Assigned Mayor at Birth: Ted Wheeler
Portland, OR is a unique city that allows its mayor to also be its commissioner of police. It's as bad as you think it is.
America. It’s a land of cities. And towns, too! And who better to lead America’s towns than America’s mayors. They’re like little miniature presidents who are easier to yell at in person. They crunch the numbers to make sure every school has its own boy in blue. But above all, they epitomize the American Dream of reaching your dreams whether your parents are real estate developers or hedge fund managers. In this miniseries on Hayseed Heresy, we’re highlighting some of the USA’s most noteworthy mayors from Chicago to Cheyenne.
Let’s not waste time with an intro: you all have seen what’s been happening in Portland. You’ve seen the feds snatching up protesters in vans, you’ve seen confrontations between the fascists and antifascists, and you probably saw someone get killed over the weekend.
Downtown Portland is coming up on its hundredth consecutive day of protest, which began in the wake of George Floyd but have taken on so much more. It’s about the deep racism and corruption the city government lays down on its people. It’s become a cold civil against federal goons, pinkertons, and self-appointed right-wing militiamen. Before today, I think a lot of average folks still held the (completely unfair) idea that Portland-like many west coast cities-was just a place where hipsters liked to cause shit because they were offended about their neighbors not recycling. But if you’re watching what’s happening in the city right now and still think Portlanders are just whiny liberals and that this chaos is unjustified, you’re beyond saving.
There are many villains in this story, but if you had to narrow it down, one person has more blood on their hands than any other. While cops, feds, and chuds are raining gas and bullets down on people, this person has hidden behind a podium and refused to take accountability.
I give you Ted Wheeler, mayor of Portland AND commissioner of Portland Police Bureau (PPB).
God. What a heinous face.
Anyway, let’s talk about the sexiest man alive (whose birthday is this week!). In a way, the Wheeler family is Oregon’s equivalent of the Kennedys. His great-grandfather Coleman Wheeler started a lumber business in a coastal town that now bears his family name; it remained owned by subsequent generations of the Wheeler family and merged with several other companies to become a Fortune 500 company before being sold in 2002. Ted’s father Sam held $83 million worth in shares at the time of the sale. That said, don’t tell him he comes from privilege, he’s more than that!
"People don't really have a clue about who I am or what makes me tick or what my values are," [Wheeler] says. "It's never been about the money in my family."
In that regard, don’t ask him about the decade he spent working for Bank of America and Copper Mountain Trust Co. Or about his $1.5 million dollar condo in the city.
Instead, you should judge him by his record.
You know how some people think that politicians should run the government like a business? Ted, owing to his capitalist forefathers, has done just that to Portland. Since taking over as mayor in 2016, Wheeler has overseen massive increases to the budget of the historically brutal PPB while instituting austerity on community resources like parks and rec. Like a lot of west coast cities, Portland’s socially liberal culture has been a perfect disguise for rapidly growing inequality, and Wheeler has been instrumental in it all.
Given this context, the current conflict in Portland was inevitable; it just needed a little spark, and it got one in the form of COVID19 and the Floyd Rebellion. So much has happened over the past three months that couldn’t possibly fit in this newsletter, so I urge you to follow community organizations like PDXGDC and local reporters in the streets like Robert Evans.
As the protests continued, Wheeler has repeated the bullshit liberal talking point that the violence is only helping Trump’s reelection and that everyone should stop and accept the current reality. Of course, neither Wheeler nor Police Chief Chuck Lovell have offered any solutions, just empty talk and complaints that it’s too hard to make the city an equitable place to live. Meanwhile, as reactionary forces invade Portland trying to harm protesters, PPB has made it clear that they would rather harass their own citizens.
Over the past months of protests against police brutality, Portland officers have repeatedly slashed protesters’ car tires—a tactic PPB has explained is a safety precaution. Asked why officers did not puncture the tires of cars seen driving at members of the public Saturday, Lovell said that option is “not always feasible.”
It’s remarkable that nobody in Portland except the police like Ted Wheeler right now. The folks in the streets hate him for obvious reasons, while the NIMBYs and business tyrants are mad about the folks in the streets screaming about how much they hate him, so they hate him too. As most cishet men tend to do, he is blatantly ignoring the messages people are sending him and acting like he’s stuck in a Catch-22. (Pic unrelated)
He’s up for re-election in November and his opponent seems alright from what I’ve read of her, but there isn’t time to wait for that. As several community organizations put it (in a way better than I ever could), the time is now for Ted to GTFO. Otherwise, don’t expect things to lighten up in Portland any time soon.
Ted Wheeler may have been assigned mayor at birth, but he will be a criminal at death. The bodies bruised by PPB are just as much his responsibility. May his retirement come soon.
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