Given the exceedingly short attention span of the average American mind, it is as if the nationwide DOGE protests and the subsequent idiotic vandalizing of Tesla automobiles occurred in a distant, forgotten past rather than during a period that transpired in the spring of 2025. By that metric, the protests following the death of George Floyd in police custody may as well have occurred in another century. During that evidently ancient time of middle 2020, an impulse-driven plurality of voters turned their understandable anger into what were sometimes ill-advised voting choices.
Here in Pittsburgh, as in many other places, the resulting Floyd protest movement hangover is playing itself out in a thoroughly predictable manner; outgoing Democratic mayor Ed Gainey, who had called for “demilitarization” of police while riding the protest wave into office as the city’s first black mayor, was defeated in the May primary by city controller Corry O’Connor, who went on to win the November election.
If it can be argued that Ed Gainey was, in some form or fashion, a DEI hire, then it certainly can be argued that he is now a casualty of DEI fatigue.
Gainey, previously an unremarkable state legislator, demonstrated his unfitness for the job of mayor not long after taking office, alienating other city officials with his belligerent tone, his continually defensive posture, his thin-skinned reaction to even the slightest criticism from the local press and his all-around pettiness, culminating in his 2025 pronouncement that the county’s district attorney was, in fact, a racist, telling a group of supporters, with his typical verbal eloquence, “I told the DA he’s a racist. I ain’t support the DA.” Just for good measure, the mayor later discerned that a local radio talk show host also had some hitherto unnoticed racist tendencies.
Meanwhile, the city’s finances and physical infrastructure have continued to crumble at an accelerating pace, without ever being addressed in a serious manner by Mr. Gainey’s office. Aging emergency response vehicles are in desperate need of replacement, the police department’s shortage of officers is an ongoing (and growing) crisis, the downtown area is being hollowed out as businesses flee the blight of homelessness and drug addiction in plain sight, and next year’s NFL draft at the nearby stadium is beginning to loom large in ways that feel increasingly uncomfortable.
To be fair, Gainey inherited a mess left behind by his predecessor and by a century of Democratic Party dominance in all things local. No one expected the new mayor to have any magic answers or magic ideas. But utter incompetence, unseriousness, and an unwillingness to make hard choices were not expected either. Gainey’s proposed city budget for 2026 calls for no austerity measures of any kind, despite the increasing reliance on a dwindling rainy day fund to make ends meet. It seems as though Ed Gainey has given his final “f*** you” to city council members or city voters or, more likely, both.
And now, we are right back where we started: a conventional Democrat (who also is the son of a deceased former Pittsburgh mayor) has won handily against a token Republican opponent. O’Connor will preside over a city that is a hotbed of progressivism (not Portland hot, but hot), with the attendant racial tension often generated by such a circumstance, in addition to a never-ending cycle of public school consolidation, a shrinking tax base, and creeping urban decay. Not only will he have to expend time and effort trying to repair the dysfunction generated by Gainey’s trail of destruction, he’ll have to contend with ongoing headaches generated by people such as local U.S. House member and proud socialist Summer Lee, who may best be described as an excruciatingly insipid devotee of Bernie Sanders, and Allegheny County Executive Sarah Innamorato, a “former” supporter of the Democratic Socialists of America.
In his favor, O’Connor can fairly portray himself as disconnected from the Floyd overreaction. The national hysteria that lifted Gainey to electoral victory continues to recede, along with the absurd demands of those who were driving the protest, which, in retrospect, looks more and more like a flavor-of-the-month gone sour. Even Colin Kaepernick seems to be maintaining a low profile, as the prevailing winds clearly have shifted and there is an ever-growing chorus of (supposedly) cooler heads among the voting public yearning for the elevation of “moderates.” In that regard, as long as O’Connor can put some sort of moderate-sounding stamp on whatever he proposes, he should be able to get by, perhaps even thrive. Just as importantly, the current estrangement between police and the mayor’s office should dissipate in short order, as O’Connor reaps the many benefits of not being Gainey.
In the end, the justifiable outrage generated by George Floyd’s death proved not to be the beginning of a fundamental national shift to anything meaningful but rather a temporary detour into the progressive weeds, highlighted by the silliness of the CHAZ (Capitol Hill Organized Zone) declaration in a Seattle neighborhood. The expedited backtracking away from this kind of nonsense by local politicians months later was bemusing, to be sure, but also rather sad. In some cases, those who had praised the notion of defunding or “reimagining” police reversed themselves completely, perhaps feeling a bit traumatized by the whiff of anarchy they had experienced at close range.
And what was gained by way of the whole experience? What lessons have been learned over the past five or so years? For the average American voter, who has a breathtakingly short memory, who has been trained by modern technology to live in the moment, who is easily distracted by the next shiny object that comes along, either to entertain them or enrage them, the answer has to be “none.” The more unfortunate aspects of our nature will continue to make too many of us act reflexively rather than reflectively, and there will never be a shortage of electoral outcomes generated by impulsive thinking, irrational assumptions, bigotry, tribalism, or whatever.
If it can be argued that Ed Gainey was, in some form or fashion, a DEI hire, then it certainly can be argued that he is now a casualty of DEI fatigue, and perhaps therein is the silver lining; maybe we actually are in the embryonic stages of a greater public demand for emphasis on realistic proposals and achievable goals, as the emphasis on immutable characteristics of candidates for elected office (hopefully) takes a back seat. The fractured status of the Democratic Party in the wake of Kamala Harris’s epic failure certainly provides an opening for some kind of seismic shift, though it remains unclear how the battle for the soul of the party will play out, especially when one considers the ascendency of Zohran Mamdani and the harbinger he represents.
What does seem clear is that the improvement in the quality of our governing class, if it ever comes, most likely will be the result not of a sustained trend of enlightenment among voters but rather of some unforeseen series of favorable events combined with a bit of luck, more or less disconnected from any notion of a collective national wisdom.
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5 Years On, What the Media Need to Know About George Floyd
