By Josh Feit
Desperate to make anything stick to our unflappable and breezy left-wing mayor, Seattle Times columnist Danny Westneat tried to create the narrative that Mayor Katie Wilson is prone to gaffes. He didn’t mean it in the same way the damaging label once dogged klutzy president Gerald Ford in the 1970s. (Ask Claude about Ford and the Air Force One stairs.) Or the way we mean it when we talk about Trump getting his facts wrong 24-7. What Westneat means is: Wilson has said a few things about tax policy that he disagrees with. He’s evidently the keeper of common sense.
On several occasions now, Wilson has acknowledged, with gusto and millennial nonchalance, that she’s not cowed by the business class. Specifically, when questioned about the state’s new “millionaires’ tax” during a recent appearance at Seattle University, Wilson mockingly said “bye” to rich people who choose to flee. And while promoting progressive tax policy at an earlier event, Wilson described Seattle as “filthy rich.”
She was hardly wrong. Between 2013 and 2023, the number of millionaires in Seattle grew by 72 percent, putting us in the company of other tech boom towns like Austin and the San Francisco Bay Area.
To characterize Wilson’s statements as “gaffes,” Westneat assumes Wilson has unwittingly said what she really thinks—and, more importantly, that she’s been nefariously hiding something.
But she hasn’t been hiding anything. That’s what drives Westneat bonkers. The editorial team at the Seattle Times still can’t wrap its head around the fact that Wilson openly ran as a socialist and won. They’re now rationalizing her victory by pretending she has a secret agenda.
Westneat calls Wilson’s pronouncements “revealing.” Only to someone who’d be surprised to find books in a library.
Wilson, the first mayor in memory who seems to actually like the job, is brazen about being a Capitol Hill lefty. In March, I saw Wilson wear her politics on her thrift-store sleeve during an address to Seattle’s capitalist class in a convention center ballroom at the Downtown Seattle Association’s annual State of Downtown event. Just like the supposed gotcha fodder she hand-delivered at Seattle U, when she insouciantly defended progressive taxes, she gleefully reiterated the same pro-tax message to the business crowd at the DSA. She openly described herself to the ruling class in attendance as “a progressive and a socialist”—and then paused to say it again, in case anybody missed it.
There’s just no gotcha to get. These aren’t “gaffes.” Wilson said what she she openly believes, including her assessment that the narrative about millionaires fleeing the state is, as she told the SU crowd, “overblown.” And she’s right. As the New York Times reported this week in a story about Wilson’s co-conspirator, NYC mayor Zohran Mandami: “Research shows that past tax increases by states have not led to an exodus of wealthy residents.”
It’s also important to note that Wilson’s derisive comment was specifically about the tiny number of high-income people who may leave the state—as opposed to those who may grumble, but decide living in a thriving city like Seattle is worth paying higher taxes. She isn’t demonizing the wealthy. She’s ridiculing wealthy people who don’t prioritize their larger community.
There’s also another group of people in Wilson’s calculation. Lower-income people who don’t have the luxury of deciding whether or not to stay, but instead, are forced out by Seattle’s insuperable cost of living. Raising taxes on the wealthy to pay for affordable housing and transit is one way to help make sure working-class residents aren’t displaced. Which is a much more pressing and concrete concern for a mayor than the notion of millionaires on the lam.
“We continue to have one of the most regressive tax systems in the country in this state,” Wilson said with typical candor at a pro-social housing event in February, evidently sounding like Che Guevara or, I don’t know, centrist state Democratic Sen. Jamie Pedersen (D-43, Seattle). (Pedersen led the charge for the state’s new tax on people who make more than a million dollars a year.) “It is very gratifying to know that we’re going to be able to use a little bit of that wealth and put it to work building housing and operating housing,” Wilson concluded.
In another recent attempt by the conservative media to catch Wilson in a supposed gaffe, talk radio seized on a press conference last month where she announced a new bus lane. They accused her of being privileged because she said she takes her daughter to Seattle Center on Metro’s Route 8. (Yep. Taking the L8 up Denny is apparently elitist.)
Unsurprisingly, the ploy didn’t work. Wilson, who co-founded the Transit Riders Union and ran on improving bus lanes, simply doubled down on her new bus-only lane plan and playfully trolled the apoplectic media on Instagram.
In case the Seattle Times doesn’t follow Wilson’s Reels, they might want to watch this one, because she offers up another consistent core belief that they could spin as a “gaffe.” Wilson said: “As our city keeps growing, there just isn’t room to keep adding more cars to our roads. When we make it possible for more people to choose public transit for more trips, more people can get where they want to go and everyone wins, including those who drive.”
Trying to portray Wilson as gaffe-prone when all she’s doing is demonstrating her commitment to the progressive agenda that she openly ran on last year is just sour grapes from the Seattle Times. It also shows how flummoxed they are with her casual charisma. As they reported themselves last year, the anti-Wilson campaign couldn’t get traditional anti-left memes to stick to her. This latest iteration doesn’t track either.
Who the fuck is Claude?
Re: “Ask Claude about Ford and the Air Force One stairs.”
As a journalist, asking people to trust a synthetic text generator for learning about something is probably a bad move
If Katie Wilson is such a big time socialist, why is she in the pocket of the Master Builders Assoc of King & Snohomish counties? Since when does a socialist rely on capitalism and the “free market” to build our way out of the housing shortage?
“Only to someone who’d be surprised to find books in a library.” Nuff said…
All for the taxes on millionaires both wealth and income. This article is 100% right and Danny Westneat and the libertarian elderly who rant on the Seattle Times comments section can shove it. Seattle Times panders to these people like Fox News. Complain about homelessness but don’t address the cause or solutions… that’s not gonna work. Who cares if a few mega millionaires leave for having to pay any taxes on their million dollar a year incomes. They already don’t pay any taxes! (Oh how benevolent they are!) They can have fun burning to death in Texas in the summer or having their electrical grid fail in a blizzard there if they want to save 10% on any earnings over $1M! Or hey, move to Florida and have hurricanes wipe out your house. As for me, I just crossed the million net worth line after 20 years of working my career and would be MORE than happy to be specifically taxed if it meant helping out those around us have a better city for all. A rising tide raises all ships, folks.
Gathering taxes to create more affordable housing buildings that will fail under existing Seattle rental laws doesn’t help people – it just forces them to move to cheaper places where they can find safe housing. This millionaire tax also doesn’t help average Joe citizens afford Seattle any better. The State didn’t propose a reduction in property tax for us joes and in fact we will get no tax relief AT ALL!
Hey Josh,
What exactly has Mayor Katie done? It’s good to give her credit for getting SDOT to plan better traffic lanes for transit, but so far that’s all she’s accomplished . I know it’s early in her term and changing things takes time, but posting shit on social media is not progress. Nobody cares about Katie’s posts on “reels” but her supporters.
A whole lot of leading a big city is about building relationships with people who don’t see things your way and getting them on board with some sort of realistic compromise. Leading the Transit Riders Union is 100% different than being mayor of Seattle. This isn’t a pack of Lefties storming the castle, it’s running a world class city. So far the Mayor’s staff have been tone deaf and heavy handed. This blog has already admitted that.
As far as the big progressive agenda that some of the Mayor’s supporters want, stop looking at social media and pay attention to the City budget. Seattle is financially underwater. I absolutely don’t blame Mayor Wilson for that, but that’s the reality she’s facing. Let’s resist passing any judgement until we see a budget entirely from the new administration.
I don’t believe they are gaffes. Just stupidity. If wealth taxes failed in FRANCE of all places, what leads any Intelligent person to believe they will work here? We don’t have CA weather or the NY financial industry. Of course a good number of millionaires are going to leave. They’d be stupid not to.
Higher taxes haven’t failed in Finland, which is widely regarded as “the happiest place on Earth.” Like Seattle, there is no sunny weather year-round in Finland, and who needs to be close to the NY financial industry on Wall St. (was that a gaffe?). In the link below, plenty of business people and entrepreneurs are happily paying MUCH higher taxes than we have in Washington State because they know that it pays for the array of human services that are the secret sauce to Finland being the happiest place to live.
great points all, except for “(Ask Claude about Ford and the Air Force One stairs.)” just google it, no need to feed the AI beast. cheers
You think using Google doesn’t “feed the AI beast”?
Terrific article.
YES, to call sensibility and care for the well-being of ALL of us “a gaffe” is to not to wake up to the fact that Katie was elected BECAUSE she stands up to wealth and power. We are watching guts in action. Obviously pandering has not worked for so many struggling here as we live with a tax structure that is shameful.
Katie Wilson may not have committed gaffes as much as said the quiet parts out loud. But Josh and Erica’s obsession with Danny Westneat is the real issue. Come on, Publicola. Grow da fuq up. Other journalists, and Westneat has at least a decade more experience than either of you, have different opinions because they do not live in the Far Left Urbanazi bubble.
80% of people live in cities. That’s a big “bubble”, dummy.
The truth is: you are a weirdo with fringe ideas. Facebook has made you a follower of stupidity and killed your critical faculties.
Naw. I am just a longtime, city-living normie with mainstream views. But if calling people names makes you think you’re superior, you might be the one lacking critical faculties.
Here, here, Josh. I’m so tired of the, so-called Seattle liberals, or “sensible” moderates, like Danny.
I was saying this all along on social media – it was NOT a gaffe! If your only loyalty is to money and not to the community that MADE you, then, yes, goodbye and good riddance!