Portland Disturbances Week by Week
Photo of federal officers, Portland, Oregon, 6/18/20, REUTERS/Nathan Howard, https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/federal-government-under-scrutiny-for-crackdown-on-portland-protesters?ref=hvper.com.
1) Everything Trump does is about publicity. He didn’t want a Wall to stop illegal immigrants, he wanted a Wall to symbolize stopping illegal immigrants.
2) Trump is afraid of getting into a war. He will bluster about getting tough but will back down when necessary. He’s done that on NK, Syria, and Russia.
3) Trump is a troll. He likes stirring the pot. He seems to do things against what you would THINK are his own interests as long as they keep him in the headlines (see: “I fired Comey because he wouldn’t stop the Russia investigation”).
4) Now let’s interpret his latest actions. He is saying that Democrats have lost control of the cities. He is saying that he is going to restore order. He is bringing minimal force into the city to symbolize his supposedly get-tough approach. The beginning of the end for Democracy In America or more of Trump’s play acting? If the latter, how much reaction before it is over-reaction?
5) This is not to say that we shouldn’t push back on erosion of democratic norms represented by latest actions to militarize situation, overstep federal authority, and shoot a non-threatening civilian. But these actions are more in line with the many other relatively minor corruptions of the Trump administration.
6) Most of all, we should push back on the notion that something apocalyptic is happening in Portland. Some bad actors are using protests as a pretext for creating disturbances, mostly consisting of vandalism. The bad actor in the White House is sending federal agents to commit small acts of violence to further inflame the situation.
Here is a timeline of events in Portland over the last 7 weeks or so. It is not clear to me that acts of violence were dying down before federal officers showed up, but it is clear that their actions are escalating the tension.