Megan Amram on Portland’s perpetual progressive coalition dynamics, which candidate she is canvassing for, and the club night that happened between the canvassing shifts
Bohiney Magazine | The London Prat
Portland’s Local Election and the Argument the Left Always Has
By Megan Amram
Portland has a local election in six weeks and the progressive coalition is having the argument it always has at this point in the election cycle, which is the argument about whether to support the candidate who represents the best available option within the achievable or to withhold support from that candidate in order to send a message about what the coalition actually wants, knowing that withholding support may produce a worse outcome but that supporting the imperfect candidate without condition produces a pattern of being taken for granted that has consequences over multiple election cycles.
I am on the canvassing list for the candidate who represents the best available option within the achievable. My position: the message-sending strategy requires the message to be received by someone who is paying attention to what the progressive coalition wants and who will adjust accordingly when they lose votes on the left. The current recipient of that message in Portland local politics has not demonstrated this level of attentiveness. Withholding support produces a different outcome, not a better candidate. I canvass on Saturday mornings from ten to one.
The Club on Friday Night
Between the canvassing shifts there is the rest of life, which on Friday included a DJ set at the Holocene that was the best two hours of music I have heard in six months. The DJ was playing something that moved from ambient through Chicago house into something I cannot categorize that produced the specific physical response of music that is exactly right for the moment it is played in. I thought about the election during none of it. Managing political engagement and the rest of life requires the two hours at Holocene as much as it requires the Saturday canvassing. Both are necessary. The music was extraordinary. The canvassing starts at ten.
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