At least a one-party autocracy can order things to get done. T A one-party democracy — that is, a two-party system where only one party is interested in governing and the other is in constant block- ing mode, which has characterized America in recent years — is much worse. It can’t do anything big, hard or important. We can survive a few years of such deadlock in Washington, but we sure can’t take another four or eight years without real decay setting in, and that explains what I’m rooting for in this fall’s elections: I hope Hillary Clinton wins all 50 states and the Democrats take the presidency, the House, the Senate and, effectively, the Supreme Court. That is the best thing that could happen to America, at least for the next two years — that Donald Trump is not just defeated, but is crushed at the polls. That would have multiple advantages for our country. First, if Clinton wins a sweep- ing victory, we will have a chance (depending on the size of a Demo- cratic majority in the Senate) to pass common-sense gun laws. That would mean restoring the Assault Weapons Ban, which was enacted as part of the 1994 federal crime bill but expired after 10 years, and making it illegal for anyone on the terrorist watch list to buy a gun. I don’t want to touch any citizen’s Second Amendment rights, but the notion that we can’t restrict military weapons that are increasingly being used in mass murders de¿es common sense — yet it can’t be ¿xed as long as today’s GOP controls any branch of government. If Clinton wins a sweeping victory, we can borrow $100 billion at close to zero interest for a national infrastruc- ture rebuild to deal with some of the nation’s shameful deferred mainte- The party grew into a messy, untended garden, and Donald Trump was like an invasive species that finally just took over the whole thing. Our country needs a nance of roads, bridges, air- healthy center-right party ports and rails and its inade- that can compete with a quate bandwidth, and create healthy center-left party. more blue-collar jobs that Right now, the GOP is not would stimulate growth. a healthy center-right party. If Clinton wins a sweep- It is a mishmash of reli- ing victory, we will have gious conservatives; angry a chance to put in place a white males who fear they revenue-neutral carbon tax are becoming a minority in that would stimulate more their own country and hate clean energy production Thomas L. trade; gun-control oppo- and allow us to reduce both Friedman nents; pro-lifers; anti-regu- corporate taxes and per- sonal income taxes, which would also lation and free-market small-business owners; and pro- and anti-free trade help spur growth. If Clinton wins a sweeping vic- entrepreneurs. The party was once held together tory, we can ¿x whatever needs ¿x- ing with Obamacare, without hav- by the Cold War. But as that faded ing to junk the whole thing. Right away it has been held together only now we have the worst of all worlds: by renting itself out to whomever The GOP will not participate in any could energize its base and keep it improvements to Obamacare nor has in power — Sarah Palin, Rush Lim- it offered a credible alternative. baugh, the Tea Party, the National At the same time, if Clinton RiÀe Association. But at its core there crushes Trump in November, the was no real common dominator, no message will be sent by the Amer- take on the world, no real conserva- ican people that the game he played tive framework. to become the Republican nomi- The party grew into a messy, nee — through mainstreaming big- untended garden, and Donald Trump otry; name-calling; insulting women, was like an invasive species that the handicapped, Latinos and Mus- ¿nally just took over the whole thing. lims; retweeting posts by hate groups; Party leaders can all still call them- ignorance of the Constitution; and a selves Republicans. They can even willingness to lie and make stuff up hold a convention with a lot of GOP with an ease and regularity never seen elephant balloons. But the truth is, before at the presidential campaign the party’s over. Thoughtful Republi- level — should never be tried by any- cans have started to admit that. John one again. The voters’ message, “Go Boehner gave up being speaker of the away,” would be deafening. House because he knew that his cau- Finally, if Trump presides over a cus had become a madhouse, incapa- devastating Republican defeat across ble of governing. all branches of government, the GOP A Clinton sweep in November will be forced to do what it has needed would force more Republicans to start to do for a long time: take a time out rebuilding a center-right party ready to in the corner. In that corner Republi- govern and compromise. And a Clin- cans could pull out a blank sheet of ton sweep would also mean Hillary paper and on one side de¿ne the big- could govern from the place where her gest forces shaping the world today true political soul resides — the cen- — and the challenges and opportu- ter-left, not the far left. nities they pose to America — and I make no predictions about who on the other side de¿ne conserva- will win in November. But I sure tive, market-based policies to address know what I’m praying for — and them. why. President Obama’s racial straits By FRANK BRUNI New York Times News Service His sternest critics have decided to hear something different, homing in on his references to racial disparities in criminal justice to charge that he has brought the country to a boil. have many qualms about Barack Obama’s presidency. I worry that he exhausted too much political capital too soon on Obamacare. That he over- corrected for his predecessor’s foreign debacle. That he wore his disdain for Congress too society as irremediably racist”; of consistently conspicuously. I But I cry foul at the complaint that he has signi¿cantly aggra- vated racial animosity and wid- ened the racial divide in this coun- try. It’s a simplistic read of what’s happening, and it lays too much blame on the doorstep of a man who has sought — imperfectly on some occasions, expertly on oth- ers — to speak for all Americans. That complaint trailed him to Dallas, where he appeared on Tues- day at a memorial for the ¿ve police of¿cers killed by a sniper last week. He was there not just to eulogize them — which he did, magni¿cently — but to try to steady a nation reel- ing from their deaths and the ones just beforehand of Alton Sterling in Louisiana and Philando Castile in Minnesota. He painted a profoundly admir- ing portrait of cops, asking their detractors to consider how it feels to be “unfairly maligned” by hyper- bolic cries of pervasive police mis- conduct. Then he painted a pro- foundly sympathetic portrait of protesters, explaining why so many African-Americans feel “unfairly targeted.” “Can we ¿nd the character, as Americans, to open our hearts to each other?” he said. He may not have phrased the question that way before, but to my ears, it’s what he’s been asking all along. His sternest critics have decided to hear something different, homing in on his references to racial dispar- ities in criminal justice to charge that he has brought the country to a boil. In the last few days alone, he has been accused of abetting a “fun- damental misreading of American due conversation rather than a belief that the con- versation lacks merit. It’s surely the outgrowth of technological advances. Ask yourself: Are these protests the consequence of Obama’s words or of smartphone images and their documentation of events never glimpsed so intimately and immedi- ately before? There’s no choosing “to see things through the eyes of an aggrieved black activ- ist”’ and of being possi- bly “the worst president in 8.S. history” speci¿- cally because he “set back American race relations by 50 years.” Frank It’s true that Obama Bruni has sometimes spoken of discrimination before all the facts contest. of a given killing were known. But It’s also possible that the elec- those remarks touched on wider tion of the ¿rst black president gave realities and were usually important some wishful Americans hope of acknowledgments of the fury that suddenly perfect racial harmony many Americans were feeling. and that the current bitterness grew Imagine that he instead stood in the gap between expectations and mute or told those Americans to reality. That’s not Obama’s fault. treat the killings as isolated inci- If he were an “aggrieved black dents and quietly move on. That activist,” he wouldn’t have been might well have raised the tempera- able to shrug off Joe Biden’s 2007 ture, not lowered it. comment that he was “the ¿rst Besides which, he hasn’t dis- mainstream African-American who cussed only discrimination. In War- is articulate and bright and clean” saw, Poland, last week, when he and then make Biden his vice presi- expressed concern about the deaths dent and friend. of Sterling and Castile, he repeat- If he were an “aggrieved black edly mentioned the ¿ne work of activist,” he wouldn’t have used his most police of¿cers and the need to graduation speech at Howard Uni- keep them safe. versity in May to caution its black “When people say black lives students not to ignore enormous matter, that doesn’t mean blue lives racial progress and to assure them don’t matter,” he said, and this was that if they could choose a time before the Dallas carnage. His crit- to be “young, gifted and black in ics edit that out. America, you’d choose right now.” They point to data like a Gallup If he were an “aggrieved black poll from three months ago in which activist,” he wouldn’t have pulled 35 percent of Americans said that off what he did in Dallas on Tues- they worried “a great deal” about day, a nuanced balancing act in an race relations. That number had era without much nuance or balance. doubled over the prior two years, Just before his speech, Michelle a period coinciding with the rise of Obama bent toward and reached out the Black Lives Matter movement. to the person seated to her right. It was also the highest number since That tender image — of her hand Gallup ¿rst began asking this ques- on George W. Bush’s — is one I’ll tion 15 years ago. hold on to, and it’s a ¿tting retort But it may well reÀect alarm to the nonsense that Obama is sow- about how we navigate an over- ing hate.