OPINION
6A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 30, 2017
Founded in 1873
DAVID F. PERO, Publisher & Editor
JIM VAN NOSTRAND, Managing Editor
JEREMY FELDMAN, Circulation Manager
DEBRA BLOOM, Business Manager
JOHN D. BRUIJN, Production Manager
CARL EARL, Systems Manager
Water
under
the bridge
Compiled by Bob Duke
From the pages of Astoria’s daily newspapers
10 years ago this week — 2007
When it comes to landing fish, Astoria has been putting on pounds.
The Astoria commercial fishing port — which includes Warrenton and
Hammond landings – claimed 164.1 million pounds of fish last year, the
fourth highest of any West Coast port and No. 9 nationwide.
Astoria’s 2006 haul was just a little lighter than that of Los Ange-
les, which landed 164.5 million pounds. Both were a ways behind the
top Alaska ports in Dutch Harbor and Kodiak, which landed 911 million
pounds and 372 million pounds respectively.
They’re out there.
One hundred miles off the Oregon Coast, leatherback sea tur-
tles, who many call “the Earth’s last living dinosaurs,” are feed-
ing on thousands of jellyfish.
Unbeknownst to many land dwellers, these large reptiles —
which can grow to more than 6 feet long and tip the scales at
2,000 pounds — come from as far as Indonesia to cruise our jel-
lyfish-rich waters from late July through November.
But turtle lovers shouldn’t break out their Nikon cameras
just yet: Their distance puts them well beyond the average
beachgoer.
Four of the seven Clatsop County planning commissioners rejected the
advice of county staff Wednesday in three split votes that turned the tide
for Bradwood Landing liquefied natural gas project developer Northern-
Star Natural Gas Co.
The three votes reversed staff conclusions on the project’s size, dredg-
ing Clifton Channel and rezoning 5 acres of wetlands for industrial
development.
And in the end, the changed the conclusion from “deny” the Northern-
Star land use application to “approve with conditions.”
50 years ago — 1967
Celebration of the Astoria
Regatta, this year in its 47th year
since origin back in 1894, has been
temporarily discontinued four
times over this span, twice as result
of world wars.
Each time, however, the fes-
tivities were revived, just showing
that you can’t keep a good Regatta
down.
The Daily Astorian/File
Longest gap was a 15-year Eleven persons in this
period, from 1917-1932, when crumpled station wagon
World War I forced cancellation of survived an 80-foot plunge
the festival. It was not until more over a cliff near Indian
than a decade had passed that Beach Thursday.
Astorians’ thoughts turned once
again to the marine celebration.
It revived with organization of the Astoria Yacht Club in 1931
whose leaders went to work. In 1932 the Regatta was once again
a reality, with Marie Simmons ruling all of Regattaland. Port-
lander Phil Jackson was that year’s admiral.
Eleven persons survived an automobile’s 80 foot plunge down a cliff
near Indian Beach in Ecola State Park Wednesday afternoon.
The car plunged off a curve on the winding, hillside road between Ecola
Park and Indian Beach when the accelerator apparently stuck as the station
wagon was approaching the curve.
The station wagon landed upside down at the foot of the cliff. Most of
the passengers suffered cuts and bruises but only one, Florence Harrison,
41, was hospitalized.
Ten years ago midnight tonight hundreds of Cannon Beach,
Seaside and Gearhart residents gathered on the beach to witness
the end of an era.
At 12:01 a.m., September 1, 1957, lightkeeper Osward Allik,
now retired and living in Portland, turned off the powerful Tilla-
mook Rock lighthouse beam for the last time.
75 years ago — 1942
The fourth and final carload of daffodil bulbs, Clatsop Plains chief agri-
cultural crop, was shipped from here last week. The bulbs are now selling
at an average of $200 a ton.
The Astoria Port Commission, in a brief session, last night
deeded additional ground on the Port’s Clatsop airport to the
Navy for expansion of plane facilities and offered more space on
the docks’ middle pier for use of the 13th naval district.
Porpoise has wide possibilities as canned food. This is the conclusion
reached by Dr. E.W. Harvey of the state food industries laboratories here.
Harvey is continuing his investigation of the procedure followed in pack-
ing porpoise as a result of initial tests by the members of the Oregon fish
commission and the Washington Department of Fisheries. Last spring at a
breakfast held at food laboratories, these members of the two states’ fishery
departments were served canned porpoise and found it much to their liking.
Once used to batter Yankee forces in the mud-soaked battle-
fields of the first World War, the old German cannon that has
slumbered in quietness of the courthouse lawn since 1929 will be
melted down and reforged into weapons to kill Germans, if the
recommendation of the county court is followed.
Col. R.W. Yates, director of the ninth service command sup-
ply division, has requested the county commissioners to give up
all cannons, cannon balls, iron rails and fences or similar items
for use in manufacturing weapons for war. Items of definite his-
torical or antiquarian value will not be taken, however.
How Trump kills the GOP
By DAVID BROOKS
New York Times News Service
I
t’s ironic that race was the issue
that created the Republican
Party and that race could very
well be the issue
that destroys it.
The GOP
was founded to
fight slavery, and
through most of
its history it had a
decent record on
civil rights. A greater percentage of
congressional Republicans voted for
the Civil Rights Act than Democrats.
It’s become more of a white
party in recent years, of course,
and adopted some wrongheaded
positions on civil rights enforce-
ment, but it was still possible to be
a Republican without feeling like
you were violating basic decency
on matters of race. Most of the
Republican establishment, from the
Bushes to McCain and Romney,
fought bigotry, and racism was not a
common feature in the conservative
moment.
Between 1984 and 2003 I
worked at National Review, The
Washington Times, The Wall
Street Journal editorial page and
The Weekly Standard. Most of my
friends were Republicans.
In that time, I never heard bla-
tantly racist comments at dinner par-
ties, and there were probably fewer
than a dozen times I heard some
veiled comment that could have
suggested racism. To be honest, I
heard more racial condescension in
progressive circles than in conserva-
tive ones.
But the Republican Party has
changed since 2005. It has become
the vehicle for white identity
politics. In 2005 only 6 percent of
Republicans felt that whites faced
“a great deal” of discrimination, the
same number of Democrats who
felt this. By 2016, the percentage
of Republicans who felt this had
tripled.
Recent surveys suggest that
roughly 47 percent of Republicans
are what you might call conservative
universalists and maybe 40 percent
are what you might call conser-
vative white identitarians. White
universalists believe in conservative
principles and think they apply to all
people and their white identity is not
particularly salient to them. White
identitarians are conservative, but
their white identity is quite import-
ant to them, sometimes even more
important than their conservatism.
These white identitarians have
taken the multicultural worldview
taught in schools, universities and
the culture and, rightly or wrongly,
have applied it to themselves. As
Marxism saw history through the
lens of class conflict, multicultural-
ism sees history through the lens of
racial conflict and group oppression.
According to a survey from the
AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster
President Donald Trump speaks during a news conference with Finnish
President Sauli Niinisto Monday in the East Room of the White House.
Public Religion Research Institute,
for example, about 48 percent of
Republicans believe there is “a lot
of discrimination” against Christians
in America and about 43 percent
believe there is a lot of discrimina-
tion against whites.
I’d love to see more research
on the relationship between white
identity politics and simple racism.
There’s clear overlap, but I suspect
they’re not quite the same thing.
Racism is about feeling others are
inferior. White identitarianism is
about feeling downtrodden and
aggrieved yourself.
It may
someday be
possible to
reduce the
influence of
white identity
politics, but
probably not
while Trump is
in office.
In the PRRI survey, for example,
roughly as many Republicans
believe Muslims, immigrants and
trans people face a lot of discrimina-
tion as believe whites and Christians
do. According to a Quinnipiac
poll, 59 percent of those in the
white working class believe white
supremacist groups are a threat to
the country.
But three things are clear: First,
identity politics on the right is at
least as corrosive as identity politics
on the left, probably more so. If you
reduce the complex array of identi-
ties that make up a human being into
one crude ethno-political category,
you’re going to do violence to your-
self and everything around you.
Second, it is wrong to try to
make a parallel between Black Lives
Matter and White Lives Matter. To
pretend that these tendencies are
somehow comparable is to ignore
American history and current
realities.
Third, white identity politics as
it plays out in the political arena is
completely noxious. Donald Trump
is the maestro here. He established
his political identity through
birtherism, he won the Republican
nomination on the Muslim ban, he
campaigned on the Mexican wall,
he governed by being neutral on
Charlottesville and pardoning racial-
ist Joe Arpaio.
Each individual Republican is
now compelled to embrace this gar-
bage or not. The choice is unavoid-
able, and white resentment is bound
to define Republicanism more and
more in the months ahead. It’s what
Trump cares about. The identity
warriors on the left will deface stat-
ues or whatever and set up mutually
beneficial confrontations with the
identity warriors on the right. Things
will get uglier.
And this is where the dissolution
of the GOP comes in. Conservative
universalists are coming to realize
their party has become a vehicle for
white identity and racial conflict.
This faction is prior to and deeper
than Trump.
When you have an intraparty
fight about foreign or domestic
issues, you think your rivals are
wrong. When you have an intra-
party fight on race, you think your
rivals are disgusting. That’s what’s
happening. Friendships are now
ending across the right. People who
supported Trump for partisan rea-
sons now feel locked in to support
him on race, and they are making
themselves repellent.
It may someday be possible
to reduce the influence of white
identity politics, but probably not
while Trump is in office. As long as
he is in power the GOP is a house
viciously divided against itself, and
cannot stand.
WHERE TO WRITE
• U.S. Rep. Suzanne Bonamici
(D): 439 Cannon House Office
Building, Washington, D.C., 20515.
Phone: 202- 225-0855. Fax 202-225-
9497. District office: 12725 SW Mil-
likan Way, Suite 220, Beaverton, OR
97005. Phone: 503-469-6010. Fax
503-326-5066. Web: bonamici.house.
gov/
• U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley (D): 313
Hart Senate Office Building, Wash-
ington, D.C. 20510. Phone: 202-224-
3753. Web: www.merkley.senate.gov
• U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden (D):
221 Dirksen Senate Office Building,
Washington, D.C., 20510. Phone:
202-224-5244. Web: www.wyden.
senate.gov
• State Rep. Brad Witt (D): State
Capitol, 900 Court Street N.E., H-373,
Salem, OR 97301. Phone: 503-986-
1431. Web: www.leg.state.or.us/witt/
Email: rep.bradwitt@state.or.us
• State Rep. Deborah Boone (D):
900 Court St. N.E., H-481, Salem,
OR 97301. Phone: 503-986-1432.
Email: rep.deborah boone@state.
or.us District office: P.O. Box 928,
Cannon Beach, OR 97110. Phone:
503-986-1432. Web: www.leg.state.
or.us/ boone/
• State Sen. Betsy Johnson (D):
State Capitol, 900 Court St. N.E.,
S-314, Salem, OR 97301. Telephone:
503-986-1716. Email: sen.betsy john-
son@state.or.us Web: www.betsy-
johnson.com District Office: P.O.
Box R, Scappoose, OR 97056. Phone:
503-543-4046. Fax: 503-543-5296.
Astoria office phone: 503-338-1280.
• Port of Astoria: Executive
Director, 10 Pier 1 Suite 308, Asto-
ria, OR 97103. Phone: 503-741-3300.
Email: admin@portofastoria.com
• Clatsop County Board of Com-
missioners: c/o County Manager, 800
Exchange St., Suite 410, Astoria, OR
97103. Phone: 503-325-1000.