Seattle Politics Transformed: All Blue But Deeply Divided

Folio invites you to join us for the second panel in our Transforming Seattle series.

It wasn’t all that long ago that the political left was largely marginalized in municipal politics. But now, that seems like a distant memory. Over the last decade, Seattle politics has turned into a ceaseless power struggle between left activists who embrace adversarial politics as the necessary pathway to transformative change and centrist progressives preaching unity, incrementalism and a return to Old Seattle harmony and consensus. 

As the American left has polarized and fragmented culturally, our blue city seems more politically divided – along lines of governing style as well as ideology – than it has ever been. How did Seattle get to this point? And what are the political battles we can expect in the next decade? We’ll draw on the results of recent municipal elections, but we’ll primarily focus this discussion on the longer-term trends reshaping our political landscape in the Emerald City.

The panel features Erica C. Barnett: PubliCola editor, Seattle Nice podcaster (where she spars weekly with Sandeep) and (semi-reluctant, semi-enthusiastic) queen of the Seattle Twitter Left, Political consultant Michael Charles: young, hungry, disruptor of the local political establishment (and kind of a Bernie Bro!), is the Managing Partner of Upper Left Strategies, Zach Silk: Civic Ventures President (and Chief Troublemaker), venture capitalist Nick Hanauer's (evil) right hand, and the chief architect of the marriage equality ballot measure campaign in 2012 and Dean Nielsen: Founder and CEO of CN4 Partners, a veteran local politico who got his start with the Bill Clinton 1992 presidential campaign, and who frequently channels the ghost of legendary Seattle consultant (Uncle) Blair Butterworth. Moderated by  Sound View Strategies Partner, Folio Board member, Post Alley writer, former Stranger staffer (and infamous sellout - what went wrong?) Sandeep Kaushik