SEATTLE (AP) - Seattle Mayor Ed Murray said Wednesday the country had elected a leader who has “demonstrated outright misogyny” and displayed “racism and authoritarian tendencies.”
Speaking at a news conference at City Hall Wednesday, Murray said despite the views held by President-elect Donald Trump, Seattle would remain a welcoming city for immigrants, minorities and others. He said Seattle would continue to be a “sanctuary city” that would shelter illegal immigrants, even if it meant losing federal funding.
He said Seattle was committed to building and growing its relationship with the government of Mexico.
While Trump won a majority of electoral votes, he lost Washington state. And voters in King County, which includes Seattle and is the state’s largest, voted overwhelmingly for Democrat Hillary Clinton. Seattle was one of several cities that saw protests following the election and some high school students walked out of classes Wednesday to protest the election results.
Murray, who as a state lawmaker led efforts to legalize gay marriage in Washington, said the gay community would not give up the progress made on same-sex marriage.
“The president-elect has said he wants to turn back our rights,” Murray said. “We will not lose the gains we’ve made, the rings on our fingers.”
Murray also urged the city’s liberal residents to not condemn people who voted for the Republican candidate but to “understand and move forward.”
He said the country and the world had yet to recover from a global economic downturn and that it had produced anger in the United States and within Seattle.
“The Great Recession has dislocated the politics in our country and across the globe,” Murray said. “The political landscape has shifted, and shifted massively.”
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