Seattle's Nicest 2025 Predictions

[00:00:00] Hey there, it's David. Welcome to another edition of Seattle Nice. And just a heads up that our guest today is Josh Feit, one of the co-founders of Publicola, who had some unfortunate issues with his audio recording. So you're going to hear Josh come into the conversation around seven minutes in. Again, it's Josh Feit, one of the co-founders of Publicola, along with Erica and Sandeep. Okay, here's the show.

[00:00:33] Hello and welcome to the latest edition of Seattle Nice. I'm David Hyde, here as always with Erica C. Barnett, editor and publisher of the esteemed publication Publicola. Hi, Erica. Hello. Also with us, as always, political consultant Sandeep Kaushik. Hey, I'm not sure whether Publicola is, I think it may be more venerable than esteemed. I'm going to go with venerable. That makes me feel bold. I don't like that.

[00:01:00] So Erica, we're going to be talking about an exciting article that appeared in Publicola. Do you want to set it up a little bit? Yeah, so last week we ran our big predictions article that we do every year. It's me, Josh and Sandeep, the three co-founders of Publicola, actually, if you can believe it. And so I kind of played straight man. I did the 100% accurate, will definitely, absolutely come true predictions.

[00:01:31] Sandeep, boy, we had a lot of confusion over how to refer to these, so I'm going to look at my notes so I don't get it wrong. So Josh did things that he doesn't want to happen that definitely will, and Sandeep did things that should happen but definitely won't. All right. I'm going to add some, but let's, Erica, let's start with you. One of my predictions was that elected officials are going to take the wrong lessons from the uptick in police hiring.

[00:01:57] We got news last week that they have hired a net new one officer, which is the first year since 2019 that we haven't lost more police officers than we gained. And, you know, and that's a reversal of a trend. But I think that it's not going to come anywhere close to doing another goal that they have, which is the 30 by 30 initiative, which is, you know, a push to hire 30% women by 2030 or have 30% women in the new recruit class.

[00:02:26] And the reason I say that, and we actually got some data later in the week that confirms this, is, you know, they haven't really made a push to change the culture at SPD in any super meaningful way. They fired Adrian Diaz, and I think there's, you know, a lot of effort to kind of sweep him under the rug and say the problem with discrimination and misogyny and, you know, sexual harassment is fixed. And the data we got last week says that just 14% of the incoming class are women, which is about the same as it's always been.

[00:02:56] Obviously, 14 is less than half of 30. And so I think that we are not going to be any closer to that goal. And I think that the council and the mayor are going to take the lesson that we're heading in the right direction and just need to keep doing more of the same. So, Sandeep, I want to hear your predictions. Anything about Erica's predictions? Well, obviously, I do think it's a significant turning point that we're actually, even if it's only a net of one officer over the course of the year, I do think that's a significant turning point.

[00:03:24] And hopefully that trend is going to accelerate. I think it's good news. But Erica makes a really good point. Like they've set some markers down about diversifying the police force, right? Where everybody in Seattle, I think not everybody, but almost everybody in Seattle agrees, is that we do need to continue to reform SVD and bring about cultural change. And part of that is by diversifying the force itself so it looks more like the city it polices and represents.

[00:03:54] And so that's an important goal for them to have set. And if they're not making progress towards meeting it, that's significant too. And Erica's right to call it out. You want to just go straight into your thing, your prediction? Yeah, you want a prediction. So the conceit of mine in this piece in Publicola this year was I predicted things that aren't going to happen, but really ought to happen, right?

[00:04:20] Because I think the whole point of predictions is to kind of highlight things that are going, not to, I don't think mostly to get stuff that's going to actually happen, but to point out things that are happening in the city that are problems or issues that we ought to be addressing. And so the first one I think is a bigger picture thing for me, which is that it really feels to me like while we're past the sort of a zombie apocalypse of pandemic era Seattle,

[00:04:46] and while we're thankfully no longer in kind of, you know, peak Seattle, wokeity woke that happened in the aftermath of Trump and George Floyd. I think I took that word out of your story. I know, but I'm saying it here. I'm saying it here. I'm particularly happy to see some of that performative wokeity woke bullshit fall by the wayside. I also think, and I've said this on the podcast, like the city feels pretty meh right now, right?

[00:05:13] The state of the city is sort of, you know, it feels like we're in an extended kind of malaise state, if I can reference the late departed and great Jimmy Carter, you know? And I think that kind of malaise or what was it? Crisis of confidence. Whatever it was that Jimmy Carter fucking said before he. Okay, boomers. In 1978 or whatever the fuck it was.

[00:05:40] I actually, I just want to say like, not just a boo-booer. I actually interviewed Carter and asked him about this. Did you really? Like my, the greatest thing in my life. Holy shit. But he was 90. And so I thought I had these really clever questions. He was better talking about the rabbit than he was about the malaise speech. But anyway, sorry. All right. We should turn this whole episode into a memorial for Jimmy Carter. And our memories of the 70s, right?

[00:06:04] So the greatest, the greatest moment of my life interview wise was interviewing Mickey Dolenz with the monkeys. But, you know, oh, talk about a boomer person. Well, that's definitely, he was probably a lot more lively. He was great. Eric and I went and saw the monkeys together at their farewell tour. Oh my God. See what happens when all of us get together. There's no, I forget where, what the fuck was I talking about? So, right.

[00:06:33] And I think our malaise in Seattle goes along with the fact that we're no longer moving forward on big productive ideas in the city, right? And as I pointed out in the piece, I think the last big, big unalloyed policy success that I could point to is the promise, is college promise, right? Which is something that Mayor Jenny Durkin did in her first year in office, which was to

[00:07:02] make all community college tuition free for all public high school graduates in the city. Wow. If you were having to point to the Jenny Durkin era for a success, we are in it. Well, that's what I'm saying, man. Dude, that's what I'm saying. We, you know, where's the big stuff? Look, I do think the jumpstart was a really big, big, big shift. Jumpstart. From wokeity woke Teresa Mascato, which the current council has woken up to and steals

[00:07:31] every second. And the chamber too. They love it. I'm with you. They love the wokeity woke Teresa Mascato for giving them some money. I don't think they, they don't like it. They're just, they're just tapping it. Everybody's relying on it. So I do, I do think that was a boogie, but that's, that's taxes, right? And taxes, I mean, Seattle, like you can. Credit to the evil union back Teresa Mascato for saving your ass. Well, she didn't save my ass, but she saved, I don't know. Yeah.

[00:08:00] We can also talk about her crackpot spending plan that she associated with, but like, you know, you want to talk about woken woke, right? Well, the current town. Oh my God. Housing. What a crackpot notion. Yeah. Yeah. There's a lot of stuff in there, yeah. Not to mention, not to, yeah. Not to mention that, you know, in the episode that came out before this one, you know, we had Jesse Claussen of, you know, associated with the chamber, a land use lawyer talking

[00:08:25] about using jumpstart money to pay for social housing instead of building social housing. I'm acknowledging. And no new taxes. And no new taxes. I'm acknowledging jumpstart was a big, big, I mean, that is, that is the last big, big shift that happened. And I think it's really significant. You're right. Everybody's sort of relying on it now, you know? Can you imagine where we would have been if that didn't exist? You know, so, but that's taxes, right?

[00:08:51] And we're pretty reflexive about being supportive publicly about new taxation in Seattle. So the last big non-taxation policy is really promise, I think. So anyway, so I was predicting that this will be the year we break out of our malaise, that we actually come up with big answers that are commensurate to the scale of the problems we face on things like fentanyl or, you know, housing affordability or, you know, public safety.

[00:09:20] You're predicting that that's not going to happen. And I'm predicting that that's not going to happen, unfortunately. That's what I'm predicting. But this is, so your point of your predictions is what should happen. Right. And I'm saying we should be putting forward big ideas on these things and we're not going to fucking do it. Josh, you already reacted to Sandeep, so I won't ask you that. You basically destroyed Sandeep's whole thing. He yelled at me about Jimmy Carter for 10 minutes. What about your predictions? Josh, fight. Let's hear it.

[00:09:50] Yeah, sure, sure. So my conceit was I don't want these things to happen, but they definitely will. So a kind of sad sack posture as we head into 2025 because it's a pretty glum time. I mean, I will agree with Sandeep on this malaise stuff, you know, in Seattle nationwide. So my first one is related to that, although most of mine are related to that, but I'll go with this one first. I don't want this to happen, but it definitely will.

[00:10:18] We're going to see we're all Sally Bowles right now. If you remember the character from Cabaret, who is living in Berlin in 1932 and sort of witnessing the kind of Berlin is the is the liberal, decadent, progressive stronghold as Hitler is encroaching on the country. And it's just a terrifying movie because you see the kind of Nazis like begin to show up in the movie. Can I movie? Sorry, that's just that's just my little plug for seeing musicals.

[00:10:48] I saw the Broadway revival in New York earlier. Oh, nice. Like four months ago. It was really good. With Eddie Redwine. Redwine. Redwine. Redwine plays Joel Grant. You know, plays the MC at the cabaret. Yeah. It was good. Yeah, yeah. Really good. Just don't start singing, Sandeep. You're good.

[00:11:18] Yeah, William Shatner of Broadway. All right. Life is a cabaret in Seattle was a cabaret. But I think really, to be serious, getting serious, we are going to see what I call like as part of the trickle down bullying that we're going to see during the Trump era, we are going to start to see cities are no longer going to be a safe sort of safe haven. You're going to see a lot of kind of MAGA folks are going to be in the midst. They're going to be more vocal.

[00:11:48] They're going to be emboldened. I hate to say that you're going to see, you know, I fear as part of this prediction that there's going to be an uptick in hate crimes. There's just a lack of accountability for racism and proud boy kind of violence. And I think people in Seattle who are sort of used to, you know, a safe place to be progressive and liberal are suddenly going to be up against a more heated environment.

[00:12:17] And there's going to be a lot of provocative provocateurs and provocative MAGA folks out there at the bars and in Seattle. That's what happened last time. Kind of. I like the sort of dystopian nature of Josh's predictions there. And I've got some dystopian thoughts myself. I'm going to save that till the end. Mine's more like a dystopian science fiction movie rather than something real. But I think the purpose of predictions is to be super bold and then to turn out to be wrong.

[00:12:46] So unlike Erica, I don't care. I'm probably going to be wrong about all these. But here are my bold 2025 election predictions. Ten or fewer candidates are going to be running for mayor, which I think is an all-time record for recent 25. All-time record low? You think there's going to be? Yeah. Yeah. All-time record low. You think there's going to be ten or fewer? Wow. Ten or fewer. I think at least three of the four incumbents running this year in Seattle are going to win. Oh. Three of the four? Okay. So not Sarah Elson? Well, there's a city attorney's race. Oh, right. I'm just not sure about all of them.

[00:13:15] All the incumbents are going to agree to participate in at least one Seattle nice debate. Yes. All right. It's going to be close, but I think Prop 1A is going to be successful. And then Sandeep has inspired me to say that I think that Seattle's business community will realize that it has to start to modify its position on progressive taxes. Oh. If the business community doesn't figure that out, they're going to find themselves on the wrong side of some elections coming up here.

[00:13:44] Those are my bold predictions. And with that, I turn it over to Erica. You can respond or just move on. Yeah. I mean, I think one of my sort of quick hit predictions in Publicolo was that Sarah Nelson, city council president, is going to face a serious challenger. Now, that's based on a little bit of inside knowledge, I admit. But, you know, I think she could lose. I think Ann Davison, as you mentioned, the city attorney is a Republican. She, you know, became a Republican under Trump 1 and, you know, ran as a Republican with an R by her name.

[00:14:14] So I think that really could hurt her. And I don't think she's, you know, I don't know. We'll see. She's not the strongest candidate. She's not the strongest on the stump. And I think her win was the result of a lot of other factors at the time. Including the wokeity woke factor, right? Of Seattle. No, you're saying at least two of the incumbents will lose. More like the anti-Sawan pathology who wasn't even on the fucking council. Like, what? It was a... Oh, my goodness. It was NTK, man. It was NTK, right? Oh, we cannot... No.

[00:14:44] You have to put a quarter in the jar every time you mention NTK, Sunday evening. It was a candidate. It was a candidate that... No one knows who she is or was... You always heard the name nominated. Oh, my God. So what? So what? So what? So what? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Over Ann Davison, who, you know, is, as we speak, probably prosecuting, you know, some immigrant who, you know, who got caught trying to be a sex worker. She's Trump. She's Trump. Yeah. That's pretty goddamn Trumpy, if you ask me.

[00:15:14] Oh, God, no. Not even close. So speaking of which, I mean, this kind of also dovetails with our conversation with Bob Kettle, City Councilmember Bob Kettle. One of my predictions is that we're going to have, we're going to see significant federal funding cuts. It's going to hit Seattle because we're a sanctuary city for, you know, not just for immigrants and refugees, but also for people seeking abortions, people seeking gender-affirming care, and we will not be remotely prepared.

[00:15:44] You know, I say that because so far the mayor and city council have said virtually nothing about the incoming Trump administration. In fact, Mayor Harrell, you know, made comments about how he can work with anybody. We've talked about that before. But, you know, Kettle, I mean, we were talking to him about, you know, what are you going to do when the feds come through? And he, you know, basically said, well, the best thing to do is just be quiet, not cause panic, and keep doing our jobs.

[00:16:11] Well, that's not going to cut it if there's a natural disaster and we can't get FEMA money. That's not going to cut it, you know, if there's immigration raids and the city has to decide, you know, to what extent they're actually going to cooperate with them, because this has been theoretical in the past. You know, we can stand on our, you know, to you, Sandeep's word, our wokity-woke credentials and, like, and say how great we are. But, you know, I mean, this is Trump too. It's not the same as Trump one. And I think that the council and the mayor and city attorney, you know, I know they're

[00:16:42] doing their preparations behind the scenes, sort of telling city officials what to say if there's an immigration raid, but not seeing a lot in public. And I think it's going to be a real problem if the shit hits a fan. Hey, Seattle nice listeners. Seattle politics got you low. Well, get high with Uncle Ikes. Pissed at the mayor?

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[00:17:43] Yeah. And actually, Eric, I agree with that. Like, it was, I remember when Trump won when he was first elected, you know, Seattle was out front declaring itself a sanctuary city and kind of, and suing the Trump administration over. Jenny Durkin again. I think it was actually Murray. It was Murray when Trump got elected. Yeah, yeah. And then, you know, and then suing, suing, suing the attorney general under, under Trump. And this time, like, I think we see like Denver and Chicago or maybe the only, and New York

[00:18:12] are maybe the only cities that have actually verbally said, hey, we're against this. And, you know, Harold was kind of like, hey, my mode is to be cooperative. So it is a different vibe. Everybody's sort of, I mean, it's that, you know, that, that, that thing of, what is it called? Acquiescence? Yeah. Consenting in advance. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, we see a lot of that, including in Seattle. Well, I will say this. I think, I think the vibe is different, but I feel like this is the calm before the storm, right?

[00:18:39] The Trump administration takes office in four days or whatever it is, five days. And, and the shit's going to hit the fan, right? Erica, to your point, they are going to do stuff that, and I do think the one thing that unifies Seattle's sort of disparate factions and ideologies and stuff is that we all agree a lot of the shit that Trump is going to do is really bad. I think there's, I'm going to say something slightly optimistic here, which I do think there's

[00:19:06] going to be unity around pushing back on some of the worst excesses of the, of, of what the Trumpies try to do here in Seattle or in Washington state. I was working with Nick Brown during the campaign who's running, you know, who's our new attorney general just took office yesterday. I know there's a ton of planning going on to, to deal with things that may come down the pike. And some of it's really, really egregious. I'm hearing all this talk that Trump's going to, on day one, try to go after, potentially

[00:19:31] go after birthright citizenship, which is in the fucking 14th Amendment of the Constitution. But they've got some novel legal theory, you know, or whatever that maybe they're going to try to trot out. So I think we're going to see a lot of stuff like that come down the pike and buckle your seatbelts. It's going to be a bumpy ride. But I do think it will bring Seattle and, and, and Democrats together in Washington. I just feel like we're not remotely repaired at the city level. And it is the city level where a lot of this stuff, you know, I'm thinking particularly

[00:19:57] of emergency response, but just, you know, at Seattle as a sanctuary city, as opposed to the state, you know, I'm not, I'm not super confident in the folks that are currently in charge to really lead the way on responding since, you know, since their posture has been, you know, don't panic. Everything will be okay until it won't. Erica, when you brought up Bob Kettle, like a lot of his answers during that interview were a little bit ambiguous. He kind of didn't really want to say what he was going to do when it came to things like blast balls or whatever.

[00:20:26] And on that one, he, he, I wasn't sure what he said. He said, he said, well, I don't want to get drawn into it. I don't want to get drawn into it. Drawn into it. Yeah. You're the public safety committee chair. Yeah. It was a little, but no, on the, on the question of Trump and what he was going to do with, with the sanctuary city things, I don't want to, you know, get drawn into a reaction. It was kind of like, you know, in some ways that sounds good, but it's also just kind of a non answer. Oh, that answer really jumped out at me because it felt like such a dodge.

[00:20:54] And, and, and the city council had a meeting where they were all talking about it the other day and they all said basically the same thing. You know, let's not get drawn into this debate. Let's not panic. Let's just ignore it to the extent that we can. It was just kind of like, are you guys kidding? Anyway, like Josh, get in. Yeah. I was just going to say this, this dovetails with my, my, my prediction about trickle down bullying and Trump creep in the cities, because I think, yes, Sundeep, I hope you're right

[00:21:20] that there's a unified response, but this is also going to bring, if there are kind of raids and crackdowns with the feds, the proud boys are going to come to, to help. Like they're going to show up with their, their stuff and they're going to be kind of fighting for the, the Trump crackdowns as we object. So that, that, that's those two forces are going to collide. It's got, you know, it's very Brown shirt. It's very Brown. It's going to be a bumpy ride for sure. Like, it's not going to be pretty. I don't think.

[00:21:47] Um, and I, I don't think Trump is, yeah, it's going to be restrained or, you know, you know, so I think they're, you know, on the one hand, I've heard a lot of talk that this time around the Trumpies are more competent than they were the first time. And so legally they're going to kind of dot their I's and cross their T's on some of the stuff that they're going to do. And maybe that's the case and it's going to be harder to push back on them, but, but

[00:22:13] Trump's the same idiotic, you know, chaos agent reactive, you know, freak that he's always been. And so I kind of think that, that they're just going to completely overreach starting on day one. And it's going to, the, the, the, the unifying backlash will happen then. But it's impossible to guess what he's actually going to do. You know, he's not going to build the wall and have Mexico pay for it. Is he really going to successfully go after birthright citizenship or is this like some kind of psyops thing? You know, he's, he's going to invade Canada.

[00:22:43] Obviously he's not going to invade Canada. There's just a lot of shit coming out of his mouth. Greenland maybe. Yeah. All right. So Sunday, Sunday prediction number two. Yeah. So in kind of as a corollary to my first prediction, which was saying like, we've kind of, we're in this funk in Seattle and we've, we've, we've not been doing big things anymore. Um, that while we've been stuck in that kind of status quo funk, I think there's a really good argument to be made that a lot of the innovative policy energy has moved to the suburbs

[00:23:13] and we're actually seeing creative, you know, complicated policy responses that are showing real promise to address things like public safety and homelessness and, and, uh, you know, crisis response and stuff like that, that's happening in the suburbs. And I highlighted a few of those in the piece. People can go and read them, but just to give you one example, like, um, in Seattle and Davison, right.

[00:23:38] The city attorney a couple of years ago got rid of the community court that had been established here in Seattle in 2019. And I think that was right for her to do so because that community court was a freaking joke. It's a therapeutic court that had no therapy attached to it. So it didn't actually address anybody's underlying issues with addiction or mental health or whatever. And we talked about that a bunch on the show and I obviously disagree with that. And you disagree with that, but, but in Auburn and in a couple of other suburbs, they've

[00:24:08] set up these community courts that are therapeutic courts that are diverting people out of the punitive system and, uh, and connecting them with services. And they're showing a really good track record of results of lowering the vastly lowering the rate of like police contacts of these people. And the vast majority of these people are sticking with the programs and sort of going through with them. And so there are opportunities out there for us to do real things to help people and address

[00:24:37] these problems. We're just not fucking doing them in Seattle. We're doing them in the suburbs. Well, one reason we're not doing them in Seattle is that the city council and mayor are not funding the things that we know work here in Seattle, like we deliver care, which is funded, but it's not being expanded, um, to the extent, I mean, I was just at this Tanya Wu press conference the other day, which I'm probably not going to write about. So you're only going to hear about it on this show twice in a row. But, you know, one thing she, one very legitimate thing she mentioned was, you know, let's, let's get more we deliver care people in little Saigon in the, in the CID.

[00:25:06] Um, you know, the, um, lead program, uh, has, has not been expanded instead. It's just been moved over to a police response again. So, um, so they're not doing community referrals. The city of Seattle actually does have programs that work, but we don't fund them. Instead, we fund more and more police, more and more jail beds. I mean, and this is not, this is not just rhetoric for me. It is actually what was in the budget that, you know, that I covered this year or last year, rather. I agree.

[00:25:34] It's great to see stuff happening in the suburbs as well, because, you know, they need to share in some of the solutions, these problems that we see regionally. But the city of Seattle needs to put some money up to actually expand some of these things that are working and they're not doing that. Money, just really quickly, money is a real problem. But I also think they have some significantly different philosophical approaches that are also contributing to their success compared to Seattle. I'm going to agree with, I'm going to agree with Seattle, but not about the response to homelessness.

[00:26:00] I, I, I, I 100% agree with Eric on this, but I do agree with you, Sandeep, on this, this kind of suburban idea of innovation that proportionally speaking, the suburbs have done a much, are doing a much better job in terms of dealing with building density around transit. So like it is, it's, it's been harder to kind of move the needle in Seattle. Like if you look at Linwood, proportionally speaking, the density and the, and the up zones

[00:26:29] that they've done in terms of the contact that that city is in compared to ours have been much more commensurate with the growth they need to take. And that's been inspiring. So the, I, I do think there are some suburban leaders and some suburban urbanists that are moving faster proportionally than Seattle is because, you know, Seattle needs to upzone the whole city. And if they want to act proportionally the way that some of the suburban cities are around TOD. So I do think you're onto something there. That's interesting. That, that's a super interesting point.

[00:26:56] I hadn't even thought about that, about the, about the density stuff, but that's super interesting, Josh. I, I, I, I'm going to look at it. We're, we're clutching our pearls here. Yeah. As Eric has been, I mean, Eric. I hate to agree with Josh on anything, but I'm going to. Well, I started it by agreeing with you. It's a fucking love fest here. My God. Let's go to Josh with his, uh, his next round of predictions. And this might be, uh, our final round. Again, this is things I don't want to happen, but will.

[00:27:25] So, you know, Seattle, I'm going to, um, dogs, dogs, silver lining. No, no, no, I'm not going to do dogs. I'm just so tired of dogs. I can't even talk. Um, so there's a, there's a study, a Princeton study that says basically over the past 10 years, people are staying at home more. 10% decline in people sort of living outside and living in the city and, and kind of staying at home. And I think, unfortunately, and you know, Sandeep, you talk about the malaise in our city.

[00:27:53] This is going to continue to contribute to our city as we become more tech, tech driven. And we have kind of introverts and people that are happy to spend the night at home playing Fortnite and doing DoorDash. So I think we're going to, our city is going to be really, um, undercut by this, by this new trend in terms of public and social and civic life. Um, but I want to say my real prediction here is a silver lining.

[00:28:17] I do think that these kind of, we're going to see ironically, a kind of more vibrant arts community in Seattle because these introverts are sort of on the cutting edge of a kind of new AI digital technology art movement that I think is going to, is going to erupt in Seattle soon. Because we have a, um, um, kind of a, a big population of these folks who we like to otherwise demonize.

[00:28:46] Um, so I don't know if that all, that I, that I'll track to further demonize them. And I'll believe it when I see it. Let me, let me throw in a quick, a quick, a quick, a quick related thing. Cause this I'll, I'll turn my other prediction into, to join this one. Cause it's about city life. I think this return to work stuff, we're going to see, we're going to see minimal, minimal. We're going to see mixed results. And unfortunately I think we're going to overplay and hype those mixed results.

[00:29:13] And we're going to do what the Herald administration has been doing for the last three and a half, four years. We are reverting to focusing on downtown, trying to build these urban hubs and abandoning a golden opportunity we have had since the pandemic, which is to revitalize the neighborhoods and the, and the sort of citywide create kind of a vibrant and sustainable city citywide. But we're going to be like back to work and it's been a success and downtown's a new success.

[00:29:40] And it's going to be a, it's going to be a bit of a lie and it's going to draw energy from, from the, from an opportunity to build a really, really vibrant city citywide that was taking place post pandemic as neighborhoods were trying to own their own energy. 85th and Greenwood, right? Like the heart of, you know, the talk about deliverance country, the hinterlands, you know, of North Seattle, like Greenwood. Boomer utopia. Greenwood's really happening right now. Like, like there are, yeah, there are. Oh, great.

[00:30:10] No, if you're over 55, absolutely. There's some good restaurants. I mean, and like Ballard, I mean, Ballard, I guess has probably, I mean, this has probably been the truth for a very long time, but you know, I mean, this, this goes to like, to something that, you know, one of my hobby horses, like people, you know, really focus on businesses that are closing and, oh my God, like this, this beloved, you know, one place closed down. But like, I don't think there's a vacant storefront in Ballard and, you know, and it is, it is

[00:30:38] lively on the weekends, you know, with people, you know, a lot younger than me eating food that I consider a little bit mediocre, but for way too much money. And overpriced, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Very, very overpriced. But I mean, you know, that's, that's capitalism, baby. You know, people are, people are willing to pay, you know, $27 for, you know, three tacos or whatever.

[00:31:01] Or, you know, not me, but, but it's just this, I too worry about the neighborhoods with all this focus on downtown. And I think that the council might start getting annoyed with this and it has started getting annoyed a little bit because we have a district-based council system. But yeah, I mean, just pouring money into downtown and I don't think it's going to work because the model they're hoping for is like, you know, the old, like roll the streets up at five o'clock model where everybody spends money during the day.

[00:31:31] Yeah. It's a 20, it's a 20th century model. It's a 20th century model. And it's just ignorant of where we've come since the pandemic. I mean, the mayor only went to bringing even city employees back only three days a week. And that was like the big announcement from two days. So that was hardly a big shift. I just saw that the mayor, the new mayor of Portland is bringing city employees back five days a week. Right. So I think in other cities, they're sort of pushing that stuff harder than we are here. But I hear you, man.

[00:31:58] And I do think there's been a wave of vibrancy out in the neighborhoods that's happened as a result of, you know, the focus shifting away from downtown. And there's been a lot of positives to that. And that could potentially be at risk. It's because we're nicer than Portland. Yeah. We're more humane, more enlightened. Yeah. Yeah. All right. So I want to go to my second one here is a little bit more dystopian. Starting with the upcoming Women's March, renamed the People's March.

[00:32:28] This is we're recording on the 16th. This is happening on the 18th, a couple of days before the inauguration. So my forecast here is that it'll start like a peaceful march with maybe not the hats, but kind of like last time or whatever. But people are pissed, right? People are really pissed. There's this underlying rage. So eventually this thing is just going to kind of spiral out of control after the inauguration and protesters will declare a citywide chazz chop. Yes.

[00:32:58] At this point, like far right MAGA protesters get involved. They come here in like giant trucks and then Bruce Harrell has to respond, right? And so here's my this. My other part of the forecast is that on Mondays and Wednesdays, he holds these kind of one Seattle press conferences talking about how it reminds him of People's Park. But then on Tuesdays and Thursdays, it's all like tear gas and blast balls. And then on the weekends, SPD, it turns out in its contract, it gets weekends off during protests, like long weekends during protests.

[00:33:28] And that's as far as I can. Well, I will tell you what's wrong with that prediction. And it is the part about I wrote it down. Bruce Harrell holding press conference. So, David, that's your summer of love, huh? That's that's going to be our summer of love this time around. I feel like it needs an ending where like Trump sends in the National Guard. Yeah. At some point. I mean, that's obviously that's going to happen.

[00:33:55] And then I was imagining you remember that movie Escape from New York? Yeah. Snake Plissken. So maybe just all of Seattle becomes this giant prison. And then he turns the Amazon spheres into like Soylent Green. There you go. Soylent Green is people, David. It's people. I know. I was going to say, this is suddenly turned into a lot of 70s. I love the 70s. Boomer cast. The three men on this.

[00:34:23] I could have Mad Maxed it up. I should have Mad Maxed it a little more. The three rapidly aging men on this podcast are stuck in the 70s. I think that's the main take. My main prediction is that we will continue. I'm stuck in the 90s, maybe. The other three of us will continue to like fall back into our kind of, you know, 70s daydream state over the course of this year. Anyway, my serious part of that, I do think Trump sends in the National Guard to Seattle this year. That is my serious prediction.

[00:34:53] And, yeah, I'm really worried about our constitution and what the fuck happens after that. I mean, David, I agree with this. I think there was a lot of kind of yay. Like after we saw that Washington state actually went further blue than it did in 2020 and 2016. And there was this kind of, oh, at least I live in a city. Again, on this Trump creep and trickle down bullying like the city is the worst place to be right now because he's going to make us a symbol of Seattle, San Francisco. That's where the truth.

[00:35:22] I mean, the silver lining could be that because, you know, we're up here in the northwest corner of the country, we continue to be ignored. And, you know, nobody knows we exist. So that could that could end up being a silver lining. And they go after, you know, San Francisco and in L.A. and New York. I find it kind of that's our hopeful.

[00:35:43] I've been saying for a long time, I think we we dodged a huge bullet over the last couple of years that like Greg Abbott or, you know, the governor of Florida didn't start busing migrants to Seattle the way he did to New York and Chicago and L.A. and Denver. Right. You know, can you even a few hundred migrants here cause like a huge uproar over the last year sort of politically and and and in terms of, you know, funding resources and what to do about it?

[00:36:11] Well, make us it would make us build more housing maybe in the in the right places. That's a very optimistic prediction. I think the wheels would fucking come off Seattle in a minute. Like the whole place would be in it. Yeah, well, the masks would come off. Yeah, maybe. Maybe maybe that's one way to put it. But anyway, anyway, masks.

[00:36:31] Anyway, to Erica's point, like we did kind of I'm surprised we kind of avoided all of that and other cities became the targets on it because we are pretty high profile on some of the progressive stuff. But but and maybe maybe we'll get lucky this time, too. I kind of I'm kind of with Josh and David. I kind of doubt it. I think we're in for a bumpy ride. And who plays Kurt Russell? Yeah, question. They said you were dead. All right. Snape Bliskin. Oh, my God. I love that movie. All right.

[00:37:01] Sorry. Even I don't know what you guys are talking about. Let's not make this escape from New York. Don't watch it. We didn't even get in a Shattered Glass reference. Can we can we talk about Shattered Glass? Oh, yeah. Oh, my God. The upcoming podcast. Exciting new podcast. Are you guys going to tell us? Oh, my God. That's all we're going to say. That's all we're going to say. That's all we're going to say. All right. All right. Let's end on just a quick hit here. Quick, quick hit. Really quick one. Go around.

[00:37:28] Mine is that Rob Saka, Council Member Rob Saka, will still have to look at his nemesis, that fucking curb that prevents people from making an illegal left turn into a preschool parking lot. He's going to have to keep looking at it every time he drives to or from City Hall because the city of Seattle is not going to put two million dollars into removing it the way that he has planned. All right. Should we end it there? I could give you a snappy comeback, but I'm not going to.

[00:37:58] I feel like the only one ads obsessed with that wall is Rob Saka and you, Eric. You two are both obsessed with that. They're fucking yard signs. They're a t-shirt. I mean, this is not, they're not being made by me. I'll tell you that much. Wait, what are the yard signs and t-shirts? Do we already know about this? They're, yeah, they're, Brett Hamill, the cartoonist, has been also making fun of this fucking curb, as I picture Rob Saka saying every time he drives by it.

[00:38:25] And yeah, so he's made Save Kirby t-shirts. I'm sure. I mean, I think that he's made them. They're based on his comic. And so, yeah, so those, I've seen, people have sent me pictures of those out in the wild, so they're definitely out there. All right, that's it for another edition of Seattle Nice. Josh Feit, thank you so much. Oh my God. A blast. Thank you guys for having me. This is utter chaos. This will never happen again. I'm a chaos agent. You're the Trump in our midge. The three of us.

[00:38:55] You're the Trumpest. All right, she's Eric Kaseebarnit. He's Sandeep Kaushik. I'm David Hyde. Our editor is Quinn Waller. And thank you, everybody, so much for listening. We'll see you next time. We'll see you next time.