The Brewing Anti-DSA Backlash in Seattle

The Seattle residents who filmed a shootout between what locals called the “known drug dealers” operating out of a city park and “roughly six ‘bounty hunters’” sounds like something out of a movie. In the footage, Seattle’s KOMO News said the gunmen were “wearing bulletproof vests and firing a 40 mm launcher into an RV after smashing some of the vehicle’s windows.”

That’s just the latest, and most spectacular, episode of mass violence and vandalism on Seattle’s streets — a phenomenon that has residents so fed up that one man has taken to publicly advertising his concerns, literally. “Would the last taxpayer to leave the Emerald City change the name to ‘The Blue Tarp City of thieves, druggies, and shooters?’” the nearly $3,000 billboard ad that went up this week over Seattle’s Aurora Avenue read.

About the Author

Noah Rothman

Noah Rothman is a senior writer at National Review. His third book, Blood and Progress: A Century of Left-Wing Violence, was published by Hachette in May 2026.

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Democratic Socialists of America

The Seattle residents who filmed a shootout between what locals called the “known drug dealers” operating out of a city park and “roughly six ‘bounty hunters’” sounds like something out of a movie. In the footage, Seattle’s KOMO News said the gunmen were “wearing bulletproof vests and firing a 40 mm launcher into an RV after smashing some of the vehicle’s windows.”

That’s just the latest, and most spectacular, episode of mass violence and vandalism on Seattle’s streets — a phenomenon that has residents so fed up that one man has taken to publicly advertising his concerns, literally. “Would the last taxpayer to leave the Emerald City change the name to ‘The Blue Tarp City of thieves, druggies, and shooters?’” the nearly $3,000 billboard ad that went up this week over Seattle’s Aurora Avenue read.

About the Author

Noah Rothman

Noah Rothman is a senior writer at National Review. His third book, Blood and Progress: A Century of Left-Wing Violence, was published by Hachette in May 2026.