Earlier this summer left-wing activists announced a ‘semi-autonomous zone’ in the Capitol Hill area of Seattle. Denuded of law enforcement and any other signs of the American state, these activists deluded themselves that they were creating a blueprint for the perfect society. After a number of wholly predictable murders and rather more rapes, the state retook control. The area where the state formerly known as CHAZ briefly stood is now just another homeless encampment, overlooked by empty luxury apartments. Local businesses are suing the city for failing to protect them. All still have ‘Don’t hurt me’ signs in the windows. One, a hairdresser, stresses that it is ‘a minority-owned, women-led, LGBTQIA+ staffed local business’. What any business in the area might do if it is unfortunate enough to be owned or staffed by people from a majority group is not to be imagined.
Like most other businesses in town, the local Whole Foods is boarded up against rioters. Over this unprepossessing edifice Whole Foods has hung a huge banner of its own which proclaims ‘Racism has no place here’. As though the Seattle Whole Foods was ever suspected of hosting Klan meetings in the dried fruit and nuts aisle. Even the local ice-cream parlour has a side-business selling T-shirts for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Seattle, like Portland, is like living in a one-party state in which the state religion is BLM.
Pensacola, Florida, is different. And not just because Air Force One is soon to arrive. In the airfield where it will land, thousands of people stream through the metal detectors and await the main act. It is hard to know whether the warm-up songs blasted out through loudspeakers have been chosen with too much thought or none at all.
Comments
Join the debate for just £1 a month
Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for £3.
UNLOCK ACCESS Just £1 a monthAlready a subscriber? Log in