Update for October 8, 2021

Dear Tillamook County Democratic Party

Dear Tillamook County Democratic Party,

Thank you very much for the confidence and trust that you expressed by electing me Chair. I will try to earn it, but will point out that the organization itself -- the Tillamook County Democratic Party -- is what truly deserves your trust. I've been involved with the Democratic Party in various capacities for many years, and count myself incredibly lucky now to be working in one of the most congenial and conscientious and intelligent parts of it. We all have reason to be proud of this organization, and to do everything we can to strengthen it.

Cole Brecheen

Chair, Tillamook County Democratic Party

What do YOU think?

What do YOU think?      

Hello fellow Dems! Our June 24 Central Committee meeting offers you opportunities to make a difference in the future of your local Democratic Party.

We had scheduled a very special guest speaker - State Treasurer Tobias Read. Unfortunately, Treasurer Read, had to cancel at the last minute. We are working to reschedule his visit, but this gives us the opportunity to open up the time for what we are hoping will be a lively discussion on three fronts.

In our New Business agenda, we have three areas where your party leadership is really needing your input. At our recent Executive Committee meeting, based on what we learned during the Special District Elections, we created a new special committee for elections. This committee is in the very rudimentary stage of exploring what are our needs and developing the committee format around those needs.

Having learned during the recent election that the vote we took during a previous election to not endorse candidates in non-partisan elections created a serious bottleneck for our work electing Democrats. This non-endorsement policy must be part of the exploration and development that is done by our fledgling Elections Committee. So, I ask again, “What do YOU think?” We have been studying how other county parties deal with this question, but we need your input and engagement in this process.

The newly formed Elections Committee will take your input, possibly working it into proposals for how and who we endorse in future elections. If you check the “revised” agenda for this meeting, you’ll see that we have expanded our usual five minutes discussion time for new business items to 15 minutes for each. This should give us ample time to at lease start, what we are hoping will be a continued focus in coming weeks and months.

I’m still hoping that there will be too many ideas and suggestions to fit in this narrow time frame and that those of you who would like to share ideas on this subject, but who may not get called on in the time allowed, email you suggestions to us at TillCoDems@gmail.com.

The limited time frame for holding vital discussions on critical issues, is another area where we want to know, “What do YOU think?” In attempting to follow suggestions made at our retreat sessions earlier this year to make our meetings more interesting and engaging, your officers and committee chairs have been studying options.

As a registered political party, we have business that must be addressed by the Central Committee. However, this ‘taking care of business’ can be a little more compelling of yawns, than of vibrant discussions of issues.

As we begin to see the end of the restrictions that have forced us to meet solely via Zoom, it is a great time to look at how we can improve the quality of our meetings. Your Executive Committee has discussed the possibility of hybrid meetings, combining in-person and electronic meeting technologies. This would allow those who want to meet in person to do so, while not excluding those who find traveling to meetings an obstacle. We could also consider having meetings in different areas of our county and at different times.

But, there’s more of a question here. At previous Central Committee meetings and at our retreat this year we briefly discussed separating our “business meeting” from our meetings where we have speakers and/or forums focused on specific issues, allowing more time in the latter for questions and answers.

Finally, your party leadership has been looking at ways to engage more people in out work. We have reached out to other County Central Committees and the Democratic Party of Oregon and gotten some good ideas we want to share with you. However, we need your input on ways to attract new members and how to make our work more interesting and accessible to current and newer volunteers.

We have allotted 15 minutes for each of these discussions, but, again we are hoping we’ll run out of time before you run out of ideas. If you don’t get to speak, can’t join the meeting, or think of something in the middle of the night, please send your suggestions to TillCoDems@gmail.com.

We urge you to take this and every opportunity to let us know, “What do YOU think?”

Fred Bassett

Chair, Tillamook County Democrats

The gap is just a little bit narrower

June 03, 2021

On Tuesday, June 1, with the help of Tillamook County Republicans, our Tillamook County Commissioners, Oregon State Parks Beach Ranger Simon Freeman, and approximately 20 volunteers, we were able to clean up about three miles of our beautiful coastline and about a two mile stretch of Sandlake Road, while we showed that, despite all the news to the contrary, we Dems and Republicans could pull together for the common good.

Besides being a totally unique effort statewide, the Bridge the Gap Beach Cleanup in Tierra Del Mar was, by all measures, a success. An equal number of gloved Dems and Republicans showed up, as did County Commissioner Mary Faith Bell and David Yamamoto. The weather was spectacular and the only big surprise was the relatively small amount of litter we found following the busy Memorial Day Weekend.

Volunteers walked and visited the length of beach from the north side of Cape Kiwanda to the mouth of the Sandlake estuary. Two volunteers, seeing we had the beach pretty well covered, took to Sandlake Road, cleaning both sides of this highway for the entire length of the Tiera Del Mar community, as well.

If you are wondering why it’s important for us, as Tillamook County Democrats to reach out to our Republican counterparts in a cooperative effort such as this, check out the comments on Facebook’s What’s Up Pacific City group page (https://www.facebook.com/groups/483819849022590/permalink/1012271009510802).

Obviously, this bridging of the gap, this attempt to show that, despite our divergent political views, we can come together for the good of our county, strikes a chord with our community.

Thank you to Mike Sears and the Republican Central Committee, and to County Commissioners Bell and Yamamoto for their support. Thank you to the Pacific City Sun, Oregon Coast Today and the Tillamook County Pioneer for letting people know about the event ahead of time. And, thank you, TillCoDems, for the support and recognition that this kind of outreach across the “great divide” will make us a stronger, more productive, and more  cohesive community.

Fred Bassett,

Chair, Tillamook County Democrats

Republicans and Democrats making a difference…together!

I don’t know about you, but I’ve been busy planting our garden, and ever-so-gingerly peeling off the corners of the Covid-19 mask by, carefully, visiting the big city, enjoying a Spring camping trip, and actually dining in distant corners of a couple of restaurants with bare-faced friends.

But, I also have been helping organize an event that has long been a dream of mine and answers the call of one of the top goals from our retreat sessions earlier this year. On Tuesday, June 1, at 10 a.m., we TillCoDems will be cosponsoring the Bridge The Gap Beach Cleanup at Tierra Del Mar with Tillamook County Republicans.

Yes, you heard me right!

Just after our March 25 TillCoDems Central Committee meeting, and the wonderful address by County Commissioner Mary Faith Bell, I shared my dream with Commissioner Bell. Almost immediately, Commissioner Bell suggested the beach cleanup in Tierra Del Mar. We reached out to Tillamook County Republican Central Committee Chair Mike Sears, and he enthusiastically agreed. The Bridge The Gap Beach Cleanup was born.

Sears and I spoke briefly about our shared belief that the divisiveness of recent elections with its angry rhetoric overshadowed the fact that we in Tillamook County have a long history of working together whenever there’s a community need. I’ve always been encouraged and comforted by the fact that whenever there’s a disaster in our county, people come out of the woodwork to help each other. Nobody asks how you voted. We just see a need and we fill it.

What’s different about this event is that we Democrats and our Republican neighbors are purposely coming together to show that, although we may differ widely in our political persuasions, we are putting those differences aside to make a difference together.

The Bridge The Gap Beach Cleanup will begin at 10 a.m., on Tuesday, June 1 (the morning after Memorial Day) on the beach at Tierra Del Mar. An information station, where collection bags will be provided, will be set up along Sandlake Road at the beach access just south of the southernmost Tierra Del Mar residence. The information station will be designated by an American Flag.

Although Sears generously offered to haul the collected litter to the transfer station, we have just confirmed with Oregon State Parks Beach Ranger Simon Freeman that he will patrol the entire length of the beach on Wednesday morning, June 2, and will pick up all the litter bags. In his support for the Bridge The Gap cleanup Freeman said, “It’s always nice to see members of the community helping. It’s good for everyone,” he said.

Ranger Freeman asked that we just place the bags in visible locations above the high tide line. He urged caution for the “dry sand” area between the northernmost residence of Tierra Del Mar and Sitka Sedge State Natural Area as it is a protected Snowy Plover nesting area. People are asked not to enter this area.

As it was pointed out to me, we TillCoDems are getting older, so I’m happy to report that there are public restrooms (porta-potties) located at the same beach access courtesy of Tillamook County Parks.

Please join the fun on Tuesday, June 1, and help Tillamook County Democrats and Republicans Bridge the Gap!

Fred Basset,

Chair, Tillamook County Democrats

Why Vote in May 18 Special District Election

April 17, 2021

Just when you thought your job as a prime player in Democracy was taken care of with last November’s tumultuous election, here, comes another request that you cast your ballots. I can’t help but think about one of my favorite pieces of art - a small canvas created by my friend and stellar wait staff at The Grateful Bread Bakery and Restaurant in Pacific City Linda Smith - which states, “Every time I think things can’t get worse, there’s another election.”

But, Linda’s tongue-in-cheek humor is a little misleading, because our elections, and more specifically, our votes in the May 18 Special District Elections couldn’t be more important. Even though you won’t be receiving a voters pamphlet or be seeing political advertising ad nauseam, please, don’t pass over these elections it’s not as critical as the General Election last fall.

 All of your neighbors who have put their names on this ballot do so knowing they won’t be compensated for their efforts, except to know they have stepped up to share the responsibility of operating our water and sewer districts, our rural fire departments, our school boards, transportation district, ports and emergency services. All they are asking of you is that you take a little time to learn about these districts that are right here in your community and county, and to do a little research about those who are asking for your vote.

Although all of these positions are non-partisan, we at TillCoDems have reached out to Democrats who are running for these offices and, with their permission, have provided links to their campaigns on our website at TillCoDems.org. Just click on the May 18 Election button on the home screen. Several of these candidates will be our special guest speakers at our TillCoDems Central Committee meeting Thursday, April 22, at 6 p.m. in our main Zoom chatroom.

Please watch for your ballot - they will be mailed on April 28 - and please fill it out and make sure it is in the mail in time to get to County Clerk Tassi O’Neil’s office by May 18, or, place it in one of the conveniently located ballot boxes by May 18.

I hate to disagree with my friend Linda, and I will still chuckle each time I past her artwork  in our hallway, but our participation in “another election” is the only way we can make things better.

 Fred Bassett

Chair, Tillamook County Democrats

We’d better think again

March 11, 2021

In what has been labeled an “unprecedented” move, the Chairpersons of five of the seven Democratic Central Committees in Congressional District 5 this week sent a letter to Congressman Kurt Schrader sharing their concerns, disappointment and sense of betrayal caused by Schrader being one of only two Democrats to vote against H.R. 1319, the American Rescue Plan of 2021. I was among those who signed the letter.

The five Central Committee chairs met in the days immediately following Schrader’s nay vote, at which time no word had been issued by the Congressman, or his staff, regarding his vote. The letter, which is included in its entirety at the end of this column, spelled out many of most critical benefits of H.R. 1319, and, in particular, those that would be of greatest impact to the residents and constituents in Schrader’s district.

I am proud that my fellow Democratic leaders took this critical moment in our nation’s efforts to help those in most need of assistance to overcome the physical, emotional, and economic impacts of the Covid 19 pandemic to assert our concerns and strongly urge Mr. Schrader to meet with us to explain his vote.

Since signing and sending our letter to the Congressman, several interviews have been conducted with Mr. Schrader and his responses have been that the bill, as it was presented in Congress was too “un-targeted,” that it included a $15-per-hour minimum wage package, which he claimed was untimely during the pandemic, and that it was presented as a take-it-or-leave-it, all-inclusive package, and that he and his fellow legislators weren’t given enough time to study it.

Of course, we all know that H.R. 1319 passed despite his vote and then went to the Senate where it passed, with amendments, along party lines. On Wednesday morning, March 10, the revised bill with the Senate’s amendments went back to the House where it passed, with Schrader voting yes. I saw one interview in which Rep. Schrader said that the changes made by the Senate made the bill more palatable for him.

In this whole process, Democrats, particularly those whose leanings are most progressive, have called for the Congressman’s head. Unfortunately for Mr. Schrader, his nay vote on H.R. 1319 came shortly after he, in an “unprecedented” (there’s that word again) case of foot-in-mouth disease compared the impeachment hearings of D.J. Trump to lynchings, a statement for which he has abjectly apologized.

However, no apology has come for his nay vote, or even an explanation as to what the Senate did to the bill that made it more palatable - less “un-targeted,” less all inclusive. Maybe it was simply that the time following the House’s first passage of H.R. 1319 and the Senate’s relatively quick passage was enough for Schrader to understand that this bill is really good for the people in his district.

So, yes, Democrats from urban Clackamas and Marion Counties, and in the rural parts of those counties as well as in Polk, Lincoln and Tillamook Counties are upset.

But, before we throw the baby out with the bath water, let’s consider our alternatives. Schrader’s District 5 seat is one we Democrats have hung on to for 23 years. Not because it is a hotbed of progressive liberals, but because the two Democratic candidates that have held this seat for all these years - Kurt Schrader and Darlene Hooley - recognized that to continue to win elections in what Schrader rightly calls a “Purple” district, the candidate must do what American democracy demands - compromise. Makes me wonder how much this was on the Congressman’s mind when he voted “no” instead of his list of issues with the bill.

Although Kurt Schrader has more times than I can count caused me to slap myself in the forehead and say, “Yikes, doesn’t he know he’s a Democrat,” he has managed to reach across the aisle and work to pass bills that have benefitted his constituents. Not just his Democratic constituents, but all of his constituents in Congressional District 5.

While he was dancing to the tune of his unfortunate nay vote on H.R. 1319 this week, his opponent in the 2020 election - Amy Courser - was dancing in the streets of Orlando, FL celebrating the fact that D.J. Trump was going to speak at the Conservative Political Action Conference C.P.A.C. she was attending. If we think we’re going to get anything close to constituent representation from Courser, who is already campaigning for 2022 and who lost to Schrader in 2020 by less than 7 percentage points, we’d better think again.

Fred Bassett

Chair, Tillamook County Democrats

———————————————————————————————————

The Honorable Congressman Kurt Schrader

United States House of Representative 

2431 Rayburn House Office Building 

Washington, D.C 20515

Congressman Schrader,

We write to you not only as elected leaders of our local county Democratic Parties, but also as your constituents.  On February 27th, you were one of only two Democrats in the House of Representatives to vote against the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, H.R. 1319.  As of March 3rd, you have yet to issue a press release or adequately address your highly controversial vote.  

Congressman, the American Rescue Plan is the centerpiece of President Joe Biden’s agenda to defeat the COVID-19 pandemic and rescue our economy.  For you to vote against this critical legislation without consulting the communities in this district, or providing a clear explanation, is a betrayal of your duty to best serve your constituents. We urge you to support this critically important plan as the measure returns for House consideration this week." 

The American Rescue Plan has broad, bipartisan support among the American public, including among a majority of Republicans in several national polls.  Here are some of the provisions that you voted against:

•  $1400 relief checks to all adults earning $75,000 or $150,000 per couple.  Direct payments during the pandemic have been a lifeline to millions of Americans, allowing them to catch up from the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.  Furthermore, a February 3rd Quinnipiac University poll shows that 90% of Democrats and 64% of Republicans support these direct payments to Americans. 

•  Refundable Child Tax Credits:  This bill increased the Child Tax Credit to $3,000 per child ($3,600 per child under 6) and made them refundable.  This means that working families across America will be able to receive the benefit regardless of how much taxes they pay.  This will make a massive impact on working families just trying to make ends meet. 

•  Extends and expands unemployment benefits for tens of thousands of your constituents who are out of work through no fault of their own.  This bill extends key unemployment programs which are set to expire March 14th through August 29th.  In addition to the extension of benefits for gig workers and others not traditionally eligible for unemployment benefits, it increases enhanced Federal payments from an extra $300 to $400.  

•  Essential funding for vaccine distribution and testing.  The COVID-19 Pandemic has lasted over a year now, and will continue until we get most Americans vaccinated.  Without this funding, this already complex nationwide vaccination effort will suffer even longer delays, costing more American lives and further negatively impacting our economy.

•  A $15/hour Federal minimum wage.  You listed this as your main reason that you voted against H.B. 1319, falsely claiming that no small business owners support this provision, and disingenuously leaving out that the increase would be phased in over four years.  Oregon is already on the path to a $15 minimum wage, and your repeated votes against raising the Federal minimum wage puts Oregon’s businesses and industries at a competitive disadvantage to other states who are at the current federal minimum wage of $7.25.  Low wages keep millions of hard working Americans on SNAP and other taxpayer funded programs that act as corporate subsidies.  There are countless studies that not only refute the false narrative that an increase in the minimum wage kills jobs, but it actually creates them because of increased demand. 

•  Emergency Rental Relief.  Nearly 100,000 Oregonians are behind on their rent due to the pandemic.  A PSU report indicates that if more relief is not passed, we could see a wave of evictions of unimaginable scale.

Congressman Schrader, we are profoundly disappointed in your votes against the needs of your constituents directly impacted by the pandemic and earnestly request the opportunity to meet with you.  It is important to us that we hear your explanation of this vote, and for you to hear from us on the need to support legislation that helps your constituents.  You have a solemn responsibility to represent and to fight for your constituents.  Joe Biden won OR CD-5 by a 10 point margin, while you carried the district by only 7 points, your narrowest margin in several cycles. 

Your decision to reject the President’s immensely popular agenda indicates to us how out of touch with your constituents you have become.  It’s time for you to start listening to the people you serve. 

We look forward to meeting with you soon,

Charles Gallia, Chair, Clackamas County Democrats

Carina Perez-Europa, Chair, Marion County Democrats

Beth Vaughn, Chair, Polk County Democrats

Michael Gaskill, Chair, Lincoln County Democrats

Fred Bassett, Chair, Tillamook County Democrats

Celebrating my Oregon. It’s ironic!

February 10, 2021

Sunday, February 14, 2021 is Valentine’s Day, or course. But, it also marks the 162 anniversary of Oregon statehood. With all we’ve been through together over the past year - the pandemic, the wildfires, the most divisive and politically unsettling election in any of our lifetimes, we - Tillamook County Democrats, in cooperation with the Tillamook County Pioneer newspaper and the Tillamook County Pioneer Museum - thought it might be fun to have a celebration of Oregon’s history, it’s people, and it’s places. Does that sound a little ironic?

Maybe it is. As I look back at my own family history in this place we call home, which is closely coupled with the history of Oregon itself, irony - a literary device in which there is a contrast between expectation and reality - is very much at play.

My great-great grandparents, Joseph and Mary Myers, packed their five young children in a covered wagon and set out with 37 other pioneers in one of the most harrowing and disastrous adventures in Oregon Trail history.  The year was 1860, one year after Oregon achieved statehood.

Although all seven of my immediate Myers family members made it to Oregon, their number was over half of those who survived this historically torturous journey. In fact, their family was the only one that survived intact the events that occurred near the border of Idaho and Oregon that fall.

I would love to tell their entire story here, but, it is a subject for a much larger space and a much longer time. Let me summarize by telling you that the Myers family survived:

• a three day and night siege of their circled wagons;

• a harrowing escape under the cover of darkness leaving their wagons, livestock, food, and all their personal belongings behind;

• a 90-mile trek on the banks of the Snake River carrying their children on their backs, while enduring continued attacks;

• and, more than a month camped on the banks of the Owyhee River with so little food that they were forced to exhume the bodies of those who had died to make soup for sustenance.

 They were ultimately rescued, moved to the Willamette Valley and lived to tell the story I just mentioned. Joseph’s and Mary’s first born child in Oregon was my great grandmother Genevieve.

The ironic part of this story is the fact that, although it was shared and celebrated in news reports, military documents, at least one book, and in my own family’s often-told history, none of these sources discussed or even intimated that our own history of survival, settlement and success is also the story of the devastation and annihilation of the Bannock People.

The Bannocks, on the other side of the three-day siege that devastated my ancestors’ wagon train, had celebrated traditions of hunting buffalo in Montana mountains, of fishing Salmon in the waters and tributaries of the Snake River, of trading missions with other first nations in this region, and of a rich cultural history of pottery and beadwork dating back possibly 10,000 years.

By the time my ancestors, however innocently, travelled through this region, the Bannocks had been reduced to marauding bands forced to depend on begging, theft, and treachery to survive. The damage - through disease and devastation of buffalo herds - had already been done. History tells, however, that one result of the actions that nearly stopped my own family’s history in September of 1860, was further onslaughts on the Bannack People, culminating in the Bannock Wars of 1878 which virtually spelled the complete demise of this once great nation.

I’m relating this because, in our celebration of what Oregon means to each one of us, we must recognize and honor those whose Oregon history goes way beyond our own short story. My family will continue to celebrate the courage and farsightedness that brought our ancestors to this wonderful land. But I cannot, will not, simply pass on these stories without recognizing and apologizing for the blindness that allowed my forebears to see only green pastures, clean water and fresh futures, while stumbling over the corpses of proud people who came before.

Although my family’s history is only recent in Tillamook County, all of us have a lot to correct in our telling of this region’s story, as well.

Celebrating Oregon is important, maybe more important now than ever before. But, let’s all do our parts to insure that we tell the whole ironic story.

 Watch for details of our Celebrate Oregon project on our webpage - TillCoDems.org - on the pages of the Tillamook County Pioneer or at the Tillamook County Pioneer Museum. Our plan is to seek submissions - photos and stories of your favorite places and/or histories of Oregon - over the next 12 months, sharing them on our social media and on the pages of the Tillamook County Pioneer, and culminating in a display at the Tillamook Pioneer Museum in February 2022.

Fred Bassett

Chair, Tillamook County Democrats

Through our grief, a new ray of hope

January 19, 2021

This is Tuesday, January 19, 2021 - a day that was set aside nationally between Martin Luther King, Jr. Day and Inauguration Day as a time to consider, reflect and mourn for all those whose lives have been most severely affected by the Covid 19 pandemic.

Over the past week, after I saw an announcement about things we could do today, I did a little research and math because of the staggering numbers of the actual infections and deaths from the pandemic in this country. The population of the United States is just a little over 4 percent of the world’s population. However, we account for approximately 25 percent of Covid 19 infections worldwide, and 20 percent of the deaths. The only good news - if you live in the U.S.A. - is that we have been the beneficiaries of approximately 33 percent of the vaccinations that have been administered worldwide.

However, make no mistake. For a country that has prided itself on being at the forefront of science, technology, and medicine, this is an abominable failure. As history records the impacts of the past four years, let it not diminish or cover up this avoidable tragedy,

It is fair to say that none of us have been untouched by the pandemic. For those who have lost their most precious gift of life to this disease we must pause and reflect on their loss. And we must consider what their loss in such great numbers - approximately 400,000 - means to the millions of people who called them mom, dad, uncle, aunt, grandma, grandpa, sister, brother, daughter, son, cousin or friend.

So, yes, we are a nation in grief today. It is a grief that will take years, if ever, to dissipate.

It is fair to say, as well, that none of us has been untouched by the economic crisis this pandemic has caused. I count myself currently as one of those most lucky, because I have not lost a job or struggled to keep a lifelong dream of owning my own business alive during forced closures and the fear of infecting my customers. But it saddens me deeply to see shuttered doors of my favorite shops, and to consider the despair of those who have been forced to trade pay checks for unemployment checks, and shopping trips to the store for trips to one of our local life-saving food pantries.

So, yes, we are a nation in a state of economic crisis. Like the grief we feel, this economic crisis will not go away when the Coronavirus finally wanes.

Finally, it is fair to say that we all have experienced some loss from the dramatic changes that have occurred in our lives. I am thankful everyday that I have the love and companionship of my dear wife Sonya. But, I miss terribly my regular visits with my children and my grandchildren, my sisters and my brother and their families. The loss of the time we all could have been sharing with our loved ones can never be replaced.

So, yes, we are a nation in sorrow for lost family reunions, community events, or simply game nights with our favorite friends.

However, there is some light at the end of this tunnel. Despite the false promise of impending vaccinations this last week - was this the last jab in the ribs from the Trump administration? - we will be getting vaccines. It will undoubtedly take many months before a large enough number of us are vaccinated to really allow things to open up, but, this, too, will happen.

And, tomorrow morning, 9 a.m. our time, we will inaugurate a new President and Vice President and a new ray of hope will be ushered in. I have no doubt that President Biden’s Covid 19 Economic and Health Recovery Act will bring the light of hope to the darkest corners of the pandemic’s effects on all of us. It won’t be fast and we will stumble on the way. But, it is a PLAN, and that’s more hope than we’ve had since Covid 19 raged into our country almost a year ago.

 Fred Bassett

Chair, Tillamook County Democrats

What Can We Do?

January 12, 2021

 The question, “What can we do?,” may be the most appropriate and most repeated query we’ll be called to answer over the next several weeks, months and, undoubtedly, years. With the still rampant and ominous threat of the pandemic and the extremely troubling and shocking attacks on our government over the past month and the past four years, we have our work cut out for us.

Maybe the more appropriate question we should keep asking ourselves is, “What can we do now?”

Although I think most of us would agree that the traitorous actions of Trump and his ilk require responses that are immediate, severe, and just, there is little we as individuals can do to bring these responses about. We can and should call on our representatives at all levels of government to take necessary actions. We can and should write letters to our local and regional media demanding that those responsible for the insurgency, both in Oregon and in Washington D.C. be charged according to the seriousness of their seditious acts.

At the same time, all we as individuals can do regarding the pandemic is to continue to keep ourselves, our families and our communities as safe as possible by following the guidelines of our state and national health authorities.

While taking these actions, we need to reach deep into our psyches to find peace and solace - “normalcy,” as our First Vice-Chair Mary McGinnis so rightly urged this week. During a Democratic Party of Oregon (DPO) Leadership Conference Monday, DPO Executive Director Brad Martin urged those attending to “be inspired.” Martin said that despite all the bad news we have and are enduring, we should feel really good about what we collectively have accomplished.

Four years ago, we were scrambling to respond to political forces we didn’t understand. And, although many of us are still scratching our heads trying to figure out how we got here, we can find solace and, yes, inspiration in the fact that, despite the pandemic, despite the now obvious bigotry and racial inequity at the very roots of our democratic experiment, and despite the very real threat waged by those who attack our halls of government, including the outgoing President, we have managed to calmly, sanely, and legally vote in a new and humane administration. At the same time, we have given our new administration the tools - a Democratic House and Senate - to begin to correct what has been driving our fears for four years.

“Inspiring” is the right word!

So, once we take that deep and healing breath of inspiration, what can we do now?

There is a National Day of Service scheduled to coincide with Inauguration Day, Wednesday, Jan. 20, to honor the empathetic leadership of our new President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris and, at the same time, honor the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, as we celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. Day on Monday, Jan. 18.

This is something we can participate in right now that will aid those most in need in our county. The Tillamook County Giving Guide, published last fall by the Tillamook County Pioneer, is a comprehensive guide to service agencies and community action groups in our area. Kudos to Laura Swanson and The Pioneer for creating this much-needed tool. Here’s the link: https://www.tillamookcountypioneer.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Giving-Guide_2020_11-12-2020_LoRes-1.pdf.

Please make a point this week to lend your hand or your wallet to the work of these agencies.

Thank you and stay safe.

 Fred Bassett

Chair, Tillamook County Democrats

It is With Great Sorrow...

January 6, 2021

It is with great sorrow, immense concern and no small amount of fear and confusion that I watch the situation unfold in our national capitol. Because, as I listen at this moment, we are being told that there is no clear view or way to predict what may come from the mouth or thumbs of the current resident of the White House, it is impossible to determine what will unfold during the next few hours.

However, I firmly believe that Democracy in the United States will prevail. As I am watching, members of Congress are returning to their respective chambers and, despite those who will still object to the proceedings of verifying states’ Electoral College votes, the elections of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will be confirmed.

In this moment, I just heard that the woman who was shot in the acts of terrorism that have befallen our Capital has died. This is so terribly sad.

My fear and confusion created by today’s events are based in concerns about where do we go from here. As I have stated before, I have a sincere belief that here in Tillamook County we can work to bridge the gaps that divide us to solve our very serious problems. This won’t be easy, but we have too many things in common and too many positive things we can do together, to let personal disagreements on how we get there interfere.

However, we are not in a Tillamook County bubble, or even an Oregon bubble. We are part of these United States and our very form of government is and has been under attack. Our U.S. Senators and Representatives were forced out of their offices, out of the ability to complete the job we elected them to do, by a lawless mob of terrorists who were incited to their illegal and murderous insurrection by the President of the United States.

Regardless of how we voted, what we believe socially, politically, morally, personally, we must reach an agreement that these acts of deadly terrorism are labelled exactly as that and that those responsible, including the President of the United States, are held responsible.

I, like all of you, will be watching for what is next and hoping for the best. I wish you all good health. Please stay safe.

Fred Bassett

Chair, Tillamook County Democrats

Kiss 2020 good bye!

December 30, 2020

Kiss 2020 good bye!

 What could I possibly say about the end of the year 2020 that hasn’t been said in more ways than my feeble old brain can imagine. In hopes of not sounding like the head of the Department of Redundancy Department, let me say simply, “It is a year none of us will forget for as long as we are lucky enough to survive on our beleaguered planet.”

The far-reaching and still to be uncovered personal and societal impacts of the Covid 19 pandemic, the impacts of our entire region being trapped in an unprecedented conflagration, and the mind-boggling effects on all of us of learning how deeply infected our culture, our communities and our government are with systemic racism, give us a lot to reflect on as we turn the page on a new year.

But, in flipping that page, there is also a glimmer of hope. 2021 is a clean slate and we can write on it, draw pictures and color them in, or do whatever we want to make this next year better than the one now ending. I can’t even pretend to guess what you might put on your new, clean slate, but, I’m really excited about what we might create together.

My heart goes out to those who have suffered devastating loss during the past year. I know that there are very few of us who have not been touched in some way by the disasters of 2020. But, much like the fires that ravaged our region late last summer, some of us were relatively untouched, while others lost everything. While we can give thanks for still having homes for shelter, food to eat, and families that may not have lost dear members to Covid, we can find ways to help those most in need.

Let’s seek out agencies in our area that are serving those most severely impacted. Let’s spend a little extra money at a local business that is hanging on for dear life. And, as we take our occasional trips to town or for a country hike, let’s simply smile through our masks at passersby. How will they know, you ask? Well, if you haven’t noticed, during this past several months, our brains have enabled us to recognize each other despite our masks. Much of that recognition is knowing your friend’s and families’ eyes. And, believe me, smiling eyes have never been more important.

I wish you all a wonderful and less memorable New Year.

Fred Bassett

Chair, Tillamook County Democrats

How do we bridge the “Great Divide?”

December 03, 2020

This has been a persistent question ringing in my brain since before the recent election. In fact, it has been a constant companion in my thoughts since the 2016 election showed us just how divisive our society and, particularly, our political discourse had become. Certainly nothing has improved on that front in the four years of Trump.

But, as much as we’d sometimes like to, we can’t blame Trump for this “great divide,” as I like to call it. He just figured out a way to play it like a fiddle. He used it in 2016. He used it during his entire period of residence in the White House. He continues to attempt to use it now.

The source of this “us and them” divide, however, lies in a variety of obscure places, that smarter brains than mine will have to dig out and illuminate. What I can do, or, at least, what I hope to do is to find the roots of divisive attitudes in my own heart and expose them to calm reason and work to not feed into the “divide” with my thoughts and, particularly, with my language.

Many of us have felt high stress during the past several years. This stress has fed our fears, our distrust, and our anger. These emotions, which have only been heightened during the past 12 months, often lead us to believe those “others” out there just don’t get it. Their perceived and sometimes real actions lead us to believe they are, in some way, out to get us. This perception feeds into our negative emotions and often makes us want to lash out in equally offensive actions or words.

Our rallies over the summer and fall, both for the Black Lives Matter movement and our own Democratic vigils to get out the vote, were often showplaces for this divide. Occasionally, passersby in big trucks revved their engines enshrouding us in clouds of diesel exhaust. Some motorists flipped the bird and/or shouted expletives. One sweet looking elderly woman stuck out her tongue at me. Really.

I can’t say I honestly had an urge to respond in kind, but somewhere in my brain I would formulate what I would have said, if I didn’t have the power and wisdom of restraint. I knew that any reactionary response would be useless and would only fan the flames of their anger and mistrust. So, I smiled and flashed a peace sign.

But now, the rallies are over (for the time being). And my aching question still lingers. How do we bridge the “great divide?”

My belief is that many of those who find themselves on the “other” side in our political discourse are people, just like you and me, whose political position has been formed, just like our own, by their economic, social, and familial situation. I am pretty certain that if we could just chat for a spell, being careful to avoid the flash points, we would find that our wishes for our selves, our families and our communities, would, in more ways than not, be quite similar.

We would also find, I think, that our fears, the things that keep us awake at night, are also similar.

The difference lies in our beliefs of how we get the things we wish for and how we alleviate the things we fear. But, if we could come to the table to talk without anger and get to that realization that we really want and fear many of the same things, we should be able to recognize that this commonality is the bridge that can bring us back together.

The first step in the process is, I believe, being very careful not to feed the flames with our words. I personally am working very hard at not using words that, when spoken to me, cause me to flinch in defense. It’s kind of a Golden Rule of language. I’m asking my friends, you fellow Dems, to help me by pointing out when I cross that line.

This won’t be easy, but just imagine what a few less angry words, less accusatory remarks, less “us and them,” and a lot more “together we can” in our dialogue could do to calm things down. Let’s try it!

Fred Bassett

Chair, Tillamook County Democrats

Happy Thanksgiving!

November 26, 2020

Hi, All, and Happy Thanksgiving!

For many, it might be difficult to feel very thankful on this, one of our most historic national holidays. It has been a year of such turmoil and such devastating personal loss for the hundreds of thousands of families who have suffered the death of a loved one due to the pandemic. But in that very sentence is the key word to finding solace and no small amount of gratitude this Thanksgiving. That word is “families.”

During my nearly three quarters of a century, my family has been the rock at which the ship of Fred always finds safe harbor. For strength, support, friendship, and fun, my family - to which, my dear friends, you all are now honorary members - has never failed me.

This holiday, dating back to the first intrusion by white “invaders” to this continent, is not without undertones of the systemic racism that we today are challenged to correct. But, if we look at the intent of Thanksgiving - to pause for a moment and give thanks - nothing could be symbolically or literally more appropriate for today.

My ancestors were among those who came to that first table of gratitude four centuries ago. The history of these ancient branches on the Bassett family tree and the lessons their trials and tribulations have taught us are cherished around family tables today.

Recently, I was gifted a packet of letters - not from my Plymouth grandparents (wouldn’t that be fun?) - but from my great-great aunts and uncles, my great grandparents, and grandparents in the mid-1910s, and my then young parents and their siblings near the end of WWII. Each and every one of these letters expresses deep love of family.

The authors not only knew of the whereabouts, comings and goings of their own parents, siblings, and children, they knew about the lives of their aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, and cousins. As close as my extended family has always been, I have, until recently lost track of many of my first cousins. Through the recent passing of my aunt - the last of my parents’ siblings and the source of these letters - I have been able to reconnect with lost kin.

My cousins were childhood playmates, and I am so thankful to get reacquainted with them. I’m writing this note on Wednesday, Nov. 25, and just yesterday I learned that my cousin JR (he was always Jimmie to me) passed away Tuesday. It was his daughter, who I met for the first time at my aunt’s memorial, that informed me of his passing with the words “Hello Sweet Cousin.” Her loving salutation was the result of a brief conversation we shared - the first of many, I hope - talking about her interest in our family heritage. I am so grateful for this new and exciting connection, and I vow to be the crazy old relative who keeps sending pictures and notes about our family history.

One of the letters in my historic packet - dated June 15, 1945 - was from my Grandma’s cousin Harriet in Oakland, CA, to Grandma, on her rural farm near Lyons, OR. Like all of these treasured letters, Cousin Harriet asked about nearly everyone in Grandma’s family and shared information about her own.

Toward the end of the letter, and the reason I’m relating this to you now, Harriet mentions the benefits of Grandma’s garden, during a time of dramatic price increases at city grocery stores. She then says she’d heard a rumor that might diminish these benefits of farm life. “I understand however,” Harriet wrote, ”that you farm people have your headaches in the general shortage of grains and seeds for stock and chickens - is that rumor based on fact?”

That simple query literally jumped off the page for me as I was transcribing Harriet’s letter into my digital files. Here I am, in the middle of arguably the most deceitful period in our history, when every news item and announcement has to be fact and/or source checked, reading a letter that is literally two years older than me, in which my distant cousin is fact checking.

So, friends and relatives - remember I made you an official Bassett in my opening paragraphs - this is my verbose way of saying that we have much to be thankful for. Despite the tumultuous times we live in, despite the impacts on our safety, livelihoods and lifestyles from the most serious health threat our country has ever faced, despite the fact that we must fact check every single news story we read, and despite the incredible challenges we face as a nation, we can be thankful that we are all in this together.

Isn’t that, my “Sweet Cousins,” what families are for?

Fred Bassett

Chair, Tillamook County Democrats

A Sigh of Relief

November 7, 2020

Dear Friends,

We are all breathing a collective sigh of relief today, and, underneath our masks, have a strange upturn to our lips. Don’t worry. The latter is known as a smile, something many of us have not experienced, at least politically, for the past four years. Let’s savor this moment of celebration.

We can’t, however, forget that our real work is now in front of us. The last four years and this election have shown us how divided we are, as a nation, as a state, as a county. This division reaches into our own communities and families and is the “inertia" that stops us from moving forward together to solve the real problems we need to address.

As a grass roots political organization, Tillamook County Democrats must take the lead in building the framework that will bridge this gap right here, right now. Let's reach out to our neighbors to learn more about their fears and concerns, their hopes and dreams, so that we can find that illusive common ground on which we'll build a better foundation for our united future.

Thank you for all your work in this election. Stay involved…the best is yet to come.

Fred Bassett,

Chair, Tillamook County Democrats

November 7, 2020