by Katelynn Richardson
New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof argued Saturday that the West Coast version of liberalism simply doesn’t work, calling on liberals to “face the painful fact that something has gone terribly wrong where we govern, from San Diego to Seattle.”
West Coast Liberals Accept ‘Yawning Gap Between Our Values and Results’, Kristof (pictured above) noticed in his column, acknowledging contradictions such as saying that “housing is a human right” while failing to “provide people with housing.” Kristof, who tried to run for governor of Oregon in 2022, but ultimately it turned out that he would not do so to get to know three-year residency requirement to appear on the ballot, believes the problem is not liberalism itself, but a West Coast brand of liberalism “infected with an ideological purity that focuses more on intent than on oversight and results.”
“I am an Oregonian who bores people at cocktail parties by singing the praises of the West, but the truth is that too often we offer a version of progressivism that does not result in progress,” he wrote, pointing to the disparity between liberal cities on the West and East Coasts.
“The two states with the highest rates of unaccompanied homelessness are California and Oregon. The three states with the lowest rates of unsheltered homelessness in the Northeast are all blue states: Vermont, New York and Maine,” he wrote. “Liberal Massachusetts has some of the best public schools in the country, while liberal Washington and Oregon have below-average high school graduation rates.”
Mikołaj Kristof:
“The main problem with the West Coast is not that it is frivolous, but that it is tainted by an ideological purity that focuses more on intention than on oversight and results.” pic.twitter.com/uGrKLPCvWH
— Steve McGuire (@sfmcguire79) June 15, 2024
He criticized West Coast liberals’ tendency to be “performative rather than substantive,” citing Oregon’s decision to utilize education dollars to put free tampons on boys bathrooms starting in kindergarten.
“The inability of progressives, particularly in the Portland metro area, to come to grips with the details of governing and get something done is just astonishing,” Oregon Democratic Rep. Earl Blumenauer, whose district includes most of Portland, told the NYT. “People are much more interested in ideology than actual results.”
Kristof suggested that the problem may have to do with a lack of political competition on the West Coast.
“Perhaps we have ideological purity on the West Coast because there is not much political competition,” he wrote. “Republicans are irrelevant in most of the Far West, so they can’t hold Democrats’ feet to the fire, which in turn leads Democrats to wander unrestrained further to the left.”
In 2023, the highest homelessness rates were in blue states, led by Washington, New York, Vermont and Oregon. According to to the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).
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Katelynn Richardson is a reporter for the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Photo “Nicholas Kristof” by Monika Fluechiger CC BY-SA 2.0. Cover photo “Newport Oregon High School” by Finetooth CC BY-SA 3.0.
