OPINION
6A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 2016
Founded in 1873
DAVID F. PERO, Publisher & Editor
LAURA SELLERS, Managing Editor
BETTY SMITH, Advertising Manager
CARL EARL, Systems Manager
JOHN D. BRUIJN, Production Manager
DEBRA BLOOM, Business Manager
OUR VIEW
Be proactive in
competing with
Walmart, others
T
he other inexpensive shoe has dropped at last: After
taking its first public steps toward a Warrenton store
in 2009, the mega-retailer has started construction of
a 153,500-square-foot, earth-toned Supercenter on the North
Coast.
For now, Fred Meyer’s 180,000-square-foot store will
remain the king of Warrenton’s big boxes; Costco is a paltry
137,000-square-feet, though it seemed gargantuan in November
2009 when it replaced the old 72,000-square-feet facility. Home
Depot is 103,000 square feet.
News of Walmart’s imminent arrival has been met with a
stark split in opinion between those who are delighted to have
the company’s low prices and wide selection of products, and
those who foresee it bludgeoning the region’s homegrown
stores that sell overlapping product lines.
Some of these contrasting views:
“Wake up, people!! This is a black hole for labor and a
source of poorly made crap from China and a threat to local
retail. Never buy from them.”
“I’m so excited! I am from the
Small
Seattle area and did all my shop-
retailers
ping there. The produce selection
and Deli along with the grocer-
already have
ies are awesome! I can get twice as
years of
much there than Fred Meyers. They
carry USA made as well as oversea experience
items for the home, just like every in coexisting
other retail store in our nation.
in a market
When you on a limited income, it
is nice to know you can afford a lit- where big-
tle more extra, on that last dollar in
box stores
your pocket for the month.”
These and other opinions aren’t operate.
entirely accurate but certainly con-
tain elements of truth. Walmart and other large retailers do
profit in part by sourcing products as inexpensively as possi-
ble, and their size allows them to get good deals, including the
cost of employees. But this also is true of the area’s pre-exist-
ing large retailers, including Fred Meyer/Kroger and Safeway/
Albertsons. Walmart’s presence in a market tends to make its
competitors more conscious of the need to keep prices low on
identical or similar products. And there are indications that
Walmart does respond to negative publicity, for example in
recent years improving its labor practices, buying more prod-
ucts from U.S. suppliers and increasing charitable giving.
In any event, like it or not, it is coming. Aside from answer-
ing the wishes of the most price-driven consumers, the good
news is that small retailers already have years of experience in
coexisting in a market where big-box stores operate.
In 2009, CEDR hosted a “Weathering Walmart” forum
(http://bit.ly/2flzYX5). The advice offered at the time remains
relevant, starting with “Concentrate on your business, not
theirs.” In other words, control what it is within your power to
control.
The other white
people in the West
By TIMOTHY EGAN
New York Times News Service
S
ince the election, the West
Coast has been abuzz with talk
of breaking away from Don-
ald Trump’s America — a Calexit,
or a linking of the
nation’s most popu-
lous state with Ore-
gon, Washington
and British Colum-
bia to form a Cas-
cadia by the sea.
It’s a fantasy, of course, fueled
by Trump’s drubbing on the West
Coast, where he got less than 10
percent of the vote in some cities.
But it would also be a monumental
mistake for the most prosperous and
progressive part of the United States
to even consider abandoning a coun-
try that could be dominated by the
old Confederacy.
A better idea is to reach out
across a yawning class divide. Peo-
ple in the West could listen to their
fellow Americans in the old indus-
trial heartland. And people in strug-
gling towns could learn something
from the workable policies of the
left coast. Difficult as that conversa-
tion may be, it could start with some
white-on-white dialogue.
‘Whitelash’
In the fast-hardening concrete of
postelection analysis, the presiden-
tial vote was seen as a “whitelash,”
as Van Jones called it, against
Barack Obama’s presidency. No
doubt, race played a big part in
Trump’s Electoral College win. But
on Nov. 8, heavily white cities —
particularly in the West — rejected
Trump by huge margins.
In Portland, often called the
whitest city in America, Trump
pulled barely 17 percent of the vote
in the county covering most of the
metro area, and even less in the city
proper. In Seattle, which is nearly
70 percent white, Trump is on track
to get only 8 percent of the vote
— a historic low for a major party
nominee. Denver, which is 63 per-
cent white, didn’t even give Trump
1 in 5 votes. And in San Francisco,
with a black population of 6 percent,
Trump finished in single digits.
This fortress of the forward-look-
ing is not all white, certainly; Cali-
fornia, after all, has no ethnic major-
ity. But for the sake of preventing a
certain clueless conventional wis-
dom from taking hold, let’s consider
the other white people.
And yes, some of these vot-
ers are too precious and self-in-
volved. They have their six-fig-
ure jobs at Facebook or Amazon,
Google or the Gates Foundation.
Youngstown, Ohio, is — what? —
a foreign place, or like that town in
“The Office.”
Forgotten issues
This West Coast majority cares
about climate change, tech and
trade. They care about where their
food comes from and want fami-
ly-friendly policies that don’t knock
women out of their career trajecto-
ries. They aren’t afraid of raising
taxes to make their cities more liv-
able — in fact, they just raised taxes
to build new infrastructure. They
don’t think lunatics should be able
to buy assault rifles. And their issues
were completely forgotten in the
presidential campaign.
“We’re a nation state,” said
Gavin Newsom, California’s lieu-
tenant governor, after the election.
“In so many ways we are America.
But we’re just ahead of the curve.”
California, which went Demo-
cratic by a nearly 2-to-1 ratio and is
one big reason Hillary Clinton will
win the popular tally by well over 1
million votes, feels particularly left
out. People in the state are beating
drums to the spectral rhythms of the
old Bear Flag Revolt, which briefly
produced an independent California
Republic in 1846.
Instead, California should lever-
age its political clout — with almost
1 in 8 members of the House hail-
ing from the Golden State — to stop
Trump’s backward ideas.
New jobs
The biggest lesson from the West
Coast is about job and wage growth.
Trump wants to return to the 19th
century of dirty energy. But coal’s
biggest enemy is cheap natural gas,
not environmental regulation. No
sane company wants to build a new
coal-fired electrical plant.
In September, 42 percent of all
new jobs created in the country were
in California. At the same time, Ore-
gon posted a job creation rate that
was double the national average.
And earlier this year, Washington
state was ranked No. 1 for combined
job and wage growth.
Yes, wage growth. The West
Coast has consistently voted to
make minimum wage a livable wage
— something opposed by Repub-
licans in the capital. But even bet-
ter jobs are there for the making in
infrastructure.
Trump claims he’ll put people to
work building roads, bridges and air-
ports, while lowering taxes on the
rich. He can no more make Flint tap
water into Trump wine. But there
is a simple solution, adopted on
Election Day throughout the West
Coast: targeted tax increases. Vot-
ers approved of them because the
money will be dedicated to new
infrastructure — expanded and
ambitious light rail systems in Seat-
tle and Los Angeles, for example.
No burger flipping there.
It was absurd and unpatriotic
when Texans talked of secession
rather than be led by Barack Obama.
Apparently, they couldn’t handle
all the job growth that came with
his historic presidency. It’s equally
absurd for Californians to talk of
taking their Macs and walking out
after Trump’s barbarians move into
the White House. The United States,
without the innovative West Coast,
would be a yesterday country.
Oh, No! President-elect Donald Trump is calling
By GAIL COLLINS
New York Times News Service
T
oday, Donald Trump as diplo-
mat. We’re not talking about
the big stuff, like his ominous
national security appointments — I
know you’ve had
a hard week. Let’s
take it easy and just
look at his phone
calls with heads of
state.
Most of them
have been taking place in Trump
Tower, although this weekend he
decamped to Trump National, his
resort in New Jersey.
Excellent move! Trump National
has two golf courses more than all of
Manhattan, and as far as we know,
there are no immediate neighbors
trying to chisel the word “Trump”
off their apartment buildings. Plus, if
the president-elect gets bored, he can
always arrange to have Chris Christie
crawl over and keep him company.
It’s tough enough for New York-
ers to deal with the concept of a
Trump administration without having
it headquartered in their midst. Traf-
fic is jammed: Fifth Avenue busi-
nesses are blocked off and in shell
shock. Never before has it been pos-
sible to feel such sympathy for the
problems of Gucci and Tiffany.
In theory, this should end with
the inauguration, but it’s hard to
imagine the first family ever actu-
ally moving into the White House.
Dad isn’t the kind of guy who would
enjoy living in harmony with historic
preservationists.
But about those head-of-state
calls. Normally the State Department
would work out a schedule, accord-
ing to all sorts of diplomatic priori-
ties, but Trump seems to just be pick-
ing up the phone. One of his first
conversations was with Australian
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull,
who got Trump’s number from golfer
Greg Norman.
The British were stunned when
Trump talked with the Irish prime
minister before he spoke to any of
the other European leaders. It’s not
clear that he wanted to show favor-
itism. The Irish-first decision was
allegedly at the request of Rudy
Giuliani, and the way things have
been going for Giuliani, it may have
been the most significant thing he
gets out of the transition.
Take the test
Pop Quiz. When Donald Trump
finally took a call from British Prime
Minister Theresa May, he:
A) Asked her if she’d ever played
at the Trump International Golf
Links in Scotland.
B) Told her: “If you travel to the
U.S., you should let me know.”
C) Asked her if she’d ever been
to New Jersey.
D) Appeared to believe “crum-
pets” were a breed of small, fuzzy
dogs.
The answer is B. Britain may
have a special relationship with
the United States, but so far Trump
barely appears to understand we’ve
been dating. The 10 minutes devoted
to May was less than he spent
accepting the good wishes of former
“Celebrity Apprentice” winner Piers
Morgan.
The bottom line is that there does
not appear to be a plan. “There’s
security issues about doing this
while sitting in your gilt-encrusted
living room with your socks up on
the ottoman talking on your cell-
phone,” growled Norman Eisen,
former ambassador to the Czech
Republic. And wouldn’t you feel
better if you thought that Trump’s
first talk with, say, the president
of Turkey, had been preceded by a
briefing?
Trump Towers Istanbul
Pop Quiz II. When Donald
Trump spoke to the president of Tur-
key, he talked about:
A) Turkey’s rapid and disturbing
slide from democracy to dictatorship.
B) The war on terror.
C) Trump Towers Istanbul.
D) Golf.
The answer was probably B,
although you can bet Trump Towers
Istanbul was in the back of his mind.
“I have a little conflict of interest
‘cause I have a major, major building
in Istanbul,” Trump said during the
campaign. “It’s a tremendously suc-
cessful job. It’s called Trump Towers
— two towers, instead of one, not
the usual one, it’s two.”
Two towers, got it. Trump actu-
ally made those comments during an
interview with Stephen Bannon, who
was then the awful head of a right-
wing, misogynist, racist website, not
the appointee to a powerful position
in the incoming White House. This
is why we’re talking about courtesy
phone calls today, people. It’s the
most cheerful thing we’ve got.
Trump has also had a lot of vis-
itors, ranging from the owner of
the New England Patriots to Nigel
Farage, who led the Brexit campaign
in Britain. (Once again we are not-
ing that the prime minister is coming
in behind everybody. Really, if May
ever does come to visit, she’ll prob-
ably have to see the White House
with a tour group.)
Trump gave an hour to Bill de
Blasio, the very liberal mayor of
New York City, which was cer-
tainly gracious given the harsh
words the two men have exchanged
over the last year. De Blasio said
he explained to Trump how fearful
New Yorkers were of his ideas. The
mayor also said the meeting went
great. This is good news. Maybe
Trump does have an untapped poten-
tial for diplomacy.
Tell it to the British. Meanwhile,
I am sorry to report that de Blasio
didn’t suggest Trump move to New
Jersey.