As Lascelles made clear more than once during our endorsement meeting, Democrats like Chopp talk about bringing marginalized and vulnerable communities to "the table," but they so rarely get out of the way so that someone from those communities can run the fucking table.

There's no getting around it: switching the Sheriff from an elected position back to an appointed position strips voters of their direct power over the office—to the extent that they have it, anyway.

The fact is, Sheriffs run once every four years in off-year elections, which tend to have much lower turnouts than even-year elections, so lots of people aren't even voting for Sheriff in the first place. It's also a down-ballot race, so even fewer people are likely to vote.

And when we do vote on a Sheriff, it's not like we're getting to pick between a progressive reformer and an obvious psychopath, if we even get to choose at all. Here's the recent electoral history, briefly: Republican Dave Reichert was appointed in 1997 and ran unopposed until he appointed conservative Sue Rahr, who ran unopposed until she appointed Republican Steve Strachan, who lost a race to John Urquhart, who was touted as a reformer but who was ousted after "allegations of bias, retaliation, and rape," which he denied. And now we have Sheriff Mitzi Johanknecht, who let police reforms "die on the vine," according to a report from the Office of Law Enforcement Oversight.

Electing a Sheriff also grants the Department of Public Safety more autonomy, which is nice if you're the Department of Public Safety, but not nice if you're interested in checks and balances. The Sheriff, for instance, doesn't have to come before the King County Council to explain what the hell is going on over there if she doesn't want to. Sheriff Johanknecht ghosts the Council and its committees "enough that it's noticeable," Councilmember Jeanne Kohl-Welles told the SECB.

We're here because Reykdal performed poorly in the August primaries. Though he led the crowded field with 40% of the vote share, the race's collective conservative votes outnumbered his own, which is bad news. But Reykdal didn't perform poorly because he's a bad campaigner or because he's bad at his job. He's great at his job. Reykdal has been responsibly closing schools, navigating remote learning when 735,000 Washingtonians don't have internet access, providing meals for the kids who relied on school for getting them, and doing everything he can to close the achievement gap.

DREW ANGERER / GETTY

Now is the time for the center-left to predictably warn the far-left not to squander votes on far-left presidential candidates, and for the far-left to predictably equate the center-left with the right, and for the two sides to bark at each other ad nauseam until politics becomes people on the internet puking on each other forever. If the election goes the wrong way, the center-left will blame the far-left for the loss, and then everyone will loudly lick their wounds until the next election.

Except this time, there really might not be a next election. So now we must come together and agree on this point: Vote for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, because they're the better enemies to have.