Home Street Home

There is, in Seattle's Ballard neighborhood, a bit of street that's been blocked off in the service of making a couple of the corners easier to navigate. This small patch of pavement has what looks like some public art in it, but its primary use has become a campsite. As I've noted before, Ballard is something of a destination for certain members of the area's homeless population, and while the city may clear an encampment from time to time, and even take some fairly stringent methods to keep them away, the problem tends to simply migrate to the nearest place that hasn't been blocked off. And, as one can see, it's migrated here.

While President Trump has promised a coming Golden Age in the United States, at the rate things are going, I doubt that there will be much sign of glistening before the next round of elections in November 2026. While the Make America Great Again crowd will likely still have the President's back, that's not going to be enough so save Republicans in Congress, and it's unlikely that Democratic majorities in the House of Representatives and/or the Senate will be quite as willing to sit back and allow Mr. Trump to continue whatever plans he has in mind.

So at that point, will it have all been worth it? I suspect that the number of people sleeping in tents on the pavement, in Seattle and outside of it, will have grown, perhaps quite substantially, by late 2026. Will there be a bright light on the horizon that will give those people inclined to give Mr. Trump the benefit of the doubt a reason to do so?

Partisans like to claim that anyone who doesn't back their guy is rooting for failure, and while there might be some truth in that, most people don't genuinely want the results of that failure. Most people... there are always going to be a few who decide that it's worth it whatever the cost. But most Americans aren't that big on things they want being expensive... it's (a small) part of what has brought the United States to where it is. And if people who aren't hardcore supporters come to the conclusion that whatever they get from a Trump Administration is more expensive than it could have been, they may not vote Democratic, but they're going to walk away. And any real chance for Mr. Trump to make things better will go with them.

I don't care for his tactics, but I don't want to see Donald Trump fail in improving the economy. More poverty, more desperation, more people in tents out on the street does not make things any better; for me, or for anyone I know. I'm as skeptical of the Trump Administration's current actions as President Trump (at least to appearances) is confident in them. It's a big possibility space, so we could both be wrong. But if one of us is going to be right, I'd rather it be him.

Ballard is a nice place; to visit and to live. But it's a lot better when that living is indoors.