The Boston Globe - 19.08.2019

A8 Editorial The Boston Globe MONDAY, AUGUST 19, 2019

I

t’s entirely possible that various legal barriers

will prevent Somerville from opening its first

safe injection site next year. Still, Mayor Jo-

seph A. Curtatone deserves credit for recog-

nizing that an extraordinary crisis demands

an extraordinary response.

In a Facebook post, Curtatone wrote, “The death

toll in this opioids epidemic is too high for us to con-

tinue to act like the status quo has any chance of fix-

ing it... Supervised consumption sites may offend

the War on Drugs mentality of some federal officials,

but that mentality has done nothing but make this

plague of addiction worse.”

Safe injection sites, also called safe consumption

sites, are designated places staffed by trained addic-

tion professionals where people can use drugs — and,

if necessary, be revived in case of an overdose. While

they exist in Canada and Australia, they are illegal

here under state and federal laws.

“Barring a change in the Justice Department’s posi-

tion, if Somerville opens one, federal enforcement will

follow,” Andrew E. Lelling, the US attorney for Massa-

chusetts, said in a statement.

Under the current administration, any change in

the Justice Department’s position is unlikely. While

President Trump is taking undue credit for the first

yearly drop in overdose deaths in three decades, he

still hasn’t nominated anyone to lead the Drug En-

forcement Adminstration. With no federal guidance,

cities nationwide must weigh all options in stemming

a dire situation that continues to threaten lives and

upend communities.

That includes Boston. How the city is handling its

own opioid crisis has been under

scrutiny since “Operation Clean

Sweep” this month cleared out At-

kinson Street, an area frequented by

addicts and the homeless. Sparked

by an assault on a Suffolk County

House of Correction deputy sheriff,

the police action unfolded over two

nights, and led to 34 arrests. Some

had their wheelchairs and personal

items discarded.

City councilors recently met to

discuss safe injection sites here, but after several of

them toured facilities in Canada, they questioned

whether they are a viable answer for Boston. Mayor

Martin J. Walsh is open to safe injection sites, but

won’t consider a program without state legislation.

Ever since the Long Island shelter and treatment

program closed five years ago, the city has been strug-

gling to handle addicts congregating in the Newmar-

ket Square area, where some services were relocated.

Eventually, the city fenced off sections at the corner of

Massachusetts Avenue and Melnea Cass Boulevard,

the entrance to Interstate 93, to restrict access. Now,

with old haunts largely off limits, more people are

streaming deeper into the South End, alarming resi-

dents and business owners.

The current situation isn’t work-

ing for anyone, nor can Boston ar-

rest its way out of what has become

one of our greatest social problems.

Ideally, there would be a rehab

bed for every addict who wants one

— and every addict would want

one. Yet that’s not realistic, if only

because every addict isn’t ready to

get clean. Keeping them alive long

enough to get help is a logical step

in curtailing overdose deaths.

What happened this month on Atkinson Street was

a stark reminder of just what a tinderbox the situation

has become in Boston. Curtatone is correct that the

status quo, which has never been as successful as tout-

ed, won’t fix this crisis. The prospect of a safe injec-

tion site could jar action across the state — and per-

haps the State House — to develop solutions to help

addicts live long enough to get the help they so des-

perately need.

Somerville takes on a failing status quo

Opinion

BOSTONGLOBE.COM/OPINION

Editorial

‘Y

esterday morning, I walked

outside to get my newspaper, and

my neighbor was screaming that

he had a flat tire,” said Maria of

Arizona. “I swear he was going to

blame it on Trump.”

Maria is typical of many

Republicans in America today. She voted for Donald

Trump in 2016 but is disappointed in his leadership,

his tweets, and the general chaos that she believes he

creates wherever he goes. Although she wrote me last

fall that she is open to voting for an alternative in

2020, she now says she could never vote for a

Democrat because “they have become a radical and

hateful party,” so much so that she finds herself

defending the president on a daily basis. Even with

her neighbors.

Cynthia, a Trump voter from Massachusetts, agrees

with Maria, calling the president “a terrible leader,

whose ego gets in his way every time he speaks.” And yet

she sees the Democrats as “growing so far left I think

they will implode” and “spending way too much time on

hating Trump and not enough time on fixing the

country.”

The words used by Democrats to describe the

president and his base are well documented: racist,

uneducated, misogynistic, deplorable. When I asked the

280 Republicans and independents in my panel of

voters to describe Democrats, it was equally blistering,

as shown in the diagram, where the larger the word, the

more often it was said.

Worse, many Democrats agree with those words.

Jeremy, a self-described liberal from Massachusetts,

mourns the days when the Democratic Party stood for

pragmatism and compromise. “Historically, it’s been a

‘big tent’ party, encompassing people with different

ideological perspectives,” he says. But now, he is

concerned that the party is becoming too extreme and

that “the sweeping promises of our candidates are not

based in reality.”

When asked about this issue, South Bend, Ind.,

Mayor Pete Buttigieg suggested ignoring the labels and

staying focused, because Democrats will be called crazy

socialists no matter what. His belief is that if Democrats

stand for the right policies, they will prevail. Many of

my 220 Democratic voters are not so sure. They warn

against fighting for single-payer health care and

decriminalization of illegal immigration as the policies

that will assure Trump a second term.

In fact, in the last month, over two-thirds of the

Democrats on my panel expressed concern that their

party has become radical and full of

hate, and that it will doom their

chances in November 2020. “What

are we doing?” asked Alexander, a

Democrat from Illinois. “Do we have

to call everything racist? Do we have

to blame everything on rich people?

Do we have to spend all of our time

investigating? Do we have to make

everything free, even for illegals?”

The Democratic Party is at a

crossroads, and given that the

primary goal of most of the party’s voters is to defeat

Trump in 2020, there are two potential strategies. The

first is to take a deep breath, abandon the extreme

ideas, and move to the center, in the hopes of

recapturing the support of those independents and

Republicans who are not happy with Trump. Joe Biden’s

attempts to do this have him in the lead, despite his

unremarkable debate performances and his missteps of

the last several months. And, given that most of the

critical states to win are in the Rust Belt, where

Democrats tend to be more moderate, this strategy may

be the safest bet.

The second strategy is to ignore the labels and to

stay bold, radical, and extremely progressive. My

data says that this will turn off Republicans and

independents, and might potentially have moderate

Democrats staying home. Thus, winning at the ballot

box will require record turnout from citizens who

have not voted in the past — particularly voters

under 30, whose propensity to show up on Election

Day is lower than any other age group, according to

research done by the Tisch College at Tufts

University.

Here’s the conundrum. In the recent past, Democrats

have lost presidential elections when they nominate a

well-known and tested candidate — Walter Mondale, Al

Gore, John Kerry, Hillary Clinton —

and have won when a relatively fresh

face enters the scene: Jimmy Carter,

Bill Clinton, Barack Obama.

Is there a third strategy for the

Democrats? A fresh face who can

move toward the center? A progressive

who can also tell Maria of Arizona’s

neighbor that her flat tire is not

Trump’s fault? Or, given that nearly

100 percent of my 500 voters are

distressed about the divisiveness in

our country, and nearly 100 percent would like a leader

to bring us together, perhaps there is a candidate who

can inspire us behind new common-sense, less hateful

messages that both Democrats and Republicans could

support? That may be our only hope for keeping the

United States united.

Diane Hessan is an entrepreneur, author, and chair of C

Space. She has been in conversation with 500 voters

across the political spectrum weekly since December

2016. Follow her on Twitter @DianeHessan. See her
methodology at https://www.documentcloud.org/
documents/5979231-Diane-Hessan-Methodology.html

DIANE HESSAN

A dilemma for the Democrats

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