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.