When a conservative blogger unearthed social media posts by Mitch Green, a city councilor in Portland, Ore., calling police officers “bastards” and “absolute monsters,” the response among officialdom was swift and predictable.
The police union president demanded his resignation. The police chief declared he had lost confidence in Mr. Green. Mayor Keith Wilson pronounced himself “deeply disappointed” and pledged not to endorse any candidate who pushes defunding the police.
Mr. Green, a democratic socialist, dug in. His language may have been “spicy,” he said, but the principles held. His fund-raising surged, his profile rose and his re-election campaign became the newest evidence that the Democratic Socialists of America and their pugnacious approach are a new norm in much of urban America.
“There was a really high expectation that I would immediately recant,” he said. “I just chose not to.”
The trend stretches coast to coast. In Providence, R.I., David Morales, a democratic socialist who once called police “criminals with badges,” is poised to become the next mayor after a stunning primary win last month.
In Washington, D.C., another democratic socialist, Janeese Lewis George, will almost certainly be elected mayor in three weeks. In 2020, she said defunding the police was “no longer sounding like a radical idea.”
Ms. Lewis George has backed off, but in Portland, D.S.A. defiance might be an asset rather than a dead weight. Mr. Green’s anti-police posts were “painful and sad,” said Olivia Clark, a more moderate councilor. But, she added, “there’s no doubt this gave him a bounce.”
“That’s one thing about these kids: They don’t apologize,” she said of Mr. Green, 44. “They double down, and some people really like it.”
Two years ago, Portland replaced at-large City Council seats with 12 councilors across four districts and adopted ranked-choice voting that gave movements with passionate bases a path into power.
The result is a distinctly Portland form of gridlock, with the City Council split between six progressives, including four D.S.A. members, and six moderates. Most day-to-day operations pass unanimously, but budget amendments and leadership fights often end in ties.
In November, half the council is up for re-election, a test of whether the D.S.A. can translate campaign wins into durable governing power.
“There’s a lot of fear among the old guard that the changes in Portland are real and lasting,” said Mr. Green, a military veteran with a Ph.D. in economics. He drew national attention last fall for a social media video urging active-duty troops to disobey what they consider unlawful orders like the president’s attempt to use federalized National Guard soldiers at protests.
His posts on what was then Twitter included statements like “the left should riot more.” and “property destruction is a crime, but it’s not violence.” They were written in 2020 and 2021 after George Floyd’s murder and during protests that frequently featured law enforcement officers using tear gas.
Mr. Green said his language was of its time, but that he still hoped for a future without the police.
“You don’t walk back those sentiments unless you don’t believe in them,” he said, adding that voters are “hungry for a style of politics where you know where your elected official stands.”
This election cycle is peppered with examples of Democrats, not just socialists, taking aggressive approaches. A New York Times story that revealed the Senate candidate Mary Peltola used slurs hasn’t moved polls in Alaska and, judging from voter responses, may have helped her among some Democrats eager for a win.
Providence’s mayor, Brett Smiley, tried to paint Mr. Morales, 28, a state representative since 2021, as a dangerous force set on defunding the police. It didn’t work, despite a campaign war chest that dwarfed Mr. Morales’s.
In Portland, business leaders are trying to break the council deadlock by ousting Mr. Green, joined by public employee unions frustrated by progressives’ efforts to rein in the police and opposition to generous public subsidies for the owner of the Trail Blazers. Billboards around the city, not just in Mr. Green’s district, urge voters to “Ditch Mitch.”
Both socialists and their opponents recognize the same crisis in Portland, once the darling of urban planners for its lively downtown and walkable neighborhoods, but now suffering from disappearing jobs and rising prices.
“This is like Pittsburgh when the last steel mill closed.,” said Andrew Hoan, president of the Portland Metro Chamber. “It’s like New York when the president of the United States said drop dead.”
Their remedies are very different. Mr. Hoan says the “localized, hyper-specific recession” is thanks to years of liberal policies, homelessness, drug use and some of the nation’s highest business taxes. D.S.A. members say the answer is to go further; taxing corporations does nothing if revenue isn’t spent on services and support for working-class residents.
Even before this election, the democratic socialists are looking to 2028, when Portland’s mayor and the other six council seats will be on the ballot.
In the interim, they’re pushing higher taxes on public companies with highly paid chief executives and, this fall, a ban on the police use of tear gas.
Jenna Russell contributed reporting from Providence, R.I.
The post In Divided Portland, Ore., Anti-Police Posts Fuel a Fight Over the Future appeared first on New York Times.
