Salem Political Snark

Hillcrest is for sale. The City of Salem should buy it.

The State of Oregon has put the 45 acre Hillcrest property up for sale. According to Wikipedia, Hillcrest was a youth correctional facility that closed on September 1, 2017. 

I learned of this from Mark Wigg, who is active in promoting more walking/cycling trails in Salem, along with more parks. Below you can read a presentation Wigg emailed me, which I presume has been sent to City of Salem officials and City Council members.

What he says makes a lot of sense. In a follow-up email, Wigg added: "Living accommodations for 300. Gym kitchens classrooms pool."

After the presentation I'll share some images and text from the Department of Administrative Services web page listing about the Hillcrest property being offered for sale. 

If I read the appraisal document correctly, the estimated value of the entire property is $5,600,000. 

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Presentation by Mark Wigg:

Hillcrest Youth Correctional Facility is for sale.

Why should the city acquire Hillcrest?

The City’s parks master plan identifies a need for an urban park in this area, see below.

Salem Parks Master Plan

The Hillcrest Property currently has many of the facilities listed as standard and has more than a dozen other amenities on the list for Urban Parks as optional. In addition, it could provide a linear park, connector trails, special use facilities, historic area, and natural areas. It could also provide housing. 

Salem Parks Master Plan List of Amenities by Classification

The Trail System portion of the Master Plan identifies a trail along Reed Road on the property. The city already has parkland along Reed Road near Battle Creek Road, so the city could complete the multiuse trail paralleling Reed Road and save millions by not having to do a full build of Reed Road to accommodate curbs, drainage, sidewalks and bike lanes. 

Salem Parks Master Plan Trail System

The Transportation System Plan calls for bike lanes on Reed Road, a parallel multiuse path through parks from Battle Creek to Strong Road would be safer, more used and enjoyed by the public and far less expensive than a full-build of Reed Road.

Paying for Hillcrest

• Salem Housing Authority has expressed an interest in portions of the facility but not the entire facility. SHA has money.
• Salem Parks System Development Fund has money for park acquisition.
• Salem Transportation funds could be used for the multiuse trails.
• And the Mill Creek URA could become a source of funding.

Mill Creek URA boundaries and goals can be adjusted to accomplish additional community priorities such as housing, and parks. Hillcrest is less than a 3,000 feet from the Kuebler Interchange and URA boundary. If housing and public amenities were added to the list of goals for Mill Creek URA, and the boundary was adjusted to include Hillcrest, the URA could help fund some of the actions needs.

Please,

Let the state know that the City of Salem is interested in acquiring the entire Hillcrest property.

Respectfully,
Mark Wigg 

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Here's a larger image of the built portion of the property -- again, from a State of Oregon web page.


Here's the Department of Administrative Services description of the property:

About the property

​The former Hillcrest​ Youth Correctional Facility is located in southeast Salem, Oregon at the southeast corner of Reed and Strong roads (2450 Strong Road SE). This 44.6 acre property includes 207,000 square feet of rentable building space on the 23.8 acre developed campus. The remainder is undeveloped land, a forested slope of 11.8 acres, and a flat parcel of 9.0 acres. It includes 17 buildings. Utilities provided to the property include natural gas, electricity and city sewer. Water service is provided by a well located off-site and a 48,000 gallon water tower is located on the property.

The property is currently zoned Public and Private Health.

The majority of the buildings at the property are clustered in a campus type setting on a hilltop surrounded by a perimeter fence. The buildings were constructed between 1923 and 2003.  

Everybody was talking to someone else at today's Kavanaugh hearing

Have you ever been at a party, engaged in conversation with someone, and you suddenly notice that while they're talking to you, their attention has strayed to an attractive person standing behind you, and they're now looking over your shoulder rather than at you?

That's how I felt watching today's Senate Judiciary Committee hearing featuring Christine Blasey Ford and Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, who Ford has accused of assaulting her sexually back in 1982.

It was can't-miss drama for a political junkie like me. I watched most of the proceedings on TV. There was everything: suspense, tears, ups and downs between the D's and R's, anger, self-righteousness, the whole gamut of human emotions.

What didn't happen was what I'd hoped would happen: a Perry Mason moment (showing my age) where one of the Democratic Senators asks Kavanaugh a leading question, gets his answer, then whips out a piece of paper and says, "But Judge Kavanaugh, I have a sworn affidavit here from a classmate of yours that directly contradicts what you just said."

Sadly, because I believe Ford is telling the truth about being assaulted by Kavanaugh, the Democrats on the Judiciary Committee got in some good punches, but there wasn't anything close to a knock-out blow.

Which helps to explain my main theme in this post -- why everybody was talking to someone else at the hearing. They knew that today's hearing was going to end pretty much in a draw (both Ford and Kavanaugh said they were 100% sure that he did, or didn't, do what Ford accused him of).

This sort of redirected speech is common in politics, being a form of doublespeak, but I've never seen it as much in evidence as was the case in today's hearing. I'll discuss the doublespeakers one by one.

Now, the person who was most honest and direct was Christine Blasey Ford. If she was speaking to somebody else, it was her own self. Ford chose her words carefully. She struck me as wanting to speak her truth about the sexual assault with the care that a traumatic event like this deserved. 

This made Ford the most believable person in the hearing room. I never felt like she was doing anything other than telling her story as accurately as possible. She was unfailingly polite and deserves a medal for having the courage to come forward with her accusation against Kavanaugh.

Brett Kavanaugh, on the other hand, pretty clearly was speaking to Donald Trump, even though his remarks were ostensibly addressed to the Judiciary Committee. His rough and tumble opening statement was very Trumpian in tone: angry, political, accusing. 

It was like Kavanaugh was screaming to Trump, "Don't pull my nomination just because Ford was believable when she said she was sure I sexually assaulted her. Like you, I'm a street fighter. Stick with me." Kavanaugh came across as a guy who, if he could be this angry while sober, could be an even bigger asshole when drunk. 

But Trump tweeted after the hearing that he was pleased with Kavanaugh's over-the-top testimony, so even though it may not have played well in living rooms across America, Kavanaugh connected with the one guy who could easily kill his nomination.

Likewise, Senator Lindsey Graham was speaking to Trump's base when he echoed Kavanaugh's ridiculous claim that the three women who have accused Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct were part of a vast left-wing conspiracy, aided and abetted by the Democrats on the Judiciary Committee.

Out in the hall during hearing breaks, and later during Kavanaugh's testimony, Graham seemed to be trying to outdo Kavanaugh on the It's a Democratic Outrage! front. It's likely that Graham also was trying to curry favor with Trump, as this is Job #1 for any Republican seeking re-election and hoping to fend off a primary opponent on the candidate's right flank.

Judiciary Committee Democrats were less aggressive toward Kavanaugh than I expected. Probably this is because they were speaking to Senate Republicans as much, or more, than to Kavanaugh. The only hope of stopping Kavanaugh from joining the Supreme Court is if at least two Republicans join every Democrat in opposing his nomination next Tuesday.

So the big theme of committee Democrats was "Let's have the FBI investigate the three allegations against Kavanaugh; what's the harm in waiting a week or so for the investigation to produce its findings?"

If only one Republican on the committee went along with this, tomorrow's Judiciary Committee vote wouldn't produce a positive recommendation to the full Senate, and an investigation might turn up some damning evidence against Kavanaugh.

Speaking of damning evidence, Democratic hopes of stopping Kavanaugh's nomination may rest on Michael Avenatti's claim that his client, Julie Swetnick, observed Kavanaugh engaging in "highly inappropriate conduct" with girls in the early 1980s. Avenatti is Stormy Daniels' attorney, and has ambitions to be the Democratic presidential nominee in 2020. 

If Avenatti is able to produce solid evidence in the next few days that what Swetnick says is correct, this would be a big blow to Kavanaugh's ability to get 51 votes in the Senate. But if Avenatti can't back up what he's been saying in cable news interviews, this would hurt his already slim chance of being the 2020 Democratic presidential nominee.  

City of Salem comprehensive planning effort gets some well-deserved criticism

Well, that didn't take long. At 11:30 am yesterday, City of Salem officials sent out an email about the start of an effort to update the Salem Area Comprehensive Plan. 

A mere 19 minutes later, at 11:49 am, Michael Slater wrote a post on a Facebook page where Salem City Council issues are discussed that critiqued the Our Salem Stakeholder Advisory Committee, which a City of Salem web page describing the planning effort says "will be providing guidance to staff." 

Slater said:

The City has released the members of the advisory group that will assist staff on "technical" issues related to Our Salem, the first stage in an update to the comprehensive plan, whose goals are to:

1. Review existing plans to identify City goals and priorities
2. Choose measures to evaluate the city
3. Conduct a greenhouse gas inventory to determine the community’s impact on the environment
4. Create and evaluate scenarios to illustrate how Salem could grow.

There are, to my knowledge, no renters, bike commuters, natural resources or open space advocates, young people, or affordable housing advocates involved.

Also, if this is a technical advisory group, why are five of the people listed elected officials (and two are appointed by the City Council)?

At least Geoffrey James and Linda Wallmark are on the committee.

I agree with Slater. There's good reasons to be critical of the makeup of this committee, regardless of what it is supposed to do -- and that isn't at all clear at the moment.

First, I've come to dislike the whole idea of a "stakeholder."

That word assumes that some people and organizations in the Salem area have more of a stake in how our city grows and develops than other people and organizations. In short, "stakeholder"  is an elitist, narrow-minded concept. It would be more honest to call this committee something like, "Our Salem Selected Special Interests Committee."

Second, as Slater noted, why should two Salem City Council members be advising City of Salem staff on how to update a plan that, I assume, will be reviewed and approved by the City Council at some point?

And I'm also assuming that Marion County, Polk County, and the City of Keizer also will be weighing in on the Salem Area Comprehensive Plan update. So why are officials from these entities taking up three spots on the committee?

The makeup of the committee does seem unduly political. I'm including the Salem Area Chamber of Commerce CEO in that category, since the Chamber has been a highly politicized organization (not so much recently, admittedly).

In January 2017 I wrote a blog post, "Few City of Salem 'stakeholders' are ordinary citizens." This was in regard to the City's Strategic Planning Process, of which the Comprehensive Plan update is an outgrowth. Excerpts:

Ah, yes, that wonderfully perplexing term, stakeholder. The dictionary has a couple of definitions that make sense in this context: one that has a stake in an enterprise; one who is involved in or affected by a course of action.

So seemingly every Salem resident and property owner, along with every person who works in or regularly visits Salem, is a stakeholder in the City's strategic planning process.

One would think that this would be an opportunity for City officials to hear from people who usually don't have much of a voice in civic affairs. 

Well, anyone who thinks like that would be wrong.

...I'm bothered by the mostly insular "good old boy/girl" approach to choosing these community stakeholders. Like I said, everybody in Salem has a stake in how our city grows, evolves, changes, addresses its problems.

Asking members of the Powers That Be strategic planning questions is almost certainly going to lead to answers pointing to a continuation of their privileged position. Yet this is what City officials have done. 

The current makeup of the Our Salem Stakeholder Advisory Committee does have some good choices. But City officials and the consultants they are working with should seriously consider making some changes to the committee members.

It just seems like there are too many card-carrying members of the Powers That Be club on the committee, and not enough people with a special passion and expertise in making Salem a more livable community for everybody, not just the already privileged.

UPDATE: I just noticed that the Breakfast on Bikes blogger also wrote about this issue today in "Comprehensive Plan Update Already Prompts Head Scratching." He finds the composition of the Stakeholder Advisory Committee to be puzzling, just as Michael Slater and I did. The Keizer Mayor, Cathy Clark, and global warming denier Sam Brentano (Marion County Commissioner) are mentioned without using their names:
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Over on FB there is already a conversation about this, so there's not much new here to say. But maybe just to amplify concerns that the project already looks compromised from the start?

• If it's "our Salem," why is there a Mayor from another city that is frequently dismissive of Salem, indeed whose municipal origin story and self-identity is all about "not-Salem"? That's not "ours" that's negation!
• If the project is supposed to include a greenhouse gas assessment, why is a prominent denialist on the committee?

Sure there's a need to have diversity and some debate on the committee. But is this set up with the right diversity and for the right debates?

The committee's composition looks like something designed for gridlock and the status quo. It doesn't look very productive.
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Then the Breakfast on Bikes blogger theorizes about why, at least in part, the committee members were chosen:
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But its composition looks like it might be intended to produce something extra. One way of looking at the odd composition is to note the number of people who also sit on the SKATS Policy Committee, who have for several years resisted any kind of greenhouse gas assessment or scenario planning. Is this "Our Salem" process actually a way to do what SKATS has refused to do? There may be some subtext or other maneuvering going on here.

It also seems worth noticing that while this committee just appeared fully formed as announced, the committee for the Crosswalk Committee will have a process and recruitment.

[T]he City will seek community input and participation from Salem’s 18 neighborhood associations in a Project Advisory Committee to help develop a Safer Crossings Program.

Why didn't Our Salem have a similar announcement and solicitation?

 

Statesman Journal partnership with Verify More seems creepy

About a week ago Salem's daily newspaper, the Statesman Journal, ran a story, "Statesman Journal partners with nonprofit on political candidates' background checks." 

Most businesses run job candidates through a background check before hiring, to ensure there are no surprises or issues that didn't come up during the interview process.

With that in mind, the Statesman Journal is partnering with a nonpartisan, nonprofit called Verify More to do background checks on Mid-Valley political candidates.

This idea struck me as strange at the time. Now that I've learned more about Verify More, I'm adding disturbing and creepy to describe how I feel about this budding partnership with the Statesman Journal.

What got me to look into this was a message I received from a local candidate for public office. This person told me:

Not sure if you'll find this interesting, but this "non-partisan" non-profit seems to be run and funded by right-wingers. I looked up the guy, David Doud, when I got the invite. He ran for office in Washington a few times as a Republican and lost. Then, the board of the "non-profit" are mostly lobbyists from what I could tell. I talked with a few other candidates and a democratic consultant confirmed that they're funded by real estate developers and other corporate lobbying groups.

I haven't been able to learn who exactly is funding Verify More. The organization's website doesn't share that information, from what I could tell. But let's assume that the Partners listed on the website are financial contributors to Verify More. 

Most of these organizations do seem to tilt toward the conservative side of the political spectrum, aside from Amplify Washington and Ballotpedia.  And David Doud, the founder of Verify More, was indeed a Republican when he ran for Commissioner of the Port of Seattle. 

In his 2009 race for Port Commissioner, Seattle's the Stranger publication had a pleasingly caustic piece about Doud, "David Doud: Dickish!" This was their election endorsement statement. 

So this is another sign that Doud leans rightward.

The piece in the Stranger also discussed numerous false or misleading statements David Doud made in his campaign materials, including my favorite -- citing the "Seattle Times online" as the source of a quote that wasn't made by a reporter or editorial writer, but by someone who commented on a Seattle Times story. 

Given that Doud now supposedly is all about fostering clean political campaigning, it sure seems discordant that seemingly he didn't run his Port Commissioner campaign that way.

At any rate, I'm left with a feeling that the Statesman Journal may end up regretting its partnership with Doud and his Verify More organization.

There certainly isn't much history to go on. Currently Verify More only has lined up four newspapers to partner with (including the Statesman Journal), and has conducted thirty-one background checks, all on candidates in the state of Washington. 

Actually there is more to the Verify More investigation than a background check, as the organization's database lists three categories: Background Check, Resume Verification, and Social Media screening. Here's how the FAQ's describe each:

Background check: Our Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) approved background checks are self-authorized, voluntary and limited in scope to a Multi-State Instant Criminal Check, National Sex Offender Registry, Criminal County Search (10-Year Address History), Criminal Federal Search (10-Year Address History), Civil Federal Search (10-Year Address History), Civil County Search (10-Year Address History). Finally, we offer candidates a safe forum from which to disclose prior criminal convictions or other adverse information beyond the scope of our reports.

Resume Verification: Education, Employment, Professional Credentials, and Military Service Records (e.g. Medals, Tours of Duty), i.e. DD214/SF180.

Social Media screening: There are two types of social media searches: 1) ‘Character Search’ includes negative behaviours a candidate may exhibit online by scouring all publically available content (excludes non-user generated content). 2) ‘Reputation Search’ provides a 360 degree view of a candidate’s reputation by searching all publically available online content (excludes non-user generated content)

The 31-person politician database currently has only one non-green Clear or Verified rating on the 93 ratings. Terry Harder got a red ALERT on the social media screen. 


Naturally I had to view the report so I could see what sort of "negative behaviours" (English spelling, for some reason) candidate Harder was exhibiting online. What I found was shocking!

By which I mean, I found it shocking that Verify More would put a big red ALERT next to a candidate's name because the person had some mention of marijuana on Facebook, given that the sale, growing, and use of marijuana is legal in Washington state. 

This is one of the reasons I find Verify More to be creepy.

Obviously it's Social Media screening is highly subjective. Yet Harder's opponent would be able to cite Verify More in a campaign ad that says "Terry Harder's character rated an ALERT from a group that checks the background of candidates for public office."

I'll do my best to keep an open mind about Verify More's upcoming ratings of Oregon candidates. I'm just suspicious of the organization's motives, and also its methodology.  

Jim Moore talks Oregon mid-term election at Salem City Club

I've heard political analyst Jim Moore speak after elections, but today was the first time I'd heard Moore offer up his take before an election. 

Before Moore started his Salem City Club presentation, I told someone sitting at my table that I hoped Moore wasn't going to throw cold water on the chances of Oregon progressives in the upcoming mid-term election. 

Thankfully, he didn't, as I'll explain below. But though I wish Moore's fingers in the photo I took of him were indicating how small Republican chances were, actually his gesture had some other meaning. (Or maybe no meaning.)

Moore, a political science professor at Pacific University, did refer quite a few times to the possibility of a Blue Wave. Early on in his talk, though, Moore said that while there are indications this could happen, he wasn't sure Oregon was going to become even bluer than it is now.

Still, current Oregon voter registration percentages Moore supplied are encouraging for liberals like me:

Democrat -- 35.4%
Republican -- 25.9%
Unaffiliated -- 31.9%
Independent party -- 4.5%

Now, Moore observed that Republicans who are depressed by the 10 point voter registration gap between them and Democrats like to say, look at the Unaffiliated and Independent Party percentages. Combined, they total more than registered Democrats.

But here's the problem with that logic.

Moore said that most of the "unaffiliated" actually are people who would be D's and R's, but don't want to be identified with a political party. Meaning, they aren't really swing voters. And they vote at a 20 to 35% lower rate than registered Democrats and Republicans.

So Knute Buehler has to be considered an underdog in his attempt to unseat Kate Brown as Governor.

Moore did share a slide showing that recent victories by Democrats in the Oregon Governor race have been by fairly small margins, about 4.5% on average. And he noted that nationally, the GOP would be overjoyed to put a chink in the West Coast "Blue Wall" by Oregon choosing a Republican governor.

However, while polls show a close race between Buehler and Brown, Moore said that even with Phil Knight's recent $1 million contribution to the Buehler campaign, Brown has been outpacing him in fundraising. Here's the current money in the bank for the three Governor candidates:

Buehler -- $1.6 million
Brown -- $4.3 million
Independent party candidate -- $222

That isn't a typo. The Independent Party candidate, whose name I instantly forgot after Moore mentioned it, has a grand total of $222 in campaign funds. 

During the Q & A period, Moore was asked about the chance of Greg Walden being upset in his conservative district by Democrat Jamie McLeod-Skinner, who is driving around the wide open spaces of eastern Oregon with a teardrop camper in tow of her Jeep. 

(Moore observed that stories about McLeod-Skinner usually cite the 40,000 miles she's driven; but everybody in eastern Oregon drives long distances, he said wryly.)

Citing two Republican Congressional representatives in Washington state who could lose to a Democrat if a Blue Wave manifests, Moore said that Walden would need a even bigger Blue Wave to be ousted. So this is possible, albeit unlikely. 

Regarding Oregon legislative races, only four are competitive in Moore's view, two House and two Senate races. None involve candidates in the Salem area. Moore said that Democrats are going to maintain control of the state House and Senate. The question is whether Dems will end up with a super-majority, which could happen with a large enough Blue Wave.

On the ballot measure front, Moore observed that when the Oregon legislature approved the "sanctuary state" bill that prevents local law enforcement agencies from helping to enforce federal immigration laws, both the Democratic and Republican parties were in favor of this. 

Moore urged everybody to read the second paragraph of Measure 105, which would repeal the sanctuary state law, because it says that law enforcement hands aren't tied if an undocumented immigrant is suspected of having committed a crime. Moore didn't think that voters would approve Measure 106, which prohibits state funds from paying for abortions.

In off-year elections, Moore said that with just a few exceptions in past years, the party that doesn't hold the presidency loses seats in Congress. National issues often affect mid-terms, as in 2006, when opposition to the Iraq War hurt Republicans.

However, in the era of Trump, Moore said that the main issue is Trump himself. And given how unpopular Trump is, that's great news for those, like me, who want a Blue Wave to wash over not only Oregon, but the whole country.  

I'm liking the Salem Reporter, but have ideas for improvements

Today was the official kick-off for the Salem Reporter, our town's fresh online option for getting local and state news. A few stories had been published earlier, but this was the scheduled opening day.

The web site design is a clone of another paper (Malheur Enterprise) operated by Les Zaitz, who founded Salem Reporter along with businessman Larry Tokarski. 

Salem Reporter looks clean, bright, modern, and easy to read. Given that there won't be lots of stories on the Salem Reporter site, it makes sense to simply list the latest stories on the home page, plus a brief description of each, with the full story just a click away.

My favorite story on Day 1 was the one shown in the image above, "Secretary of State remains mum on health details, says he's feeling better." Reporter Aubrey Wieber did a great job with a sensitive topic -- Dennis Richardson's brain cancer diagnosis, and how it is affecting Richardson's ability to carry out his duties.

I hadn't seen anybody else reporting on this issue.

Not the Oregonian, not the Statesman Journal, nobody, to my knowledge. Congrats to Salem Reporter for having the journalistic fortitude to write about Richardson's medical problem so informatively, and without sensationalizing it.

Excerpts:

But behind the scenes, speculation has begun to swirl through the Capitol Mall about how far along Richardson’s cancer is and how severe are the effects.

Richardson and his office have withheld that information. Richardson’s staff has refused to shed more light on his condition, aside from releasing a few videos where the secretary told the public his health was improving and he was still dedicated to the job.

His staff won’t disclose the type of cancer, the prognosis or what sort of treatment Richardson opted for. Richardson and his staff have repeatedly said they will not answer questions about his health.

It’s a change in philosophy for the public official who has advocated for transparency throughout his career.

...In contrast, the late Sen. John McCain was forthcoming about his tumor, telling the public what sort of cancer he had, what sort of treatment he would undergo and what his prognosis was.

Early on, Zaitz said that Salem Reporter would act as if it were the only paper in town, or words to that effect. I respect that sentiment, but I also hope that Salem Reporter will continue to fill the journalistic void where other publications either fear to tread, or haven't trod.

I say this in part because for now, at least, Salem Reporter isn't going to be able to duplicate what the Statesman Journal is able to offer subscribers. Like, sports news, national news, an opinion section. So for me, at least,the "added value" of Salem Reporter is going to come from stories that I'm not able to read anywhere else.

Regarding opinion, that's one of my favorite sections in a newspaper, right after the front page. Hopefully before too long the Salem Reporter will find a way to introduce some opinionating in this online news source.

Lastly, I wish the Salem Reporter would allow comments on its stories.

I enjoy both reading and writing comments on the Statesman Journal web site, which are linked to Facebook, thereby expanding the reach of comments and assuring that those who comment have a real name associated with what they say.

Comments also allow for readers to easily provide feedback to the reporter who writes a story. Fairly often I'll either point out an apparent error in a story, or something that is missing in a story. Also, I readily admit, I like to share a link to a blog post I've written on a subject in a Statesman Journal story.

Since Salem Reporter is an online news source, there needs to be more opportunity for readers to interact with both reporters and other subscribers. Right now Salem Reporter feels too much like a one-way street, rather than a two-way boulevard. 

Of course, I'm a blogger who is used to comments being left on posts that I write. Often I learn a lot from the entertaining comments,, as do visitors to my blogs.

If all politics is national now, what about local Salem politics?

Baby boomer that I am, I'm old enough to remember when what Yascha Mounk writes about in a New Yorker piece, "The Rise of McPolitics," was the lay of the political land in this country:

For much of the twentieth century, the real power in American politics rested not with U.S. representatives or senators but with the governors, mayors, and assemblymen who controlled local purse strings.

In many cases, men like Chafin got people elected to Congress in order to reward them for years of loyal service or to rid themselves of ambitious rivals, but national politics was of comparatively little importance. “The politicians who were crucial to the operation of the organization normally stayed home,” one scholar of the period observed.

At the federal level, the two parties resembled loose associations of disparate interests rather than ideologically cohesive movements. They had few resources and virtually no means of insuring ideological discipline among their members. Many Democrats were more conservative than many Republicans.

All of that had real advantages: Congress was, for much of the past century, a place of remarkable comity, where politicians routinely struck compromises on public spending or judicial appointments. Even as Americans found themselves deeply divided on everything from foreign policy to rock and roll, high politics was relatively free of acrimony.

But for sure, the times, they were a'changing.

Now, Mounk accurately says, almost everyone identifies as Democrat or Republican, progressive or conservative, since even independents are pretty much that in name only, since they tend to lean either leftward or rightward, not smack-dab upright in the middle.

As Daniel J. Hopkins, a political scientist at the University of Pennsylvania, chronicles in a new book, “The Increasingly United States” (Chicago), American politics has become thoroughly nationalized: voters pay vastly more attention to what is going on in Washington, D.C., than to what’s going on in their own town or state.

The Democratic and the Republican Parties have become much more homogeneous, offering largely the same ideological profile in Alabama as they do in Vermont. In each election, Americans now face a choice between two clearly demarcated alternatives of action.

This goes a long way toward explaining why voters here in Salem are much more likely to turn out in presidential election years than in the November mid-term elections, and why they also are much more likely to turn out in mid-term elections than in the May primary elections where, usually, Salem City Council and Mayoral races are decided.

(Since if someone wins 50% +1 of the votes, the "primary" turns out to be the final election for that seat).

Mounk goes on to write:

Once upon a time, every community in America had its own store with its own local products. Today, chains like Walmart and Home Depot offer the same wares all over the country. The parties, Hopkins believes, have undergone a similar process of homogenization: “Just as an Egg McMuffin is the same in every McDonald’s, America’s two major political parties are increasingly perceived to offer the same choices throughout the country.”

...Hopkins is a sure-footed guide to the twilight of local politics, and he’s aware of the risks that these developments may pose. Voters’ focus on national issues, he points out, is likely to “crowd out more local concerns.”

And since most Americans pay little attention to local politics and are likely to vote for just about any candidate who shares their party affiliation, mayors and governors no longer have as much reason to place the needs of their constituents over those of special-interest groups: “Their actions in office might well reflect the wishes of the people most likely to advance their careers, whether they are activists, donors, or fellow partisans from other states.”

We've seen this happening in Salem.

In the early 2000's the Salem Area Chamber of Commerce decided it was time to get rid of the liberal Mayor and City Council majority. The Chamber didn't target individual local politicians. The goal was to put conservatives in charge of City Hall, not progressives.

After this goal was achieved, a predictable counter-reaction occurred.

Progressive Salem was formed with the opposite goal: to put liberals in charge of City Hall. And that goal also was achieved, since currently progressives have a 5-4 majority on the City Council, which will change to 6-3 next January, since Jackie Leung unseated Steve McCoid in last May's election and will take office in 2019.

The New Yorker piece ends on an semi-optimistic note. Yes, we now live in an era of intense national political polarization. And this filters down to local and state politics. 

Here in Salem, as in most places, local offices are nominally non-partisan. But as noted above, in recent years local elections have taken on a R v. D or conservative v. progressive tone, echoing the national Us versus Them mentality.

I don't think this is a good thing, but at the moment it is an inescapable thing.

Trump has made it very difficult for Democrats to support any Republicans, and Trump's high approval rating among Republicans makes it very difficult for them to support any Democrats. 

Nonetheless, Mounk leaves us with some room for hope.

The nationalization of American politics has led to the rise of two political mega-identities. But it does not foreordain that they will be incapable of finding common ground, or that the current period of intense partisanship will go on forever. In the past, times of heightened animosity have often been followed by periods of unexpected calm.

Ordinary citizens are less polarized in their opinions than the political parties in Washington; many long for moderation. And, despite the central role that attacks on minorities played in Trump’s campaign, most Americans have grown more, not less, tolerant of compatriots who do not share their ethnicity, their religion, or their sexual orientation.

In ways that Schlesinger anticipated, the deep divide between supporters and opponents of President Trump is subjecting national unity to a fearful test. The danger that a highly nationalized and deeply partisan politics poses to American institutions is undoubtedly real.

But, just as it would be naïve to pretend that a happy ending is assured because our political institutions have managed to incorporate new groups in the past, so, too, would it be cynical to conclude that America is too riven with conflict—or too rotten with injustice—to be redeemed.