Empire in Blue
the legacy of King County
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Dear Beloved,
King County, as it exists today, occupies Coast Salish land. What started as a handful of settlers, courtesy of the Denny Party in 1851, swelled like a bruise into a full settlement. In 1852, the Oregon Territorial Legislature renamed this land after the short-lived US vice president and enslaver William Rufus DeVane King. 37 years after King County was declared, a new state was added to the US empire. Somewhere between then and the Civil Rights Movement, a few people realized it was in bad taste to name anything after an enslaver, and in 1986, the county government hustled to change the name.
Despite Martin Luther King, Jr. visiting Seattle once - at the invitation of a college friend and naturally, with controversy amongst the bigots of King County - and it being almost 20 years after his assassination, the King County Council of 1986 could hardly turn down such an easy name switch. Thus Coast Salish land was renamed after the civil rights activist while redlining and discrimination remained rampant.
Since then, Reverend King’s likeness peers at residents and tourists alike across King County. When I look at his face, I wonder about the things he has seen and heard in council meetings. I wonder what he would think about being the substituted namesake for this place.
Today Seattle - and indeed, Washington State as a whole - earned itself a reputation across the United States as a blue state utopia. Even now, hundreds flee GOP-majority states to avoid trans-exclusionary laws and reclaim some basic bodily autonomy.
I myself was one of them in September 2019. Stepping off that plane in Sea-Tac, I took a big gulp of that fresh, conifer-abundant air and savored the rain. I delighted in the easy public transit access from the airport to my new apartment. Then Covid-19 hit…and you know the rest.
2020 was like picking up shiny rock and finding a whole lot of ugly beneath it. Friends I knew in Portland were snatched up by unmarked government vans while wildfires raged. In the city my father was born in, a boy seeking violence killed protesters and got away with it. Meanwhile, after a man killed a far-right supporter in self-defense, he was murdered without trial by federal agents to Trump’s cheers just south of King County in Lacey, WA. King County’s medical system was overloaded with Covid-19 patients from Washington State, Idaho, and Alaska alike. Seattle in particular made nationwide news when CHAZ was set up in the imperial core and then-Seattle Mayor Durkan (affectionately nicknamed “Tear Gas Jenny” by locals) greenlit state-sanctioned violence in the Capitol Hill neighborhood.
In the following months, Biden was elected and people cheered because Trump was no longer in office. Unlike our current genocidaire-in-chief, Durkan knew better than to waste time with a re-election campaign and now hides from the adoring public in her $7.5 million home. Cue more cheers as Seattle’s second Black/first Asian-American mayor and biggest cop lover Bruce Harris took office in 2022.
Where are we now? What grand, progressive changes have heightened this liberal utopia once free of the big, bad orange man and his GOP cronies?
As someone who lives and works here, let me share a snapshot of King County.
Since 2020, under the administration of a Democrat presidency, a Democrat supermajority in Washington State legislature, a long-held Democrat majority in King County Council, and largely Democratic mayors and city councilmembers in this blue colonial state named after an enslaver, our white saviors and their tokens have gifted us the following:
$50,000 hiring bonuses for the Seattle Police Department - the same police department that:
was caught on camera repeatedly hitting a man this year
killed a woman after a hit and run - after which, the officer deemed her as having “limited value”
cost taxpayers $10 million in court settlements
Sweeping unhoused community members all across the county, often without any forewarning or resources for the people being pushed out. In 2023, sweeps have TRIPLED in Seattle alone.
Leaving 200 people, including children, to live outside of an empty, county-owned EconoLodge which was purchased to actually house people
After weeks outside of the EconoLodge, King County barricaded the tents - locking people out of the encampment - and swept all of their belongings.
Bringing back legalized segregation and redlining in Seattle via so-called “stay out” zones despite public outcry
Artwork by Cristiana Couceiro. Seattle City Council protecting their wealthy donors by rejecting a citizen-run initiative and making up for the fiscal loss by raiding social service programs
Robbing $200 million from Seattle’s affordable housing programs, climate initiatives, and small business economic development to spare rich donor’s hard-stolen money
Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell disempowering the Seattle Renters Commission and leaving thousands of renters vulnerable to parasites (i.e. landlords)
Seattle City Council really saying, “Fuck them kids” and cutting back $20 million on student mental health funding after a school shooting
King County Council agreeing with Seattle’s sentiment and voting unanimously to keep a juvenile detention facility because it should be “improved, not removed.” Dems keeping kids in cages, y’all!
King County and Seattle collaborating to bring in more prison beds for low-level crimes - again, for “public safety” - which will cost taxpayers another $4 million
King County Executive Dow Constantine proposes a whole new prison in Seattle’s SoDo neighborhood to replace the one he already promised to shut down downtown
Removing people with lived experiences unhoused from the King County Regional Homeless Authority to make room for almost solely elected officials
My least favorite mayor Harrell signing off on unwanted surveillance technology that will endanger communities of color and working people, costing us millions
King County Council entertaining raising the price of public transit for riders rather than say, taxing any of the 11 billionaires or 54,200 millionaires living here
The elected officials throughout King County will do anything and everything to appease their wealthy donors. Our politicians will make their promises, committing to progress and reform, and then walk them back halfway through their term. Again and again, they will choose the tech conglomerates, hedge fund managers, and old money of King County over the people.
This is empire.
Trump was the greatest thing to ever happen to the Democrats.
My voice is merely an echo of what others have been saying but while Blue MAGA pundits harass people with conscience for simply saying genocide is bad, it bears repeating: Trump is the greatest thing to ever happen to the Democrats. With Trump as their convenient and extremely marketable orange boogeyman, Democrats hardly have to bother with empty campaign promises anymore.
They only have to whisper “Project 2025” and the donations come flooding in. Meanwhile, what Democrats have done nothing to curtail Project 2025? What did they do when the people voted and gave them a supermajority for half of Biden’s term and retained a slim majority in the Senate with the second half?
They sent Israel money and weapons. With the United States’ bipartisan support, Israel massacred the Palestinian people in North Gaza this week and bombed another hospital. The world watched people burn alive and heard their loved ones’ screams.
This is the same party that is increasing military funding by 3.3% - totaling $852.2 billion - for 2025 to continue its global imperialism. It is the same party increasing police budgets to oppress us at home and quietly building cop cities nationwide. It is the same party throwing children in cages at the US-Mexico border, its candidate campaigning to increase “border security” and courting racist Republicans. It is the same party giving pennies to Hurricane Helene and Milton survivors just after writing the genocidal Zionist occupier a $8.7 billion check.
The empire in blue is still empire. The Democrat Party is the left hand and the GOP is the right hand of one imperial body. While Trump’s extremism deters more level-headed racist supporters, the Democratic Party is more than happy to court and recruit them because it is no better. Whichever candidate takes on the puppet-in-chief title next month, we will see a singular political party consolidate power and send us spiraling into self-annihilation.
When empire collapses, it becomes angrier and more violent than ever before. But know this: these are the last throes of a dying beast. We must hold each other through this and survive.
“The world is held together, it really is held together, by the passion and love of a very few people.” - James Baldwin
There are 21 days until the US presidential election and whatever happens, it will impact the entire world. I have no interest in telling anyone how to vote, but I will encourage this: Pay attention to local issues without losing sight of global impact. Focus your time and energy on your local and statewide campaigns while standing in solidarity with our global community.
Seeds for Change
Mutual Aid 101: How to organize your local mutual aid network and stay safe during the pandemic
Stay updated on the pandemic with The People’s CDC
Know Your Rights in protests (shortened version: if a cop approaches you, shut the fuck up)
Boycott, Divest, Sanctions movement, baby! We must starve the Zionist machine and to do that, we need to cut its funding at every level.
Check out this episode Becoming the People where host Prentis Hemphill interviews Palestinian artist, research, and seedkeeper Vivien Sansour. Founder of the Palestine Seed Library, I’ve had the privilege of listening to Vivien at an Herban Cura Knowledge Shares and it felt so stabilizing to hear from her again.
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