Seattle Elections / Olympia
—Katie Wilson Running for Mayor—
—Governor Ferguson: The "Rational Bob"—
—Yesterday's Patrons / Today's Oligarchs—
By Krist Novoselić (March 24, 2025)
Katie Wilson is running for mayor of Seattle, positioned to be the leading leftist candidate challenging incumbent Mayor Bruce Harrell. Wilson is reassessing the left’s approach to the public safety / health crisis (crisis).
Wilson’s article, Where the Left Went Wrong on Homelessness Reclaiming This Issue Could Mean Reclaiming Power for the Progressive Left is an admission of the failure of left-wing policies.
Wilson’s OpEd tells the story of how, since 2018, Seattle and King County policy makers have approached the crisis. It’s been a battle between the left and moderates / business. It contains a good historical account where Wilson also reflects on how the left have presented their policies.
Wilson can make good points. She writes,
“Too often our [leftist] attitude is one of bland assent that we do need more voluntary mental health and addiction treatment services, coupled with support for ‘harm reduction’ strategies like safe consumption sites. Unfortunately, this comes across as an unserious plan that will only amplify the chaos.” [My emphasis]
Wilson said a mouthful about “chaos”, considering there have been almost 5000 fatal drug overdoses in King County since 2020.
That’s a big body count which Wilson's article ignores. That said, it seems like the mayoral candidate is starting to get it,
[Some people] need longer term psychiatric care in an institutional setting; for a few, involuntary commitment may be the only way to bring them off the streets. There are also a very small number whose behaviors are too dangerous for a communal living situation.
This evolution in her thinking is harmonizing with current efforts. I am hearing more and more about involuntary commitment for individuals who are a threat to themselves and the community. In fact, King County prosecutor Leesa Manion is on a state listening tour regarding the issue of involuntary commitment. Leftist leader Wilson’s potential participation in this needed approach to the crisis is a good development.
Another fact regarding the zeitgeist is how voters in other West Coast states are over the “bland assent that we do need more voluntary mental health and addiction treatment services…and ‘harm reduction’.” Crusading leftwing prosecutors, espousing this tried and tired sentiment, have been rejected in major West Coast cities.
It's good attitudes are changing regarding so-called Harm Reduction.
I understand Wilson’s soul searching, personal growth and admission of “getting it wrong” regarding the crisis. My thinking too has changed over the years. (I was once Chair of my county Democratic Central Committee). Some things never change though. I too care for people and am happy to stand with Wilson to support the social safety net. I financially support non-profits helping people. I believe in sheltering people and providing options for treatment. Let’s build more homes / houses! (Check out the Cascade Platform.)
ShortchangedI want to help people. My point is we've spent a lot of money on the crisis. If we measure the results; taxpayers are getting the short end.
Wilson’s tax and spend plan ignores the shortchanging. Her new plan is, “Let’s tax and spend even more, but in a different way.”
Wilson is also careless with her sidestepping the big mess the left have made. She tries to wash her hands as a path to power — for the sake of raising more, “progressive revenue”. She coolly glances at the years of crisis, including the tragic body count, through her rear view mirror as she drives towards the Social Democracy dreamscape.
Mystery?🗿
Wilson then wades into state politics with another piece at The Stranger: The Mystery of the Four Bobs Who is Governor Ferguson and Why Isn’t He Down to Tax the Rich?
This article offers frames of "Four Bobs" (Gov. Ferguson). The author tries to pin perspectives on how any “Bob” she conjures is dealing with the current legislative session.
Katie Wilson's article fails to solve any mystery because she never considers the Rational Bob. The reality is how Gov. Ferguson recognizes the significance of the world-class companies residing in our state, and accordingly, is expressing his reluctance to seek new revenue.
There is no mystery — the claim of a budget shortfall ignores the shortchange. This is about the ideology of the left, locally and in Olympia, which takes business for granted.
Microsoft President Brad Smith warned that new tax proposals from Washington lawmakers would do “lasting damage” to the tech sector in the company’s home state. The Geekwire story also states, “Smith said that Microsoft has advocated for higher taxes in Washington state in the past.”
The political advocacy Smith refers to is certainly about Microsoft opposing last year's anti-tax initiatives. We’ll get to that shortly; but there is a good, and real, reason why capital can leave an area.
Like the sun rising in the east, or water flowing downhill, there are forces of human nature which explain why money goes where it’s treated best.
Evolutionary psychologist Pascal Boyer writes about this in his study Minds Make Societies. Human society developed a sense of value during our prehistory; with the best traders surviving and passing this trait on,
In humans, ownership intuitions develop very early, and they include an expectation that the first possessor is the owner; as the saying goes, possession is nine-tenths of the law. Even in very young children, however, the distinction between possession and legitimate ownership is crucial. Some people may be holding an object and using it without being considered owners, and owners may not be in possession of what they own. This presents no conceptual difficulty for young children. What makes ownership special, for them and for adults, is the history of a person's connection to a thing. For instance, young children share the intuition that the person who extracts some resource from the environment is the owner. They also assume that transforming an object, such as turning a lump of clay into a sculpture, makes one the owner of the finished product, more so than the original possessor of the clay.(Friedman, 2010; Friedman and Neary, 2008) Naturally, people also have explicit beliefs about ownership. But experimental research shows that these beliefs are often vague and confused, and occasionally incoherent. People, for instance, state that one cannot literally own persons, before being reminded of slavery, or that ideas are not property, before songs or movies are mentioned. (Noles and Keil, 2011) The fact that our explicit conceptions are often incoherent suggests that they are not the source of our ownership judgments, which are in fact governed by the intuitive ownership system. Here, as in other domains, reasoning comes after intuition, as an attempt to explicate or justify it. (P. Boyer, 2015) [My emphasis]
Something Bugging Microsoft
An intuitive unease can arise after realizing that; the people you've been helping — are actually out to get you.
Last year, major companies and very wealthy individuals in our state, were the ruling party’s patrons. Billionaires Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer, along with companies like Microsoft, and even international oil giant British Petroleum, financed the ultimately successful opposition to the tax cutting initiatives on the ballot.
Big Business kindly gave money to protect revenue streams the ruling party holds dear. Now, that party’s new tax proposal uses the authority held by the State of Washington to force their patrons to hand over their money to Olympia. 💸💸💸
Who were once venerable benefactors, are now derided as oligarchs. Considering their patrons generosity, and its impact on the 2024 initiative campaigns, the tax increase is quite the 💌Thank You Card💌 from Olympia's house and senate majority!
Microsoft and others should feel like they’ve been, “rubbed wrong”. Boyer explains this intuition,
“Our capacities for social exchange include [cognitive] systems dedicated to detecting free riding and cheating, which occur when individuals manage to extract a benefit from a transaction without paying the associated development of evolutionary models of cognition.” Boyer mentions the work of psychologist Leda Cosmides, who reasoned that “humans probably evolved a specific inference system that would identify information of the format ‘benefit received, cost not paid’ and trigger appropriate threat detection.”
The sense of fairness and ownership is baked into our humanity. It drives the reason why money goes where it’s treated best.
Legislative Democrats and other radicals appear oblivious to the potential for the business establishment to push back against them. Indeed, business leaving for greener pastures is the worst case scenario. However, there is also potential for an initiative or referendum proposing the repeal of new taxes. Does the ruling party really want to test how much they can oppose a massively financed campaign aimed at influencing public opinion? (Remember the onslaught last fall?)
Either way, the anti-business crowd are on the path of killing the goose that laid the golden egg.
Look at what the political left gave us with homelessness and addiction. They’ve now got their sights set on our state’s economy. It’s up to Governor Ferguson to use his power to stand up to this. Voters this year also need to elect moderate leadership or our economy will suffer.
Krist Novoselić is Cascade Party Chair. He serves on the board of directors in an at-large position.
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