OPINION
4A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • MONDAY, JUNE 6, 2016
Where America is working
Founded in 1873
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
Ready or not
Washington’s experience with pot
is a cautionary tale for Oregon
O
regon’s latest incremental step toward full-out normaliza-
tion of marijuana and its active ingredient THC comes at
a time when there are indications legalization is having a detri-
mental effect on driving safety in Washington state.
Even ive or 10 years ago, it Even those who had become
would have strained the imag- discouraged with crimi-
ination to envision Thursday’s nal penalties for a compara-
launch of sales of edible mar- tively innocuous intoxicant
ijuana/THC candy and other expressed worry about how
products. Although Oregon marijuana would add to exist-
has a deeper experience than ing problems with impaired
most states with medical mar- driving, along with less quanti-
ijuana, the cultural and legal iable societal impacts like loss
changes we’re experiencing of mental acuity and increas-
now are unique in living mem- ing minors’ access to drugs.
ory. Such novelty is exciting
In Washington state, there has
to those who enjoy marijuana. been an upswing in the propor-
Even many of those who don’t tion of fatal vehicular accidents
imbibe are content with an end in which marijuana was found
to one destructive aspect of the present in drivers. Between
“War on Drugs.”
the legalization approval in
There are indications, par- November 2012 and 2014, there
ticularly in Washington state was a doubling in the number of
and Colorado, that the price of fatals in which marijuana may
marijuana is rapidly declining. have played a role. Researchers
This is likely to also be true with AAA found that before
in Oregon. This has positive legalization, 8.3 percent of driv-
implications that go beyond ers in fatal crashes had THC in
being easy on the budgets of their blood, compared to 17 per-
marijuana consumers.
cent after legalization — many
“As the cost of legal mari- of whom also had alcohol or
juana falls, it puts a strain on other drugs present.
any illegal marijuana enter-
Law enforcement is still
prises still running. This is playing catch-up with the issue.
good because legal marijuana In Washington and Colorado,
businesses have to do things prosecution for driving under
like ensure product qual- the inluence relies on a test
ity and verify the age of their inding more than 5 nanograms
customers. They’re also a lot per milliliter of THC in drivers’
less prone to crime or vio- blood. Oregon relies on ofi-
lence, given that they’re legal cer observations to determine
places of business. So if ille- whether a driver is impaired.
gal ventures can’t compete,
All this clearly demands
price-wise, everybody wins,” close scrutiny by lawmakers,
commentator Emma Cueto police and the public. While it
correctly observed on the remains unlikely that legaliza-
online magazine bustle.com.
tion will be rolled back, reine-
However, the growing ubiq- ments in enforcement and per-
uity of marijuana in the Paciic sonal responsibility on the part
Northwest has downsides. of drivers will be essential.
A spring tide of
state athletic skill
I
t is a big deal when a team
from a small town wins a
state athletic championship.
That has happened a lot in our
region this season. Even when
they come close, it is still a
source of pride. On Friday
Knappa High School rallied
but fell short of a second con-
secutive state baseball title.
When will scouts with clip-
boards and speed guns appear?
The Astoria girls track team
piled up a record number of
points by a 4A team in the
Oregon state meet. The team’s
grade point average was also
noteworthy: at 3.79, the sec-
ond highest in their category.
Across the river, the Ilwaco
boys won the state golf cham-
pionship, in what has become
something of a tradition.
On the track and ield front,
about 20 Paciic County ath-
letes won medals in state
competition.
Championships such as
these make us feel good about
our communities. Remember
the elation when the Astoria
High School basketball team
won its 1998 championship
under coach Mike Goin?
Then there was the series of
Fishermen baseball champi-
onships under coach Dave
Gasser in 2006 and 2009 and
coach Brian Babbitt in 2011.
The boys and girls on these
teams have done something
remarkable, and they will
remember it for a lifetime. So
will many of us.
By DAVID BROOKS
New York Times News Service
s individuals, we all try to
build on our strengths and
work on our weaknesses, and
it’s probably a good idea to bal-
ance these two activities. But
as a country we are completely
messing this up.
A
In this election we’ve been
ignoring the parts of America that
are working well and wallowing in
the parts that are fading. This has
led to a campaign season driven by
fear, resentment and pessimism.
And it will lead to worse policy-
making down the road, since pros-
perity means building on things
we do well, not obsessing over the
things that we’ve lost.
The person chiely responsible
for this all-warts view of America
is, of course, Donald Trump.
Trump has focused his campaign
on the struggling white neighbor-
hoods in the industrial Midwest.
The prototypical Trump voter is
an upscale man from a downscale
place.
As Nate Silver has demon-
strated, Trump voters are not poor.
Their median household income is
about $72,000, which is far above
the national average. But they tend
to be from former manufacturing
hubs, which have been in decade-
slong decline. They tend to be from
places like Kokomo, Indiana, which
has had a 13.5 percent decline in
weekly wages since 2000, and Sagi-
naw, Michigan, which has had a 9.8
percent decline.
These areas enjoyed a brief
resurgence four years ago, when
manufacturing picked up. But the
manufacturing economy has headed
south again over the past 19 months,
thanks to low foreign demand. Peo-
ple in such places are so desperate
for any sort of change that they’re
willing to overlook all the baggage
that comes with Donald Trump.
Trump’s general election focus
on the swing states of the industrial
Midwest means that Hillary Clin-
ton will have to focus her efforts
there, too. The whole tenor of the
fall campaign will be shaped by the
pain of towns that are in long-term
decline — where people feel eco-
We should be focusing on the
growing, dynamic places and
figuring out how to use those
models to nurture inclusive
opportunity and rejuvenate the
places that aren’t.
nomically adrift and cul-
tural amenities, but high
turally left behind.
housing prices and lots of
Energy issues will
inequality.
play an outsized role. As
The second kind of
Ronald Brownstein of
cities we might call Joel
The Atlantic has shown,
Kotkin cities, after the
Republicans tend to do
writer who champions
well in industrial places
them. These are oppor-
heavily reliant on car-
tunity cities like Hous-
bon-intensive fuels. Dem-
ton, Dallas and Salt Lake
ocrats tend to do well
City. These places are less
David
in postindustrial places
regulated, so it’s easier to
Brooks
where carbon output is
start a business. They are
low. Trump will hit Clinton for sup- sprawling with easy, hodgepodge
porting environmental regulations housing construction, so the cost of
that hurt the manufacturing econ- living is low. Immigrants lock to
omy. Clinton will rally her peo- them.
ple with efforts to address climate
As Kotkin and Tory Gattis
change.
pointed out in an essay in The City
This style of campaign could Journal, Houston has been a boom-
also pave the way for a longer-term town for the past two decades. It’s
realignment. Michael Lind of New America’s fourth-largest city, with
America argues in an essay in Polit- 35 percent metro area population
ico that Republicans are becoming growth between 2000 and 2013.
a Midwestern, white working-class It’s the most ethnically diverse city
party that embraces economic in America and has had a surge in
nationalism — walling out immi- mid-skill jobs. Houston’s diver-
grants and global economic compe- sified its economy, so even the
tition. The Democrats are becoming energy recession has not derailed
a multicultural globalist coalition its progress.
that will see national boundaries as
We should be having a debate
obsolete.
between the Kotkin model and the
But there’s another America out Florida model, between two suc-
there, pointing to a different polit- cessful ways to create prosperity,
ical debate. For while people are each with strengths and weaknesses.
looding out of the Midwest, they That would be a forward-look-
are looding into the South and the ing debate between groups who
West. The inancial crisis knocked are open, conident and innovative.
many Sun Belt cities to their knees, That would be a debate that, while it
but they are back up and surging. might divide by cultural values and
Jobs and people are now heading to aesthetics, wouldn’t divide along
Orlando, Florida; Phoenix; Nash- ugly racial lines.
ville, Tennessee; Charlotte, North
We should be focusing on the
Carolina; Denver and beyond.
growing, dynamic places and ig-
There are two kinds of places uring out how to use those models
that are getting it right. The irst to nurture inclusive opportunity and
we might call Richard Florida cit- rejuvenate the places that aren’t.
ies, after the writer who champions Instead, this campaign will focus on
them. These are dense, highly edu- the past: who we need to shut out to
cated, highly communal places with get back what we lost.
plenty of hipsters. These cities, like
The future is being built right
Austin, Seattle and San Francisco, now. The prevailing sense of public
have lots of innovation, lots of cul- despair is just wrong.
The id that ate the planet
By PAUL KRUGMAN
New York Times News Service
O
n Tuesday the politi-
cal arm of the Natural
Resources Defense Council, one
of America’s most inluential
environmentalist groups, made
its irst presidential endorsement
ever, giving the nod to Hillary
Clinton. This meant jumping the
gun by a week on her inevitable
designation as the presumptive
Democratic nominee, but the
NRDC Action Fund is obviously
eager to get on with the general
election.
And it’s not hard to see why: At
this point Donald Trump’s personal-
ity endangers the whole planet.
We’re at a peculiar moment
when it comes to the environment
— a moment of both fear and hope.
The outlook for climate change if
current policies continue has never
looked worse, but the prospects
for turning away from the path of
destruction have never looked bet-
ter. Everything depends on who
ends up sitting in the White House
for the next few years.
On climate: Remember claims
by climate denialists that global
warming had paused, that tempera-
tures hadn’t risen since 1998? That
was always a garbage argument, but
in any case it has now been blown
away by a series of new temperature
records and a proliferation of other
indicators that, taken together, tell a
terrifying story of looming disaster.
At the same time, however, rapid
technological progress in renew-
able energy is making nonsense —
or maybe I should say, further non-
sense — of another bad argument
against climate action, the claim
that nothing can be done about
greenhouse gas emissions with-
out crippling the economy. Solar
and wind power are getting cheaper
each year, and growing quickly
even without much in the way of
incentives to switch away from fos-
sil fuels. Provide those incentives,
and an energy revolution would be
phate-free detergent. But
just around the corner.
polluters’ rage isn’t about
So we’re in a state
where terrible things are
rational thought.
in prospect, but can be
Which brings us to
avoided with fairly mod-
the presumptive Republi-
est, politically feasible
can presidential nominee,
steps. You may want a
who embodies the mod-
revolution, but we don’t
ern conservative id in its
need one to save the
most naked form, stripped
planet. Right now all it
of the disguises politicians
would take is for America
usually use to cloak their
Paul
to implement the Obama
prejudices and make them
Krugman
administration’s Clean
seem respectable.
Power Plan and other
No doubt Donald
So we’re
actions — which
Trump hates environ-
don’t even require
protection in
in a state mental
new legislation, just
part for the usual rea-
a Supreme Court that
sons. But there’s an
where
won’t stand in their
extra layer of venom
way — to let the U.S.
to his pro-pollution
terrible
continue the role it
stances that is both per-
things
took in last year’s Paris
sonal and mind-bog-
agreement,
guiding
glingly petty.
are in
the world as a whole
For example, he has
toward sharp reduc-
repeatedly
prospect, restrictions denounced
tions in emissions.
intended
But what happens but can be
to protect the ozone
if the next president
layer — one of the
avoided
is a man who doesn’t
great success stories
believe in climate sci-
of global environmen-
ence, or indeed in with fairly
tal policy — because,
inconvenient facts of
he claims, they’re the
modest,
any kind?
reason his hair spray
Republican hostil- politically
doesn’t work as well
ity to climate science
as it used to. I am not
feasible
and climate action
making this up.
is usually attributed
He’s also a bitter
steps.
to ideology and the
foe of wind power.
power of special inter-
He likes to talk about
ests, and both of these surely play how wind turbines kill birds, which
important roles. Free-market fun- they sometimes do, but no more
damentalists prefer rejecting sci- so than tall buildings; but his real
ence to admitting that there are ever motivation seems to be ire over
cases when government regulation unsuccessful attempts to block an
is necessary. Meanwhile, buying offshore wind farm near one of his
politicians is a pretty good business British golf courses.
investment for fossil-fuel magnates
And if evidence gets in the way
like the Koch brothers.
of his self-centeredness, never
But I’ve always had the sense mind. Recently he assured audi-
that there was a third factor, which ences that there isn’t a drought in
is basically psychological. There California, that oficials have just
are some men — it’s almost always refused to turn on the water.
men — who become enraged at any
I know how ridiculous it sounds.
suggestion that they must give up Can the planet really be in danger
something they want for the com- because a rich guy worries about
mon good. Often, the rage is dis- his hairdo? But Republicans are
proportionate to the sacriice: for rallying around this guy just as if
example, prominent conserva- he were a normal candidate. And
tives suggesting violence against if Democrats don’t rally the same
government oficials because they way, he just might make it to the
don’t like the performance of phos- White House.