From Oregon Public Broadcasting:
Portland’s protests: 3 months in, no end in sight
In late July, Mayor Ted Wheeler had an idea he hoped would end the nightly clashes between protesters and police in Portland.
He texted Sonia Schmanski, a top aide, that he had a plan that was “high risk,” but he added that the city had “nothing to lose.”
His idea: Tell his police force to stand down from the demonstrations.
From day one, the plan was to let the riots happen.
The Hail Mary was never put to the test. And so, as the city heads toward month four of nightly demonstrations for racial justice, Wheeler seems to find himself very near where he was during month one: without a clear plan to end the now-regular clashes between the police force he oversees and the protesters whose cause he says he embraces.
Here is the thing, Antifa has had more than 80 continuous days of training, tactics development, armament manufacture, and escalation. They have scored tactical victory after tactical victory. They are now a battled hardened militia who operate like a well-oiled phalanx. Like a conquering army, they have spread across the city from Downton into residential areas.
No tactic used by police that is palatable to Wheeler or not an unconstitutional violation of their civil liberties will turn the tide.
They won because they were not stopped on night one.
To address Wheeler’s statement from three months ago, the city had a lot to lose.
They lost more than $23 million in business revenue, they lost businesses, and they lost the people who created those businesses.
That’s a lot of “nothing” that was lost.
Most importantly, they lost control of the city. Antifa now is in defacto control of Portland.
Wheeler did nothing and in doing so he may have killed Portland.
Not only Portland. He may have initiated the balkanization of the US.
They also created the brainwashed foot soldiers of a new progressive army.
For many of these people, these 90 days were the most meaningful thing they have ever done in their otherwise empty minimum wage service job lives. Not even their four-five years of college and useless studies degree can compare. They think this is equivalent to what their Great Grandfathers did in World War 2. They are even calling their enemies Nazis!
And he may have turned the city and the state over to the republicans for next century,
That’s an interesting point.
What do you suppose Antifa would do if a Republican mayor of Portland, or governor of Oregon, were to be elected? Personally, I don’t thinking would be pretty.
I’m puzzled by “the Hail Mary was never put to the test”. Didn’t he have the police stand down, effectively? So that strategy was put into effect right away and produced exactly the effect that sane people predicted.