Seattle resists a Trump presidency: What it could cost us, and him

Donald Trump speaks to an August rally in Everett. He lost big in the Puget Sound area.. Donald Trump speaks to an August rally in Everett. He lost big in the Puget Sound area.. Photo: GENNA MARTIN, SEATTLEPI.COM Photo: GENNA MARTIN, SEATTLEPI.COM Image 1 of / 8 Caption Close Seattle resists a Trump presidency: What it could cost us, and him 1 / 8 Back to Gallery

Seattle has worked with past Republican presidents after voting against them, from approval for Freeway Park by the Nixon administration to securing money out of the Reagan administration for the Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel.

We've had rough moments. A music group dubbing itself the "Ad Hoc Anti-Fascist Marching Band" played "Three Blind Mice" and the "Mickey Mouse Club" theme song when President Reagan spoke to an American Legion convention at Seattle Center Arena. The Gipper's limousine was hit with an egg as he departed.

A Coast Guard cutter carrying President Ford had to thread its way through a fishing boat protest in delivering the 38th president to a waterfront rally.

But those incidents were nothing compared to what is likely forthcoming.

Seattle has declared itself a "sanctuary city" for undocumented immigrants. Trump has threatened to cut off federal money to such cities.

What does this mean? Any U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement (ICE) effort to apprehend "illegals" -- Trump has said he wants to deport 2 million to 3 million people -- is likely to meet active resistance here.

It's not unrealistic to envision immigrant families holed up in Seattle churches, with supporters ringing the sanctuaries in which they have found protection. As we saw Monday, thousands of Seattle high school students are willing to hit the streets for human and immigrant rights.

Confrontation is the likely price of Trump's rhetoric. Violent rhetoric toward the city is likely to spew from Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly on Fox News. BillO has spent a decade ranting against the Emerald City.

Trump would be the likely loser, as a blunderboss inciter of civil unrest. The 45th president would also find himself taking on our technology billionaires, if zealots in a Trump administration (e.g. anti-gay Vice President-elect Mike Pence) try in any way to abrogate LGBT rights.

As Seattle expatriate Dominic Holden has noted in Buzzfeed, "LGBT rights aren't just marriage." Major high-tech players champion such measures as the Equality Act, which would bring a federal ban to workplace discrimination based on sexual identity. They do so for a simple reason: To attract talented employees.

Again, as could be heard Monday on Seattle streets, younger citizens -- especially those approaching voting age -- want an inclusive society. Tolerance is becoming a norm at even the toughest high schools, and is the rule at our colleges and universities.

But the Emerald City stands to pay for its insouciant attitude and its deeply held values.

Seattle and King County last year received $28 million in federal homeless assistance money, including $3.6 million to create housing opportunities for 200 people. The vast majority of the $47 million Seattle is spending on homelessness comes from our taxes, but a cutoff of federal money would blow a hole in a vital city service.

The prospect of cutting off aid to Seattle's homeless creates problems for Trump as well as a city facing a major human challenge.

In a Crosscut piece, ex-Mayor Mike McGinn estimated the federal contribution locally at $350 million. The feds supply 30 percent of the city's human services budget. The Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) is slated to get $203 million in federal grants over the next two years.

The Emerald City gave 87 percent of its vote to Hillary Clinton last week, a higher percentage than its support for Barack Obama. It does not appear there is much incentive for a President Trump to treat us kindly.

We're talking more than public support. Boeing stands to be a loser if Trump engages China in a trade war. (It was interesting to see the People's Republic try to impress on our incoming president that climate change IS real and was not invented by Beijing.)

One key decision: President Obama's last budget proposed a $75 million federal grant to build the Center City Connector, a link between the South Lake Union Trolley -- oops, Streetcar -- and the First Hill Streetcar.

City Hall wants the connector. Many critics, however, fear another endless SDOT construction mess. The preferred connector route is apparently on First Avenue, a narrow street that is already congested. SDOT will gobble up one more chunk of street parking, to the detriment of small business.

So here we find a possible win-win situation.

Seattle stands up to Trump, becoming a national beacon in the defense of human and civil rights, a cause embraced by the nabobs of Amazon.com and Microsoft as well as the Black Student Union and Gay-Straight Alliance from Garfield High School.

At the same time, the city is spared a project that would mess up an already torn-up downtown Seattle.

No more Freeway Parks, no more ex-Seattle mayors in high administration posts, no more federal transportation secretaries blessing bus tunnels.

As of now, the great Walt Whitman quote from "Leaves of Grass" seems to be our city's response to Donald Trump: "Resist much, obey little."