Great Satan Reigns in the Emerald City

To sample abject capitulation in the face of money power the two stories to read this morning are by Heidi Groover and Steven Hsieh, "Seattle City Council Will Vote on a Head Tax Repeal" and "5 Takeaways From the City Council's Impending Head Tax Repeal."

Before seeing if the paid signature-gatherers hired with money from Amazon and Starbucks had accumulated enough valid signatures to place on the ballot in November a repeal of a head tax on large employers to fund homeless services and housing, which the city council passed last month, the council is scheduled to repeal its own handiwork today. Groover and Hsieh set the mood:

Less than a month after passing a head tax to fund housing and homelessness services, the Seattle City Council looks poised to repeal it tomorrow.

"It is clear that the ordinance will lead to a prolonged, expensive political fight over the next five months that will do nothing to tackle our urgent housing and homelessness crisis,” wrote seven city council members and Mayor Jenny Durkan in a statement.

The announcement caps off what has become one of the ugliest political debates in recent Seattle history, handing a victory to big businesses who opposed the head tax every step of the way.

If the council axes the head tax tomorrow—and it seems almost certain that they will—we’ll be feeling the ripple effects of the move for a long time.

While this might seem of merely local importance, it's actually a significant "canary in the coal mine" moment in the global Zeitgeist. If one of the most progressive cities in the nation, a city with the one of the worst homelessness problems in the U.S. (Seattle is behind New York and Los Angeles, significantly larger cities), a city that recently led the way with a $15-an-hour minimum wage, cannot address a state of emergency then we must accept the fact that government can do only that which the wealthy allow.

It's a bitter realization, one we intellectually understand, but hard to swallow. The election of Obamaite Durkan last year as a mayor was a clear indication that the moneybags would no longer allow Seattle's progressive proclivities to go unchecked. Too much money was coming into the city. The city had to be governed like every other large polity. Ruthlessly and with eye only toward mammon.

In the big picture, if U.S. leadership decides to wage war on Iran there will be barely a peep of protest from voters. That was my takeaway last month when I spied nary a single Democrat at a rally and march for the head tax.

Liberals don't care. They only care to have a reputation for caring. It's a society absent soul, and one in need of a radical makeover post-haste.