By Erica C. Barnett
We had a great time recording the latest episode of Seattle Nice live at the 43rd District Democrats’ meeting on Tuesday, where we discussed the primary election, offered some unsolicited advice to a local candidate who happened to be in the audience, and said “fuck” a lot (Sandeep) and made ill-considered predictions (me.)
The big question on the table: Will the backlash to Trump’s tax cuts for millionaires and service cuts for the rest of us translate to a local anti-establishment election? In 2021 (when business-oriented, pro-sweeps Mayor Bruce Harrell and Republican City Attorney Ann Davison were elected) and again in 2023, when voters replaced most of the city council with a crop of candidates who promised to “audit the budget” and attributed the decline in police hiring to low morale brought on by pro-“defund” incumbents, Seattle rejected a progressive agenda.
Could this year bring around a course correction? Katie Wilson seems to have Harrell running scared, Davison has several very viable opponents, and progressive Dionne Foster is running a strong, if low-key, campaign against centrist Council President Sara Nelson. Even Joe Mallahan, defeated by Mike McGinn in 2009, is trashing the mayor over his enthusiasm for encampment sweeps, which have indisputably pushed people living unsheltered in downtown Seattle to Belltown, the International District, and other parts of Seattle.
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We also discussed the baffling recent decision about nudity at the longtime nude beach at Denny-Blaine Park: A King County Superior Court judge (Samuel Chung, not up for reelection until 2028) ordered the city to come up with a plan to stop public masturbation and lewd behavior—which a wealthy adjacent property owner insists are rampant—and “nudity as constituted at the park.” I am obviously not a lawyer, but I’m not sure how an injunction that gives police the power to determine whether nudity is “constituted” properly—or if it’s inherently lewd—can withstand legal scrutiny.
Nudity is legal in Seattle. As I noted on the podcast, I was walking on the downtown just last weekend when a bunch of naked people—by appearance, almost all cisgender men—rode their bikes along the new bike path, in full view of God and everybody. There’s a transparent double standard at work here, I argued—while LGBTQ+ sunbathers are presumptively indecent, a parade of naked men on bikes is just another fun part of life in quirky Seattle.