Portland is Trump's Vietnam

The Battle of Portland winds down. 

Trump was losing the hearts and minds.

The Battle of Portland is moving to a new phase: troop withdrawal. 

Evacuating Vietnam 

America is familiar with this story. Federal troops enter a disturbance, certain that we are the good guys, backed up with overpowering weaponry and the willingness to use it. And then, amidst formal assertions that our forces are winning, the slow realization that the troops aren't welcome, and we are losing the message war. The local citizenry wants us gone, and our presence prolongs the conflict. Eventually we escape, or try to. 

This is Vietnam all over again. Or Iraq. Or Afghanistan. To Trump's credit, he is getting out sooner rather than later.

Trump had the conflict he wanted but it did not work out for him. The images on TV of fires and graffiti and people in the dark throwing rocks gave Trump good potential theater. Fox kept them on a loop and had reporters on the ground to talk about them. But there were three big problems for Trump. 

The first problem is a bad first impression. The video of the man being forced into an unmarked van would not go away. People are more afraid of strange men pushing them into vans than they are of people throwing water bottles and rocks. The costuming of federal officers in combat gear solidified the story: Storm trooper. Tyranny. Lawless government. That notion dominated the story for most of the media. The timing was unfortunate for Trump, since the demonstrations were sparked by the video of a policeman kneeling on the neck of a helpless man. This was another example of frightening police power. 

Scheduled to leave Portland

The second problem is race. The man pulled into the van and the race of most of the people being policed, both peaceful and not, are White. Trump's big meta message is that the "silent majority" of regular good people, White native born Americans, are being attacked and displaced by a dangerous other. Portland isn't Watts. The Moms in yellow standing between the police and protesters are White. The men with leaf blowers are White. They aren't Trump's other. 

The third problem was the local leadership. Senators Wyden and Merkley, Governor Brown, and Mayor Wheeler were competent spokespeople and they made themselves available to tell the story that the Feds are hurting, not helping. 

This is winding down badly for Trump, but he has a chance for this to work out for him. Quieting the streets is now the job of Oregon's state police. We can handle this, Oregon's Governor Kate Brown says. This won't be easy, and troublemakers could make it impossible. Some may in fact be anti-Fascist and ideologically driven from the left. Some may be conservative militia people, as we learned with the "umbrella man" who broke windows with a hammer in Minnesota. Others, as in Richmond, Virginia, may be White supremacists triggering violence to undermine support for Black Lives Matter. Some will just be thrill seeking vandals, powered by testosterone and youth.

This will be a test for Governor Kate Brown--and Democratic governance generally. If she can quiet the city, then a message will go out: that Democrats know how to bring peace and unity. If she can do it Biden can do it. If she fails, and especially if she fails spectacularly, then the very different message will be sent: that Democratic light-hand policing is naive and that Trump's style strong man government is necessary. 

This leaves an opportunity and temptation for Trump not just to hope for Democratic failure in Oregon, but to arrange for it. As this blog has noted, and does so again below, this isn't fantasy. It is history.

Jim Stodder, now. 

Classmate Jim Stodder had a follow-up to his comment of two days ago. The peaceful protesters are in a position to call out the violent ones, and they need to do it, he says. And they may do it in an environment of FBI sabotage. He saw it up close back in his days of radical youth.

Guest Post followup by Jim Stodder

There are troubling similarities between the performative violence of the Portland/Seattle extremists and the spectacular 'propaganda of the deed' by Russian anarcho-populists of the late 19th century. I noted the similarity in an earlier post. They are troubling because the Russian "People's Will" were successful in motivating not just a secret police but also a grimly pragmatic (and ultimately totalitarian) brand of Marxism.

  

Russian Okhrana had agents inside the revolutionists' cells, urging them to further outrages. And yes, there are agents provocateurs amidst the Antifa in Portland. But I would urge our side to not take the easy way out here. Why are many protestors so susceptible to agents provocateurs? They should have to work a little harder. It's our problem, because our Boys in Black Balaclavas, wanting too much to be a Hero of Our Time (another Russian reference), are too easily provoked. 

Stodder at age 18

From 1972 to 1980 I was something of a fixture on the New Orleans left. I had romantic dreams to be sure, but knew that playing James Bond would make me James Dead. And that a guy like Harry "Guy" Schafer had to be either crazy or an FBI agent (it turned out the be the latter). And which it was really made no difference. Schafer called me to ask for help in assembling a cache of small-arms for the American Indian Movement (AIM).  He had a pilot's license and proposed dropping the arms by parachute into Wounded Knee, SD where AIM members were under siege by US Marshalls and the FBI.  Schafer and his wife Jill were then working for the FBI: Click: Spy program  Thank god I hung-up on him, and never spoke to him again.

So much for our Boys in Black. As for our Moms in Yellow -- they are too ready to accept antifa-anarcho 'diversity' of tactics in their 'largely peaceful' demonstrations. They need to disassociate themselves. Otherwise, they look like non-violent cover for decidedly violent activity.

Not just the peaceful demonstrators, but Democratic politicians, from Joe Biden on down, should:
A) Call on peaceful protestors to get off the streets at night.
B) Condemn all violence against property and especially against persons perpetrated by a small band of extremists.
C) Demand the Federal troops leave.

We are facing not ordinary police, but elite state forces specialized for violent crowd suppression. With vague and varying identification, they can be reinforced by private paramilitaries like the Proud Boys or Boogaloo. A Washington Post feature shows that this is already happening. Click: conservative armed militias These are basics to the recipe for a police state, as much as sugar for making cookies. 

Antifa is making it too easy for Trump. We need to start making it harder.