Things are a little frosty for Seattle’s “summer of love” Mayor Jenny Durkan. The former U.S. attorney-turned mayor appears to be all CHAZ’d out and announced she won’t run for re-election in 2021.
Durkan infamously announced last summer that the takeover of part of Seattle by antifa and Black Lives Matter radicals was really a good thing. Sure, home and business owners felt unsafe and endangered, but Durkan told them to turn their frowns upside down. She appeared on CNN to tell a national audience that, in fact, the area run by angry radicals could turn out to be the “summer of love” instead of the hell hole it was becoming. There were “four shootings, two deaths, arsons, and several alleged sexual assaults” inside the squalor known as the Capital Hill Autonomous Zone, which was later re-christened CHOP, or the Capital Hill Organized Protest area.
Please RESIGN @MayorJenny In Honor Of #LorenzoAnderson , The 19 Year Old Who DIED In The #JennyDurkan ENDORSED #Seattle Zone Know As #CHOP Then #CHAZ
YOU FAILED As A Person And As A Mayor That DIRECTLY Led To The DEATH Of #HoraceLorenzoAnderson Jr.#RIPLorenzo#Lorenzo & Dad pic.twitter.com/5MnaGXGc1Q
— Kermit In Progress 💎 (@Kermit_Progress) July 2, 2020
Her infamous indulgence of the lawlessness was enough to sour even Lefty Seattleites on the job she has done as mayor.
Seattle’s Q-13 News political reporter Brandi Kruse says Durkan was attacked from her left and right political flanks. She believes Durkan’s departure could mean that Seattle is in for a big Left turn.
Once considered a forgone conclusion, Durkan danced around questions in recent months about whether she would run again in 2021. While she filed fundraising paperwork to do so back in February, the city has since endured an unprecedented pandemic, months of civil unrest, a deteriorating downtown, and a nasty battle at City Hall over police defunding that resulted in the premature resignation of Chief Carmen Best.
Given the current climate in Seattle, it also isn’t out of the realm of possibility that a Socialist or Democratic Socialist will run. A new election could also bring out old candidates. Nikkita Oliver, a police abolitionist who ran unsuccessfully for mayor under the banner of the People’s Party, has been one of the public faces of efforts to defund SPD this year. Oliver narrowly missed making it to the general election against Durkan in 2017 and could find a more like-minded electorate in 2020.
Also in the wings is off-the-charts socialist Councilwoman Kshama Sawant. She, however, is fighting a recall effort for abusing her office. In an op-ed in the magazine named for the bloodthirsty murderers of the French Revolution’s Reign of Terror, called the Jacobins, Sawant called Durkan “Amazon’s mayor” and a corporate elitist.
And Seattle’s top job has had its share of trouble. In 2017, Mayor Ed Murray resigned in disgrace when a fifth allegation of child molestation/abuse was made against him.
In a video announcing that she would not run for re-election, Durkan claimed as one of her accomplishments that she “stood strong against the Trump administration,” which probably refers to her lawless sanctuary policies and letting antifa run wild. She infamously stood down the police, which led to her police chief resigning. Two white Black Lives Matter protesters were hit and killed when Durkan let protesters flood the freeway.
Like many other West Coast cities that have not enforced laws on vagrancy, sleeping on the streets, and drug use, Seattle is overrun with people looking for no- or low-cost and responsibility-free housing where they can indulge their drug addictions. A documentary about the wave of homelessness called Seattle Is Dying is part of Durkan’s legacy.
Durkan said that she could either do her job or run for her job.
“I could spend the last year of my term campaigning to keep this job or focus all my energy on doing the job. There was only one right choice for the city: doing the job. I’ve decided not to run for re-election because Seattle, we still have some tough months ahead.”
Godspeed, Seattle.
Victoria Taft is the host of “The Adult in the Room Podcast With Victoria Taft” where you can hear her series on “Antifa Versus Mike Strickland.” Find it here. Follow her on Facebook, Twitter, Parler, MeWe, Minds @VictoriaTaft
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