by Travis Mateer

In her first comments to local media as Mayor, Andrea Davis expressed gratitude for the “cross-section” of voters who elected her. Here’s her comment, as reported by KGVO:

Davis told KGVO that she was excited to see a cross-section of Missoulians vote her into office.

“We have Missoulians from young to old from just a whole cross section of this community here celebrating together,” began Davis. “People feel hopeful;  people feel excited. We’re having a good time, and I feel wonderful, too. The (city) council has postponed the urban camping ordinance and that will be one of the major decisions as a city and community that we come together and come up with a solution for people that are living unsheltered as well as for residents in the community that have been seeking a solution. I’m going to say right now that we’re going to be working on this issue for some time.”

How many people cast a vote for Davis? The tally thus far is 14,736 votes for Davis compared to Nugent, who grabbed 9,674 votes. What does this mean? For a political cynic like myself, the numbers tell me a MAJORITY of eligible voters in Missoula continue signaling their disgust with the ENTIRE political process by NOT VOTING AT ALL.

Because of this clear public disgust and/or apathy, our new Mayor does NOT have some broad popular mandate to bring her non-profit/female/victim mentality into the realm of public policy development, though I doubt that will stop this political new-comer from assuming that fourteen thousand votes means the rest of this town is excited to continue being told that “urban campers” are all just poor victims of circumstance who deserve subsidized housing while the rest of the town is squeezed by reckless tax policies.

The Engen cabal, who primarily aligned behind Jordan Hess, should be satisfied to have a new vagina-shield to hide behind. If you find that assessment crude, I’m NOT sorry–this is simply how identity politics works, and it’s quite effective. Having a Mayoral vagina-shield means that ANY criticism of Mayor Davis coming from an ideologically divergent man can easily be dismissed as misogyny.

The signaling from Davis regarding the “urban camping ordinance” indicates, at least to me, that the “cross-section” of voters who worship their victim status like a god will be more than enthusiastic to consider every single person without conventional housing as helpless victims, gobbling up meth and fentanyl because our Federal and State governments haven’t given our non-profit organizations enough tax money yet to save addicts from the daily work of staying high.

Personally, I think it would be sexist to treat a female Mayor any differently than one would treat a male Mayor, so in the spirit of equality I’m NOT going to pull ANY metaphorical punches with our newly elected promoter of Zoom Town. I’m sure the response will be a sophisticated debate on the merits of policy and not just claims that I’m a misogynist, right?

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Thanks for reading!