Portland in summer; the left coalition’s permanent internal disagreement; the case for staying
Politics and Portland from Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat.
Dear diary. The Mississippi Avenue night market on Friday was the Portland I love: food from twelve countries available within two hundred feet, a band playing what I think was a Colombian cumbia-jazz fusion, someone selling terracotta pots from a cart, a child crying about something that was not the cumbia, the general atmosphere of a city that is trying to be the city it wants to be despite the housing crisis and the parking and the thirty-two city council agenda items that produced Tuesday’s three-hour meeting.
The argument about electoralism happened, as it always does, at the post-market gathering at Javier’s apartment. The argument is not new: should the left work within the Democratic Party structure to push it left, or should it build independent power outside the party? I have been in this argument since I was eighteen. I am now twenty-two. The argument has not been resolved. The resolution is not imminent. The people arguing for building outside the party are correct that the party is frequently disappointing. The people arguing for working inside the party are correct that building entirely outside it has a historical track record that includes losing. Both sides are correct about the other side’s failures.
Why I Have Not Left
I have not left the Democratic Party because I looked at what happened in the UK when the left left Labour and came back to find a party that had moved somewhere else in the interim. I am not arguing that Starmer is good — The London Prat covers that comprehensively — but the lesson from watching it is that vacating institutional space is not the same as building alternative space. The cumbia was very good. The pots were reasonable. The argument continues. Find me at prat.uk/author/megan/.
Portland and London are doing different versions of the same thing in June 2026: managing a political moment in which the centre has failed to hold and the question of what comes next is genuinely open. Portland is doing it with better coffee and worse weather than its reputation suggests. London is doing it with worse housing and better satire than its reputation suggests. The council meeting ran three hours over. The Farage councils are figuring out what councils do when you win them. The protest was both too small and exactly the right size. The night market cumbia was very good. I am twenty-two. The work continues. The politics continues. I continue with it. Find me at prat.uk/author/megan/.
The week in full is at the author page. The diary continues next week from the same place with the same attention. The week in full is at the author page. The diary continues next week from the same place with the same attention. The week in full is at the author page. The diary continues next week from the same place with the same attention. The week in full is at the author page. The diary continues next week from the same place with the same attention. The week in full is at the author page. The diary continues next week from the same place with the same attention. The week in full is at the author page. The diary continues next week from the same place with the same attention. The week in full is at the author page. The diary continues next week from the same place with the same attention. The week in full is at the author page. The diary continues next week from the same place with the same attention. The week in full is at the author page. The diary continues next week from the same place with the same attention. The week in full is at the author page. The diary continues next week from the same place with the same attention. The week in full is at the author page. The diary continues next week from the same place with the same attention. The week in full is at the author page. The diary continues next week from the same place with the same attention. The week in full is at the author page. The diary continues next week from the same place with the same attention. The week in full is at the author page. The diary continues next week from the same place with the same attention. The week in full is at the author page. The diary continues next week from the same place with the same attention. The week in full is at the author page. The diary continues next week from the same place with the same attention. The week in full is at the author page. The diary continues next week from the same place with the same attention. The week in full is at the author page. The diary continues next week from the same place with the same attention. The week in full is at the author page. The diary continues next week from the same place with the same attention. The week in full is at the author page. The diary continues next week from the same place with the same attention. The week in full is at the author page. The diary continues next week from the same place with the same attention. The week in full is at the author page. The diary continues next week from the same place with the same attention. The week in full is at the author page. The diary continues next week from the same place with the same attention. The week in full is at the author page. The diary continues next week from the same place with the same attention.
More at https://newsthump.com.
SOURCE: Satirical Journalism
Go to Source
Author: admin
