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If the news media cared to tell the public the truth, it would have been a top story on nightly broadcasts for weeks. The antifa rioters even tried to break into and burn down a federal courthouse in the city. The campaign of intimidation and destruction is plainly domestic terrorism. But the one reason the siege on Portland has become a major news story is because the administration is trying to restore law and order to the beleaguered city, and Democrats hysterically oppose any such action.
President Trump has rightly sent in federal reinforcements to Portland, while many Democrats have circled the wagons on behalf of anarchism. Speaker Nancy Pelosi referred to federal agents deployed to Portland as storm troopers. Other members of her party have spoken of federal law enforcement officers as some sort of invading army unwelcome in urban centers. New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, deep into his campaign to utterly ruin that city, declared that he would take Trump to court if any federal officers were deployed to address the surging violence there.
This reaction is stunningly reckless and cynical, even for Democrats in an important election year. But it is not in the least surprising as the wave of uprisings against the police have quickly become a political liability. What started as the resurrection of the Black Lives Matter movement has since morphed into a general mobilization of activists and marxists who seek to turn this country into a social justice utopia. They have to focus on Trump at the moment, or else more Americans might start to figure out what lunacy the left is inflicting on Portland, among other places.
One can argue about the politics of these mobs, but they are situated on the liberal side of the aisle. Indeed, they are part of the base of Joe Biden. Now that they have moved from outrage over the killing of George Floyd to revolutionary rage, the moral high ground is quickly crumbling under their feet. Why are the anarchists terrorizing Portland? What was the real purpose of the Seattle autonomous zone? Why were "Occupy City Hall" protesters allowed to fight with police in Manhattan for a month, until officers finally cleared out their encampment this week?
Their leaders might offer answers to these questions, but none of them are sensible or serious people who are working for what is best for this country. Defunding the police has become the primary rallying cry of these rioters, and we have already seen the effects of that insane idea. Without political support, the police hold back from the most proactive approaches to stop violent crime. That means more shootings and more deaths occurring in largely minority neighborhoods.
The administration is right to step in and send federal officers to defend the lives and property of Americans. They have been left by Democratic mayors and governors to fend for themselves. Trump is acting fully within his authority to remedy their dereliction of duty and use resources placed at his disposal. Federal law enforcement agencies are already operating in Portland and every city in the country. Many local police officers work side by side with their federal counterparts every day to handle crimes ranging from human trafficking to firearms sales and terrorism.
That leaders in Portland and other cities have chosen to sideline or stand down local police officers in order to pander to their enraged base has no bearing on the legality of federal police officers doing their jobs. That the entire focus of Democrats is on trashing Trump across the campaign trail instead of working with the sorely needed federal law enforcement assets should speak volumes to Americans about their priorities.
Portland is the most prominent battleground of this battle over federal intervention. Chicago could be next, then perhaps New York. Democrats have lost control of cities because they bowed to and allied themselves with the mob to help their party in a critical election year. Trump views this moment as his obligation to protect Americans and restore law and order to a country that still overwhelmingly desires both.
Buck Sexton is the host of "The Buck Sexton Show" on radio and podcast and a conservative political commentator. He is a former analyst with the Central Intelligence Agency and at the New York City Police Department.
In the above article, and throughout similar commentary, one might consider, as a thought experiement, replacing the word "mob" with "weaponized lackeys of the 0.1%" and understand that the Dems and Reps (and Greens, Socilaists, Bernie Bros, The Squad, etc., etc.) serve one globalist-technocratic-financialist agenda, though in varying roles. The ongoing movie we might call "Politics" or even more nostalgically "Representative Democracy" operates upon and emanates from the Studio System. Policy (audience) and people (actors) don't matter much, since they will only serve up one ridiculous proposal after another, one inhuman creature after another, each more utterly insane and loathsome than the last. It's 4-D pro-wrestling, writ large.