NY Times Kristof (1/3): All gone wrong when we’re in charge

By Taxpayers Association of Oregon
OregonWatchdog.com

This is part one of highlights of New York Times columnist, Pulitzer Prize winner, and former 2022 Oregon Democrat Governor candidate, Nick Kristof, who wrote a scathing article on Oregon and California’s (West Coast states) failures.

Nick Kristof wrote;

“…some of the bluest parts of the country — cities on the West Coast — are a mess. Centrist voters can reasonably ask: Why put liberals in charge nationally when the places where they have greatest control are plagued by homelessness, crime and dysfunction? I’ll try to answer that question in a moment, but liberals like me do need to face the painful fact that something has gone badly wrong where we’re in charge, from San Diego to Seattle. I’m 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 doesn’t result in progress.  We are more likely to believe that “housing is a human right” than conservatives in Florida or Texas, but less likely to actually get people housed. We accept a yawning gulf between our values and our outcomes.”

OUR COMMENT: This map proves Kristof’s point.  People are fleeing liberal states (Oregon, California, New York) and moving to conservative states.

 

OUR COMMENT: This map also proves Kristof’s point.  The highest cost-of-living states are liberal.

 

Kristof further says,

“So the problem isn’t with liberalism. It’s with West Coast liberalism. The two states with the highest rates of unsheltered homelessness are California and Oregon. The three states with the lowest rates of unsheltered homelessness are all blue ones in the Northeast: Vermont, New York and Maine. Liberal Massachusetts has some of the finest public schools in the country, while liberal Washington and Oregon have below-average high school graduation rates. Oregon ranks dead last for youth mental health services, according to Mental Health America, while Washington, D.C., and Delaware rank best. Drug overdoses appear to have risen last year in every Democratic state on the West Coast, while they dropped last year in each Democratic state in the Northeast. The homicide rate in Portland last year was more than double that of New York City.”

OUR COMMENT: Here is Portland’s homicide rate that explains Kristof’s point:

OUR COMMENT: When Oregon lawmakers voted to roll back legalizing hard drugs, the liberals were outside in the State Capitol marching and calling making drugs illegal was “white supremacy”.

 

NOTE: Kristof would explain in his article that the issue is West Coast liberalism as opposed to liberal practiced in other states, and say that Republican states fare must worse on average.  We encourage you to read his full article and support journalists via subscribership if you find that you like their writings and wish to hear from their more.

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