Editorials

It could be a trying next four years. Not to mention boring—will it really be all Dumpf all the time? If today’s new issue of the Berkeley Daily Planet is any indication, we run the risk of being swallowed up by the “president” Lump behemoth.

(Yes, I still can’t resist the somewhat childish practice of putting his title in scare quotes and refusing to type his ugly name, sorry.)

All but two of the submissions I’ve posted today, Friday, are about that guy and the woes he’s releasing upon the nation, and one of those two was a personal essay and the other a review.

I’m going to indulge myself in a few words about last Saturday’s march, and then perhaps we could think for a moment about what’s going on in Berkeley.  

As a currently unchurched person, marching in Oakland was as close to a religious experience as I’ve had in a long time. My church experience in my youth was full of music and color and a fair amount of joy, and that’s what last Saturday felt like to me.  

I’ve become accustomed in recent years to political events where I know many of the participants—same old same old—but this one was dramatically different. I saw maybe ten people I recognized, including an architect whose views on smart growth I’ve frequently criticized, plus tens of thousands of complete strangers. And a handsome bunch they were too: all races, all genders, all ages, but a lot of them young with kids, a nice change from my wrinkled grey peers. 

Even before we joined the march, I saw a sight that gave me real hope that things will eventually be all right. In the crosswalk in front of us was a very tall African-American father, carrying his daughter on his shoulders, and she was wearing a gorgeous pink dress. I still haven’t mastered my cell phone camera, or I’d have pictures for you, of that beautiful family and many more, and of all the wonderful witty handmade signs they carried.  

And it turned out that this scene was replicated all over the country. My daughter happened to be in New Orleans, and reported seeing a remarkable event: a policeman in full riot gear embracing a marcher there. She didn’t take a picture because she was afraid it would make them worry that they were being watched by the wrong sort. 

Another aspect of modern life that I haven’t mastered (and in fact scorned) is Facebook. But my sister told me that she’d encountered a much younger first cousin that I’d never met there, so I asked him to be my “friend” (I still can’t use friend as a verb.) Looking at his page, I discovered many pictures of his immediate family marching in their own eastern city, looking for all the world like our West Coast set. 

That was heartwarming, but in the last week I heard someone describe the American voters who made up Hillary Clinton’s majority as being from the coasts, a few successful cities and college towns. That would be my folks. The minority of the November voters, on the other hand, live in the wide open spaces where acreage counts more than souls. And though Clinton outpolled Rump by a cool three million votes, that still leaves quite a few who were fooled by him, none of them my relatives of course.  

When the boom falls on these misguided suckers, as it surely will in the long run, will they realize that they’ve been deceived and vote the scoundrels out? I wish I could say that I think so, but I can’t be sure. 

Meanwhile, life here on the left coast goes on as before. No, that’s not right, because Lump has thrust us all into the midst of issues we didn’t choose and don’t know how to deal with. Cities like Berkeley and Oakland have bravely assumed the burden of protecting the undocumented, a very worthwhile decision which might have unexpected consequences. 

Just one example: the discussion around homelessness and the housing shortage (not necessarily the same thing) has centered around whether we can build our way out of either or both, and if so where the money will come from. 

Here there’s a vigorous discussion about whether it’s better to require affordable units to be included in expensive new buildings or to collect a fee in lieu of requiring affordable units, which can then be used to build low-priced housing instead. What’s new is that the latter position is based on the idea that a modest amount of in-lieu money collected from developers could be leveraged by federal matching funds. But now it’s “could have been” instead.  

It’s increasingly apparent that there won’t be much federal housing money coming down to Berkeley or anywhere else, with or without penalties the Mump administration might impose on sanctuary cities. And to make matters worse, a lot of the public housing in the Bay Area, built 40 years ago or more, is now occupying prime urban land which is coveted by boom developers who are trying various stratagems to acquire it for speculative market rate projects. They typically make lavish promises to talk current residents out of their apartments, and often don’t deliver. 

This is an important but complicated topic about which we hope to report more in depth in the near future. There are many more federal polices which have local impact which will require close scrutiny after the regime changes.  

Today’s New York Times has a chilling article about Steve Bannon, Hump’s Big Brother, about a meeting where he denounced the media as his main man’s major opponent. Well, maybe chilling, but maybe not. It’s kind of nice to think that we’ve got them scared—and the media now includes all of us, not just those who do it for a living and not just in California. We’ve got a lot of talent on our side, a whole bunch of smart people who are capable of producing all sorts of persuasive information, from Letters to the Editor to YouTube videos and even major movies.  

Let’s just get on it, shall we? We’ve got our work cut out for us, that’s for sure.