RtOW: Chapter 9 - The Way in Present Day
Oregon’s diversity can and should be celebrated and the unique and disparate cultures, economies, and histories of its communities should be respected.
*Editor’s Note* For the next several Fridays/Saturdays, I will be posting an excerpt from my book, “Rediscovering the Oregon Way.” This effort started two years ago in the middle of my current role as a graduate school student. I spent weekend mornings doing research, late nights conducting interviews, and spare moments looking for typos. Note that this chapter was largely completed before March 10, 2020.
Read the intro, Read Chapter 1, Read Chapter 2, Read Chapter 3, Read Chapter 4, Read Chapter 5, Read Chapter 6, Read Chapter 7, Read Part I of Chapter 8, Read Part II of Chapter 8.
The intervening years between the end of the Sizemore siege on the Oregon Way and the present have wrought an atmosphere that Dave Frohnmayer would have regarded as toxic, if not lethal to the Oregon Way. At the time of writing, the present is an Oregon enveloped by the COVID pandemic and grappling with George Floyd protests, especially those in Portland. Both the pandemic and the protests have highlighted the deterioration of the Oregon Way. Social institutions have continued to become more partisan and less inclusive. Norms have evaporated faster than snow on a Bend road as politics has morphed into an actual battle of ideas rather than a figurative one. Whatever values we currently share are confined to values grounded in opposition such as the bipartisan condemnation of aggressive and unchecked police tactics. And, democratic processes have proven woefully inadequate as politicians pander to their bases rather than compromise on common sense solutions that align with the Oregon Way.
Social Institutions in the Current Era
On social institutions, the decline of public trust in the media illustrates the extent to which a vital subset of social institutions have fallen short of their duty to protect the Oregon Way. According to a biennial study by Gallup and the Knight Foundation:
More than eight in ten Americans say that, in general, the news media is 'critical' (49%) or 'very important' (35%) to democracy. Similar high percentages say the same is true of the media providing accurate and fair news reports (92%), ensuring Americans are informed about public affairs (91%) and holding leaders accountable for their actions (85%).
The problem is that this shared value has not resulted in social institutions capable of meeting the demands and needs of the public. A full 49% of Americans see a "great deal" of political bias in the news and 37% report a "fair amount" of such bias. As a result, people doubt the objectivity of where they get their news and especially question the bias of news received by others. Concerns of bias have eroded any perception of the media as a social institution capable of upholding any Way, including the Oregon Way.
Forty-eight percent of Americans assign a "great deal" of blame to the media for creating political divides in the country; even more, 49%, say the media can right its wrongs and could do a "great deal" to heal the divisions that exist. But, as hinted to above, the extent to which any values are shared these days is limited by entrenched partisanship. The broad unity around expecting more of and desiring more from the media is undercut by partisan differences in the perception of the media: whereas 71 percent of Republicans have an unfavorable opinion of the news media that percentage is just 22 percent among Democrats. So calls for change are diluted and distorted by partisan priorities that result in the perpetuation of a disappointing status quo.
Assuming the findings of the nationwide Knight Foundation report hold true for Oregonians, then statistics on the health of journalism in the state reinforce the notion that this subset of social institutions are no longer able to uphold and strengthen the Oregon Way. Newspaper circulation in Oregon in 2004 topped 1.4 million, accounting for both daily and weekly newspapers. In 2019, that number dipped by 41 percent to just 790,000. Meanwhile, over the same time frame, the number of papers dropped from 104 to 83.
Weekly papers, as depicted in the graphic below, have merged or disappeared along the I-5 corridor, the coast, and in Northeast Oregon. It follows that fewer papers are reaching fewer people challenging the ability for the papers themselves to invest in investigative and long form reporting. This trend also reduces the likelihood that any two Oregonians share a common source of news, one avenue for fostering more shared values and norms and encouraging participation in democratic processes.
Other social institutions have seen their capacity to contribute to the Oregon Way decline. Consider the plight of neighborhood associations in Portland. Based on attacks of being exclusive and unrepresentative, several previously-celebrated neighborhood associations have become the targets of “progressive” City Commissioners, such as Chole Eudaly (now, former Commissioner). At her urging, the Council voted to withhold funding from 17 neighborhood associations.
Though the Councilors in support of the withdrawal claimed to be doing so because of the NAs not submitting several financial documents, the vote reflected a growing animosity among some Portlanders toward the organizations. In 2019, a 25-member panel went as far as to recommend to the City Council that the code establishing the NAs should be scrapped in favor of a set of "aspirational statements." Commissioner Eudaly and others responded favorably to the tenets of the proposal because aligned with their aim of placing more power in the hands of "affinity groups such as those formed around religion or race," based on reporting from Gordon Friedman, then writing for The Oregonian. Notably, leaders from the 95 NAs pointed out that such changes would have "kneecap[ped]" their organizations, even though they have been "hailed nationally," per Friedman, "as potent examples of citizen activism." Consideration of potential changes to the NAs have been delayed, but the attacks on these social institutions demonstrate the unstable ground on which even storied institutions rest.
Religious organizations likewise have seen their less than stable existence become more uncertain as congregations decrease in size. Back in 2004, Oregon led the nation with 18 percent of adults identifying as non-religious. The was also one of eight states with fewer than 80 percent of residents identifying as Christian (76%). By 2014, 31 percent of Oregonian adults identified as "nones." Not only is religious identification declining but spiritual beliefs on the whole are becoming less common. For instance, belief in God diminished from 63 percent of adults to 57 percent over the same decade. Similarly, the percentage of adults stating that religion is "not at all important" has jumped from 12 to 17 percent from 2004 to 2014. A majority of Oregonians source their guidance on what is right and wrong from “common sense” rather than religion or even science.
This pronounced and sustained decline in religiosity is worrisome given the positive correlation between religiosity and factors indicative of a healthy community. Daniel Hungerman's article in The Future of Children Journal outlines these correlations. Hungerman provides compelling evidence that where religion thrives, people thrive; where religion thrives, it at least partially stems the social ills that have stressed the legs of the Oregon Way. When assessed on a nationwide basis, religious congregations have stepped up where our local, state, and federal governments have stepped back—83.1 percent of congregations perform social service activities; fourteen percent have one of more paid staff member that spends at least 25 percent of their time on social service projects; and, nearly ten percent have started a nonprofit focused on providing social services.
A quick survey of issues affecting the durability of the Oregon Way reveals the positive effect rendered by congregations and their members. On income inequality, high levels of religious participation are positively correlated with social mobility—giving children of low-income parents a better chance of achieving higher economic standing later in life. On a lack of civic engagement, "[r]eligiosity is often the most important predictor of outcomes related to social engagement," and, per Hungerman, "[t]hese positive results aren't specific to any particular religious tradition." On financial vulnerability, "religious individuals' consumption and self-reported wellbeing appear to be relatively less sensitive to income shocks."
Many of the positive impacts associated with religiosity are tied to social institutions in general. After all, the term "social institution" includes "[t]he family, religion, law, politics, economics, education, science, medicine, and the military," as defined by James Henslin in Essentials of Sociology. It follows that these institutions impact just about every day-to-day action, so where they are healthy, the individuals they pertain to are also likely healthy. That’s why the recorded decline in media and religion in Oregon is so troubling. It’s also why the decline in familial stability in Oregon is deeply concerning.
Family instability compounds the vulnerability that comes from deteriorating social institutions. Low-income Oregonians tend to be disproportionately susceptible to this instability. Contrast the 47% of children in low-income Oregonian families that live with a single parent, to the 18% of children in above low-income families that do so. “Low-income children are more likely to move out of poverty if they are born to married parents,” according to the Oregon Community Foundation’s report, “Toward a Thriving Future: Closing the Opportunity Gap for Oregon’s Kids.”
Across the nation, as reported by David Leonhardt in The New York Times, “states with more two-parent families also have higher rates of upward mobility.” Given this information, two stats identified by the OCF are worthy of concern: first, “one-third of Oregon children live with just one parent”; and, second, children in rural Oregon are increasingly likely to live with just one part. Importantly, the divergence in the familial stability experienced by urban, wealthier Oregonians and their rural, poorer counterparts maps onto fissures that have made it harder than ever for the Oregon Way to apply across the state.
The economy as a social institution has likewise failed to keep Oregonians on either side of the Cascades together. Due to a lack of diversification, rural Oregon counties will have a harder time climbing out of the recession induced by COVID. A breakdown of Oregon’s industries by the Oregon Office of Economic Analysis lists leisure/hospitality and natural resources—bread and butter industries for more rural counties—as the most at risk of long-term economic decline due to the pandemic. The Office likewise forecasts that in juxtaposition to the Portland area, which is suspected to experience future economic tailwinds, more rural parts of the state will face sustained headwinds. The economic downturn is also disproportionately impacting Oregonians of color, further diminishing the chance of the Oregon Way finding fertile soil to spread among a wide swath of Oregonians. The fact of the matter is the state’s social institutions have not created bridges across divisions—geographic, ideological, racial—that are becoming even wider.
The Absence of Statewide Norms
Oregonians on different sides of the Cascades and, by proxy, on different sides of the ideological spectrum have developed new norms of acceptable political behavior. Two case studies illustrate how Oregonians no longer have common expectations of how to engage in democratic processes: first, the serial walkouts performed by Republican officials in the state legislature; and, second, the protests that erupted in Portland for upwards of two months after the death of George Floyd.
When Republicans in the state legislature walked out of the Capitol five times in the span of ten months to frustrate efforts by Democrats to pass a range of progressive legislation, the liberal media outlet Vox.com accused them of “subverting democracy.” The subversion of democracy, according to an editorial in The East Oregonian, was committed by the Democratic majority. The paper specified that the Democrats continued to push the legislation despite it coming "woefully short" of receiving the necessary votes, even after "a series of amendments [were made] to help it get more support." In the eyes of the editorial team and, likely a far number of rural Oregonians, "Democrats behind the bill [had] an obligation to seek out a compromise with their Republican brethren." Through the filter of the four legs of the Way, it's positive that both sides expected the other to compromise, but the alignment with the Oregon Way ended there. Both sides perceived the other as veering off the Way.
The diction used by legislators on both sides of the aisle further illustrated the debasement of norms that previously upheld the Oregon Way. After Senate President Peter Courtney, though politely, threatened to send the Oregon State Police after the Republicans to bring them back to the Capitol. State Senator Brian Boquist, a Republican from Eastern Oregon, told Courtney to "[s]end bachelors" and advised that they "come heavily armed." Boquist received a relatively light punishment for his words—a requirement to notify State Police of his plans to enter the Capitol. It’s true that an objective observer would likely find Boquist’s words—implying violence unsanctioned by the state—unquestionably worse than the plea from Courtney, which amounted to a statement of his clear authority to haul legislators back into the chamber. Nevertheless, the exchange demonstrated that whatever norms had facilitated the Oregon Way within the Capitol were extinct. Long gone were the days of Larry Campbell and Vera Katz chatting across the aisle to pass major legislation.
Protests during the pandemic likewise revealed a drastic difference in norms among everyday Oregonians. Whereas Democrats tended to condemn the “re-open Oregon” protests held around the state near the start of shelter in place orders, many liberal-leaning Oregonians attended protests held during the same orders but in response to the death of George Floyd., Legislative officials even got involved on their respective sides of the protests: on the “Right,” Harney county Sheriff Dan Jenkins refused to enforce COVID-related orders issued by Governor Brown; and, on the “Left,” Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler somewhat famously or infamously participated in the protests, only to be pepper sprayed while do so. Both officials were condemned by Oregonians on the other side of the spectrum indicating that Oregonians had come to hold different people to different standards based on their party affiliation.
The protests themselves, both grounded in opposition to some form of legal authority (law enforcement and the federal government on the “Left,” and the state, by way of Governor Brown, on the “Right), were somewhat adverse to the Oregon Way’s reliance on solving problems through the legislative process and deference to elected officials. Neither of the groups of protesters expressed trust in elected officials but instead rallied behind their opposition to their respective conceptions of the elected establishment. By levying attacks on the governing system itself, the protestors undermined a norm at the heart of the Oregon Way—building formal institutions that present a structured, inclusive means for Oregonians across the state to participate.
The Freeze on Democratic Processes
The lack of faith in those processes was warranted. From a Portland City Commission that had resisted calls to drop its Galveston-model to political parties opposed to reforming electoral systems to increase participation, the Oregonians that protested had a litany of examples suggesting that their government was no longer worth engaging. Analysis of these two broken democratic processes, which have remained unchanged despite being pointed out as flawed, confirms that another leg of the Oregon Way has ceased to be reliable.
For a City that has long presented itself as on the vanguard of participatory and innovative democratic processes, the failure to fix Portland’s form of government—known as the Galveston model (“the model”)—has rightfully decreased the willingness of residents to engage with the political system. Labeled by the Portland City Club as "inefficient, unaccountable [and] unworkable," the model falls short of the government Portlanders need and deserve. Without getting too into the nitty gritty details of the model, it's enough to know that "the commission form of local government [in Portland] is organized such that city bureaus are run by commissioners with little, if any regard to their managerial or subject-matter expertise." Furthermore, the model makes it difficult to “set and pursue long-term and citywide priorities." Sounds problematic, right? Clearly no city that aims to lead in the 21st Century should tolerate such a broken system. Yet, the political will to restructure Portland's government has yet to emerge. The City Club's recommendations to (1) transition to a manager form of government, (2) increase the size of the City Council, and (3) change how commissioners are elected by adopting a district-based system rather than a citywide one should be immediately adopted.
Making these changes would align with the Oregon Way by upgrading the city’s democratic processes. There’s a reason Portland is the last large city to have its form of government—“over time it [has] proved to be as susceptible to corruption and abuse as the models it had replaced.” In fact, even Galveston adopted a different system—way back in 1960—due to “[p]ublic outrage over corruption,” among other factors. In addition to fostering corruption, Portland's model has been found to stymie the election of minority candidates. The City Club went as far as to state that “the current at-large system of voting represents a profound failure to promote equity.” More specifically, the current model fosters the underrepresentation of renters, individuals with lower incomes, and those in eastern and northern portions of the city. The current system also permits blatantly politically-motivated decisions that have no basis in good policy. By way of example, the City Club provided this anecdote in its report:
In one case, the Portland Bureau of Environmental Services (BES) had historically paid the Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT) for various street- cleaning services. When BES attempted to discontinue the payments, the council ultimately decided to simply cut the payments in half. This was a “purely political decision,” in contrast to the type of policy-based decision-making that a city manager would have been able to apply.
Furthermore, the current system frustrates robust participation from the public. Community members have labeled the current government as confusing and impersonal, due to the fact that no commissioner is directly accountable to a district within the city. These shortfalls evidence that Portland has a lot of room for improvement when it comes to designing its democratic processes to facilitate participation, permit accountability, and foster a more agile and appropriate response to the issues roiling the city, from homelessness to a death of diversity in elected offices.
It's true that Portlanders have shot down eight proposals to change their system of government, but those denials should not be interpreted as contemporary endorsements. The last attempt to change the government took place in 2007 and centered on a strong-mayor form of government that likewise did not appear to align with the tenets of the Oregon Way. It follows that the City Club’s recommendations should not be regarded as nonstarters. In fact, the recent election of Jo Ann Hardesty, who ran, in part, on reforming the City’s structure, signals that Portlanders are eager for a change. That signal became even stronger during the aforementioned Portland protests; protesters grounded several of their complaints in the lack of diverse leadership within City Hall.
Though the protests launched in response to events outside of Portland, their duration and fervor were surely informed by Portlanders doubting the viability of their own democratic processes to bring about change desired by at least a substantial, impassioned minority of residents. The Oregon Way will not return in earnest to the Rose City until residents feel as though they can work within the system to effectuate change.
The restoration of the Oregon Way at the statewide level will similarly be delayed until new democratic processes facilitate a more representative, diverse body of elected officials selected by a broader range of Oregonians. Oregon currently used a closed primary system—meaning that only Democrats can participate in the Democratic primary and vice versa. The result, according to the editorial board of The Portland Tribune, "is that the most active and often extreme elements of the two major parties end up choosing their candidates."
The unrepresentativeness of this primary system is exacerbated by the fact that "most legislative districts in Oregon are reliably Democratic or Republican." Cumulatively, the closed primary system denies at least 700,000 Oregonians not registered as members of either major political party the chance to inform the candidates they'll have to choose between in the general election. It’s fairly obvious that this is not the sort of system U’Ren would have celebrated—it prioritizes the preferences of partisans over the will of the people. As characterized by the editorial board of The East Oregonian, “In a state that puts so much value on participating in elections that it automatically registers voters when they renew their driver’s licenses, [the closed primary] is particularly unfortunate.”
Unsurprisingly, when Oregonians were presented with a chance to reform their closed primary system, partisan interests rebuffed the attempt. Ballot Measure 90, which qualified for the 2014 ballot, aimed to replace the closed primary If it had passed, Oregonians would have adopted a top-two primary system in which there would be a single primary made up of all the candidates for a specific office. In such a system, as detailed in the ballot pamphlet, "[v]oters may vote for any candidate, regardless of voter's or candidate's party affiliation. Only top two candidates per office appear on general election ballot; [and, they] may be from the same party." Notably, this approach to primaries was already and continues to be used in Washington and California. Still, the major parties in Oregon labeled it as an attack on their control over the electoral process and, therefore, worth opposing. The Democratic Party, for example, claimed it would “strip away our right to choose our own nominees and could create elections where no Democrat would be on the general election ballot in many races.” The Republican Party labeled the measure “[c]onfusing” and insisted it would create “unintended consequences.” Unions, which exhibit a strong pull on the Democrat Party, spent upwards of $300,000 opposing the measure.
On the other side, a panoply of social institutions lined up behind Measure 90. In addition to The Portland Tribune, the editorial boards of a number of different papers threw their support behind the measure, including The Oregonian. They were joined by partisan officials ranging from Michael Bloomberg to former Oregon Secretary of State Phil Keisling and former Oregon Attorney General Dave Frohnmayer. Representatives of nonprofits such as Sue Levin from Stand for the Children, Joe Whitworth of The Freshwater Trust, and the Medford/Jackson County Chamber of Commerce also signed on.
The measure was resoundingly defeated. Efforts to reform how Oregonians vote at the local level have also fallen short. Most recently, the City Council of Eugene rejected a proposal from the Equal Vote Coalition, led by David Frohnmayer’s son, Mark, to implement STAR—score than automatic runoff—voting. A similar effort in Multnomah County was also unsuccessful. Nevertheless, editorial boards, such as that of The East Oregonian continue to call for reforms, such as an open primary.
Other recent efforts to alter the rules underlying Oregon’s experienced headwinds as well. People Not Politicians tried to gather sufficient signatures to put a measure on the November 2020 ballot to alter Oregon's redistricting process. They aimed to take the process out of the hands of state legislators and, like six other states, into those of an independent commission made up of twelve individuals. Though groups from the NAACP to the Oregon League of Women Voters aligned with People Not Politicians, prior to COVID-induced shelter-in-place rules coming into place, the group did not appear to be on pace to meet the signature threshold. The lack of momentum may be at least partially explained by relatively few Democrats, even those claiming to want more inclusive political systems, coming out in support of the proposed measure; only one Democratic candidate for Secretary of State—Mark Hass—voiced support for the effort during the primary.
Oregonians watching these reform efforts wither like a grape in the August sun surely don’t feel confident that their democratic processes align with the Oregon Way. As Red and Blue states, such as Arizona and California, respectively, reform their processes to foster more representative outcomes, Oregonians are right to wonder why their state seems to have forgotten its reputation for being on the vanguard of inclusive and participatory politics. It’s true that the state has made some steps that would bring a smile to U’Ren’s face. Automatic voter registration, for instance, is a prime example of an update to a democratic process that fosters a norm of participation and comports with the generally shared value of lowering barriers to engaging in your community. But the steps Oregon has taken seem small relative to the more transformative leaps accomplished around the nation—leaps that used to occur first in Oregon as officials continuously probed for ways to improve the governing system in place.
A Dearth of Shared Values
Carl Abbott’s memory of Portlanders speeding off to Eastern Oregon on weekends to hunt and fish may not seem salient in a conversation about shared values but it’s indeed illustrative of the small, but manifold ways in which residents of regions across Oregon used to have things in common. Analysis by DHM Research during COVID helps show how different values along party and regional lines have made it harder to find common ground across a wide swath of Oregonians. For instance, on the matter of a mileage-based user fee to replace the gas tax (from which revenue dropped as a result of fewer folks traveling due to COVID closure), 51 percent of Democrats were in support, compared to just 32 percent of Republicans. Similarly, whereas nearly two-thirds of Democrats were in favor of granting the state more flexibility in spending gas tax revenue, less than a third of Republicans shared that view.
Oregonians tended to differ on environmental views on a regional basis, based again on surveys completed by DHM Research. In the tri-county area that makes up the Portland region, the average respondent assigned a score of 7.1 to whether or not it was important to continue environmentally sustainable behaviors induced by COVID, with a score of ten representing very important. Comparatively, that average dropped to just 6.3 in the Willamette Valley and only registered a 6.7 in the rest of the state. Partisan differences were also clear: Democrats notched an average of 8.5 and Republicans came in, on average, at 4.5.
These differences carried over into a forecast of how Oregonians envisioned their future behaviors after COVID: just over sixty six percent of Democrats pictured continuing sustainable behaviors like consuming, driving and flying less; only 39.6 percent of Republicans anticipated doing so. Activities like flying less may not seem like something worth fretting over when it comes to the state of shared values however, the cumulative distance between Oregonians of different parties and regions increasingly appears to be insurmountable. The absence of substantive overlap on such a wide range of issues demonstrates that fundamental values such as individualism versus communitarianism have become further entrenched within many Oregonians.
By way of one final example, a DHM Research survey related to policing and public safety reinforces the gaps between Oregonians—gaps likely grounded in divergent fundamental values. Consider that eight in ten Republicans positively view the work of police across the United States, a trait shared by just two in ten Democrats. Though on a regional basis, another gap occurs between Oregonians on the question of whether “deaths of Black people during encounters with the police are signs of a broader problem?”. Just north of seventy percent of Portland metro area residents say those encounters are a sign, whereas the percentage of Oregonians holding that review in the rest of the state is just 54 percent. Unsurprisingly, Democrats (86 percent) and Republicans (26 percent) also take different sides of that question. How individuals perceive public safety is one of the defining questions of the COVID-era, which makes the Hells Canyon-wide distance between many Oregonians so troubling.
At the bottom of these layers of differences is a stark contrast in how Oregonians view the future. If the best approximation of the future is the present, then when DHM Research asked Oregonians if they thought the state was moving in the right direction, it follows that Oregonians were imaging the perpetuation of a state moving ever more leftward—a direction that carries with it a set of values. In contrast to those on the left, conservatives, based on research done by Philip Tetlock of the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, generally subscribe to the following: a lower value on compromise and a higher value on strict morals and tight knit communities; and, greater punishment for violations of social norms.
A survey completed by journalist Thomas Edsall of studies evaluating the different values between those on the Right and Left adds some color to Tetlock’s list. Turns out, the most divisive value issues pertain to: (1) war, peace, violence, and empathy with the world; (2) crime and punishment, moral elasticity, and authority; (3) the poor, redistribution, and fairness; and, (4) morals, hedonism, self-fulfillment, and hierarchy.
Here are some examples of how values of the Left and Right spilt on each issue: (1) those on the left highly value "understanding, appreciation, and protection for the welfare of all people and for nature; (2) those on the right highly regard the idea that "[t]he 'old-fashioned ways' and 'old-fashioned values' still show the best way to live"; (3) those on the right value "safety, harmony, and stability of society, of relationships, and of self"; (4) those on the left generally agree that "[w]hat is ethical varies from one situation and society to another”; and, those on the right prioritize “[r]espect, commitment, and acceptance of the customs that traditional culture provide.”
Returning to Oregon, it comes as now surprise that as the state has moved left, Democrats (62 percent) stated that Oregon was moving in the right direction, as recorded in DHM Research’s June 2020 survey. On the other side, just 27 percent of Republicans shared that view.
This separation is likely to grow. One reason why is because of the issues at the center of attention during COVID. The aforementioned list of the most divisive value issues is the very list that seems to be at the core of day-to-day activities in the COVID era and in the wake of the George Floyd protests. The debates of the day are grounded on (1) what degree of empathy to afford to marginalized communities, (2) the extent to which authority should be trusted and followed, (3) whether our economic recovery should reward effort or account for historic deprivations, and (4) the applicability of a common set of rules. Alternatively phrased, the contemporary political battles lines are being drawn on faults known to shake Democrats and Republicans to other sides.
Another reason why is the very different takeaways Democrats and Republicans gleaned from the crisis. About seven in ten Democrats think there are valuable lessons to be learned from COVID-19, but fewer than five in ten Republicans feel the same way. Even among the Democrats and Republicans that think the state is headed in the right direction, their respective rationales are different. Twenty percent of Republicans that saw the state heading in the did direction said so because of “Community: strong, complying with order, masking,” almost twice the rate of Democrats (11 percent). Just three percent of Republicans grounded their optimism in “government,” but that was the basis of 15 percent of Democrats’ optimism.
Finally, eight times as many Democrats than Republicans cited “Cares for people and healthy/safety, community support” as the reason for their optimism. The result of this separation is that just 52 percent of Oregonians believed that residents would be able to work together to make a better future. This is unsurprising given that even when Oregonians agree on something, they tend to cite different reasons. So we may identify a shared goal, but Democrats and Republicans will try to get there in very different ways.
The Future of the Way
The four legs of the Oregon Way are broken. Social institutions have declined in number and influence; of those with any members, they have likely been sucked into the morass that is Oregon politics and cajoled into taking sides on seemingly ever more binary political questions. Norms that used to keep those political battles in check have disappeared as Oregonians on the extremes have undermined the authority of elected officials at various levels. Elected officials themselves have abandoned the norms that previously brought legislators together at the local bar as well as on tricky policy matters. Instead, officials seem more keen to take drastic, uncompromising, and performative actions that inflame passions while quashing any chance of achieving compromise. Democratic processes, blatantly flawed but somehow immune to change, have allowed the denigration of norms to continue while forcing social institutions to pick favorites to try to perpetuate their perilous existence. And, finally, the values that are rife for discord between Democrats and Republicans have become the issues of the day, clearing any overlap in values that may have previously existed.
So where do we go from here?
First, we need to return to the sort of community-based politics that motivated resettlers to come to Oregon in the first place. Oregon’s diversity can and should be celebrated and the unique and disparate cultures, economies, and histories of its communities should be respected. Fewer decisions should come from Salem and more power should be devolved to the local level.
Second, we need to update our democratic process to put people, not parties and special interests, first. This means adopting an independent redistricting commission, opening up primaries, moving to ranked choice voting, and installing meaningful campaign finance reforms that give more people a real shot at shaping the outcomes of elections. These are big shifts but are long overdue if Oregon is serious about reclaiming its rightful place as a leader in using democratic processes to build consensus among diverse stakeholders around common sense policy.
Third, we need to talk about the Oregon Way. Much as Beetlejuice only appears when his name is repeated, the Oregon Way will cease to exist unless it’s a part of our political parlance. By weighing candidates against the Oregon Way and asking for their interpretation of the Way, it will become commonplace again to expect the state to move toward having shared values, enforced norms, responsive democratic processes and strong social institutions.
Fourth, and, finally, we need to celebrate civic participation. For resettlers, politics was life. They were engaged in the affairs of their community and were connected to the events of the day. This spirit should be replicated today by supporting social institutions, such as local papers, that are capable of presenting people with occasionally different perspectives with a common set of facts, stories, and issues. Similarly, we should prioritize civic education from cradle to grave so that everyone feels they have the knowledge and resources to make a difference in their community by getting involved.
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