It was just a little over a year ago, in July, 2020, that Portland (Oregon) Mayor Ted Wheeler demanded that the Trump administration remove federal forces from his city. Trump had sent in “Rapid Deployment” squads to assist in crowd control after violent protests following George Floyd’s murder.
When the federal agents used tear gas and pulled violent protesters into unmarked vans, Wheeler went ballistic, criticizing “the feds” for “a very heavy-handed approach.” Trump “sent in the troops despite the fact that…myself as mayor…have said we don’t need them.”
At the same time, Wheeler was calling for the Portland Police Department to be defunded of $12 million, with the money diverted “to directly support communities of color.” Wheeler was, in other words, a classically left, woke politician, a social justice warrior in the mode of Rebecca Kaplan, Carroll Fife and Nikki Bas.
Fast forward exactly one year later, to July, 2021, and Mayor Wheeler’s message had changed significantly. “I will fight for more police officers,” he vowed, calling the Portland Police Department “understaffed,” after a particularly bloody period of violence that saw widespread shooting deaths and injuries.
What happened in Portland was clear: A crime wave so severe, with homicides reaching their highest levels in decades and cops quitting or retiring by the dozens, that Wheeler was forced to reverse course and admit he’d been wrong. “The city is on a trend to have its deadliest year in decades,” he said in September. “This is our home and we need to do better.”
Wheeler was forced to recognize reality. He was made to understand that a woke ideology that favored “investing in the community” over law enforcement had been an utter failure. He was helped along to this new understanding by the city’s business and tourist industries, who saw the violent demonstrations and spiraling murders as a “threat” to the city’s appeal. “Commenters linked Portland’s protest movement to homelessness and rising gun violence, marshaling it all as evidence of a city in precipitous decline,” reported The Nation. Wheeler also was helped into his new understanding by a “Recall Wheeler” campaign against him, a campaign currently mired in the courts, but which came as a surprise blow to him.
I can’t help but make comparisons between Portland and Oakland. Here, too, we had a disastrous City Council defunding the police, last June, even as crime soared. Comparisons can be made, too, between Wheeler and our Mayor, Libby Schaaf, who at least presented a budget to the City Council that would have preserved the Oakland Police Department’s budget. The Council, in its unwisdom, of course, rejected her budget, and slashed OPD’s by $18 million. Wheeler’s volte face is reminiscent of Sheng Thao’s. She, too, apparently discovered the value of more police, even after supporting the defunders in June. Three months later, while considering a run for mayor, she proposed adding new police academies in Oakland.
Wheeler’s abrupt turnaround, and Thao’s, are just two more signs that the times are a-changing in these two major U.S. cities. People are sick and tired of the stale, woke rhetoric of defunding. Politicians holding their fingers to the wind are realizing that, if they wish to have a future (and avoid recalls), they had better get on the right side of history and support their police departments.
Steve Heimoff