The Politics of Pretending in Progressive Portland
DSA’s city council victories draw out true face of ‘progressive’ corporate agenda.
Written by Brian D.
In a recent interview in the Rose City Reform Podcast, two reporters were asked about the Democratic Socialists of America, and the significance of three DSA members on a newly elected Portland City Council. The host quoted this Instagram message from Portland DSA after DSA candidates won their election:
“The socialist movement is in City Hall. CEOs, developers, landlords, union-busters, billionaires and their puppets are now on notice…”
Neither reporter spoke of the landlords, developers, billionaires, CEOs, or union-busters in their response; nor are they discussed much at all in describing local political stories. In describing “special interest groups” having influence in City Hall, the capitalist media often omits the key players who are also their advertisers, bankrollers, corporate partners.
The interview demonstrated three clear points. First: reporters can struggle to report issues centered in class, and centered in the power of ordinary people. Secondly, local media feeds into false narratives about the political spectrum in Portland, just like the media does in other “progressive” cities, like San Francisco, and at the national level. And third, reporters and their corporate media outlets have clear political agendas, even when they pretend otherwise.
Reporters struggle to parse socialists because solidarity is an alien concept under capitalism, and class as a concept is stripped from public discourse in America. Socialism and the power of regular people to come together confuses reporters also because the media industry is actually the media and entertainment industry, worth about $570 billion in the United States. The profit incentives under capitalism define how our media functions- as entertainment or an algorithm designed to stimulate outrage and clicks on your device- and what is allowed to be a story. Under capitalism the incentive is to pretend that exploitation in society has nothing to do with class, nothing to do with being intentionally divided and conquered so that the passive incomes of the wealthy shall not be disturbed.
There is irony here; from camera operators and photographers, to journalists, reporters, and copy editors- the actual workers in the media industry have been devastated by the capitalist pressures of financialization and the gutting of news rooms.
Socialized health care, free or low-cost secondary education, paid family leave, effective and safe free public transit, robust infrastructure, social housing, and much lower rates of child poverty are conditions the majority of countries choose when given the opportunity, and much more the norm across the world. They are possible here- but one would not know it from any capitalist media in Oregon.
“When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist.” ― Dom Helder Camara
Many of the reporters interviewed on Rose City Reform, and in the Portland City Cast, consistently describe Portland politics as a spectrum: from “moderate,” to “progressive,” to “far left”. This is false, and pretends that there is not a right wing. By omission or downplaying, reporters maintain the pretense that powerful interests aren’t right wing, and pit “moderates,” and “progressives”, against a “far left,” purposefully obscuring the field and players.
The Portland Metro Chamber bankrolled their servant Sam Adams for Multnomah County Commissioner; but local reporters never describe Sam Adams as right wing; despite his clear agenda and masters. Portland Metro Chamber and the powerful developer and real estate lobby are rarely identified as critical players in local politics; the local media obscures reality. This is an example of the political agenda behind the local capitalist publications and their editorial biases.
Developers are the fourth branch of City Hall, but reporters are busy framing the fights between the “far left”, and “progressives” who just aren’t realists like those moderates. The powerful class interests in operation are whistled away; nothing to see. Wealthy developers threaten to sue the city when they don’t like the policies or reforms presented, guaranteeing a lose-lose scenario as the issue crawls through the courts for years. Too often, the city attorney lays out how it is in the cities’ best interest to capitulate. Reporting on this is not robust; instead the framing is how unions and DSA have more power in City Hall relative to the past.
In San Francisco, wealthy property owners coalesced to express how they want to make their city better; using the language of progressivism to make their case, and framing the discussion as if there was no right wing politics in San Francisco, no politics of class. That public relations campaign, led by local wealthy business interests, quickly pivoted to criticizing politicians and a campaign to remove the progressive District Attorney, who was falsely made the scapegoat for the homeless crisis and the crime spike during the pandemic.
Portland follows the same trend. People for Portland, a front group for wealthy business interests, coalesced to express how they want to make the city better for everyone, using the language of progressivism to make that case. That public relations campaign quickly pivoted to criticizing politicians and a campaign to remove the progressive District Attorney, who they made the scapegoat for the homeless crisis and fentanyl drug use. People for Portland violated Oregon election law in 2022, and disbanded in 2024, after the attention on the group made it clear they were no longer an effective front for the business interests and wealthy.
Pretending that politics here is just moderates, progressives, and the far left gives cover to the moves of the powerful in Portland and Oregon, and leaves journalists in a blind spot. Phil Knight funded the Republican Party of Oregon outright not that many years ago; Columbia Sportswear CEO Tim Boyle helped fund People for Portland. The previous City Council established numerous “Enterprise Zones” that also come with massive tax incentives that pauperize the City in the years to come. Clear analysis of the massive transfer of wealth out of the hands of the working class and permanently into the accounts of the owning class is required to address the real struggles of Portlanders and Oregonians, not false narratives that omit the key players.
Pretending that the class, corporate, and Right-wing interests who have influenced, profited from, and largely controlled Oregon for decades aren’t factors then makes it hard to address homelessness, quality of life issues, and the need for public goods and services. When you can’t analyze the causes for your current crisis, you fail to address the issue and fail to lastingly improve conditions.
Willamette Week for example, has a massive and obvious editorial bias: Oregon and Portland taxes are too high, Portland spends too much, is the subtext, if not the main text, of every third article produced. Divide and conquer narratives straight from the comfortable and wealthy. Here’s a stellar example of what might have been written by Portland Metro Chamber staff:
From the article:
“High taxes are hurting job growth in Portland and chasing wealthy people out of town. Despite those aggressive levies, many government services are poor, in part because specialized taxes aimed at girding for climate change, getting kids into preschool, and helping the homeless have, at various times, gone unspent. In June 2024, the unspent hoard totaled $1.26 billion.”
The tactic on display in the article quoted above: these identified funds are to compete against each other to see who can fend off cuts, while “moderates” demand that progressives and the left divide the baby.
Because what is required, according to the wealthy and powerful, is austerity for working class people and socialized risk for the wealthy, just like in the last Gilded Age, and the beginning of the Great Depression. By their lights it only makes sense to take from homeless funds, preschool funds, funds to address climate change, or all three.
Willamette Week quotes extensively from reports from business interests assessing Oregon and Portland as having too high taxes and wealthy fleeing the state; no opposition to this was interviewed nor quoted, despite the fact that this argument is trotted out over and over and usually debunked as skewed and inaccurate. The peoples of Oregon deserve better- better reporting for sure; but more crucially, better quality of life generally, struggling under huge rent, utility, and grocery cost increases, without the wages to match.
The Oregonian unsurprisingly has decades more experience burying the lead, for example regarding Zenith Oil in Portland. The opposition to Zenith is framed as ‘activists’- not entire neighborhoods of working people and families living in a liquefaction zone next to massive oil storage tanks- who see Big Oil in Portland has no plan when the big earthquake comes, except maybe mass funerals.
Austerity will ill prepare this generation, and the next to contribute, support, and be supported within a community. Austerity means instead of services to keep families in housing, they are unhoused. Austerity means instead of a tree canopy, you get more heat deaths in East Portland. Austerity means instead of access to education you get crowded, underserved classrooms. Austerity means less investment in infrastructure that makes Portland livable and functional.
The interests of the wealthy are not the interests of the working class. It’s time to cut through the false media and right-wing narratives, and time to stop pretending. Let’s invest in the working families, the working peoples of Oregon and Portland. Let’s talk about a jobs program and a social housing program, not how regular folk must make due with less. Workers really do deserve more!
