Oregon Democrats wised up.
Five years ago Portland Democrats failed to keep order. The world noticed.
This time they know what to do.
Here is U.S. Senator Jeff Merkley:
Trump is sending troops to Portland with the goal of quote 'doing a number' on the city. And we know what this means. He wants to stoke fear and chaos and trigger violent interactions and riots to justify expanded authoritarian control.
Let's not take the bait.
Portland is peaceful and strong and we will take care of each other.
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Here is Governor Tina Kotek:
I have a message for Oregonians. Let's not take the bait. Let's not respond to what the president is trying to do. We have to raise our voices, absolutely peacefully, to do the things that we believe in. But I also want to say that property damage or violence of any kind will get us nowhere and will not be tolerated. If you want to stand in opposition to the Trump administration I would ask that you lean into supporting your community helping people, making things better here, because that's who we are as Oregonians.
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The real test will come this week. Trump's ICE people can be provocateurs by how they arrest people. That is the bait. I expect that. Some willful people will take that bait and do violent show-off things, e.g. set fire to a parked car, which is exactly the story Trump and Fox News want to tell. The question is whether the Portland police will shut violence down immediately and look professional while they do it. If they do so, it is a huge win for America.
Democrats have a job to do: Demonstrate that they can maintain a safe and orderly city.
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9 comments:
No "Easy Sunday" these days...At the risk of stating the obvious, these deployments are political theater, ersatz "tough on crime" posturing, and costly, which should rile up some "fiscally responsible" conservatives. MEANWHILE "PIOUS MIKE" JOHNSON IS STALLING ON SWEARING IN A DEMOCRATIC REP AND REPUBLICANS MAY SHUT DOWN THE GOVERNMENT TO AVOID RELEASING THE EPSTEIN FILES. DEMOCRATS SHOULD LET THEM. ENOUGH!
So much for the administration’s bloviating about Chicago and Memphis? But Portland is something else again. Methinks the activists there are hoping Trump will take THEIR bait.
Just watched Rep. Bonamici assure MSNBC’s Ali Velshi that it’s “better” now in Portland compared with five years ago. (Talk about bait). Then Velshi prated that Antifa itself is a fiction.
Five seconds suffice to reach the “Rose City Antifa” website, and read its call for “direct action”. And that’s the mainstream, er, respectable version of Antifa. Fingers crossed. Fists raised.
Democrats for law and order is a good policy. Let the republicans be for lawless Trump, Jan 6 th resurrection, the unlawful take over of the justice department, bribery, and sex trafficking.
My only fear is that the situation with troops in the street will get much worse before there is a correction. Pointly his actions are a prelude to what he will do in a runup to the 2026 elections.
Trump has labeled Antifa a domestic terrorist organization. It took me about five seconds to confirm that officially there’s no such thing. Another five seconds sufficed to confirm that Antifa isn’t an organization, but a movement without a hierarchical leadership structure.
Antifa is short for anti-fascist. That would include everyone I know. I guess that makes anyone opposed to Trump a terrorist in his point of view.
Democrats have a job to do: Demonstrate that they can maintain a safe and orderly city.
The liberal Democrats running Portland blew that job big-time in 2020, allowing Antifa and other radical left-wingers to riot and destroy the city for 100 nights.
Are those same liberal Democrats up to the job now? Or will they let the same violent faction break windows and lob industrial fireworks at law enforcement to preserve their progressive bona fides yet again?
Time will tell. I’m not optimistic.
Rose City Antifa has a web site. Some group of people is paying for hosting the site, and has the passwords for editing it. These people are part of the hierarchical leadership structure that Antifa officially denies it has.
Antifa is an organized group that indulges in political violence against their opponents. They also engage in “propaganda of the deed,” which is short for smashing store windows, doing graffiti, setting fires, and other forms of vandalism that they think will advance their cause.
It’s a self-styled “collective”. Yes, non-hierarchical. Communal action. Organized, but not an organization? Distinctions without much difference.
Existing social structures, mores, institutions, etc. should be replaced by means of discord and destruction. They are MAGA’s functional reflection.
Trump can send in all the troops he wants, but “Antifa, Antifa, Antifa” isn’t going to distract anybody with a conscience from the fact that he was best buddies with one of the world’s most notorious pedophile sex traffickers.
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