Anyone interested in democracy ought to be
paying attention to what’s happening in Portland right now.
There have been moments recently where not only did I not
recognize Portland, I didn’t recognize the United States.
Friends, I don’t know about you, but I’m deeply troubled by recent events in
Portland, Oregon. Here's how Gillian Flaccus of the Associated Press
describes what’s happening and its profound implications.
Federal law enforcement officers’ actions at protests in Oregon’s largest city, done without local authorities’ consent, are raising the prospect of a constitutional crisis – one that could escalate as weeks of demonstrations find renewed focus in clashes with camouflaged, unidentified agents outside Portland’s U.S. courthouse.
State and local authorities, who did not ask for federal help, are awaiting a ruling in a federal lawsuit filed late last week by state Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum. She said in court papers that masked federal officers have arrested people off the street, far from the courthouse, with no probable cause – and whisked them away in unmarked cars.
Constitutional law experts said Monday the federal officers’ actions are a “red flag” in what could become a test case of states’ rights as the Trump administration expands its federal policing into other cities.
Another commentator has put it more succinctly: “
Fascism is upon us.”
Following is a compilation of informed perspectives on the rising tide of authoritarianism in the United States. These writings also provide reasons for why the authoritarianism that's been present since Trump's
2016 presidential campaign, is surging at this particular moment in his presidency.
__________________________
A remarkable and nightmarish scene playing out in Portland should terrify anyone who cares about the US constitution: unmarked vans full of camouflaged and unidentified federal agents are pulling up next to protesters on street corners, then snatching and arresting them with no explanation.
If this were happening in Venezuela or Iran, the US government would be threatening international sanctions. Since it’s happening in the US, Trump’s acting Department of Homeland Security (DHS) secretary [Chad Wolf] is defending the decision and even promising more.
The stories from witnesses and those who have been picked up by the unmarked vans – apparently being operated by Customs and Border Protection (CBP), which is under DHS’s control – are downright terrifying. One victim told The New York Times: “One of the officers said, ‘It’s OK, it’s OK,’ and just grabbed me and threw me into the van. Another officer pulled my beanie down, so I couldn’t see.”
The same person told The Washington Post: “I was terrified. It seemed like it was out of a horror/sci-fi, like a Philip K. Dick novel. It was like being preyed upon.” Still another told Portland’s Oregon Public Broadcasting (OPB): “I see guys in camo. Four or five of them pop out, open the door and it was just like, ‘Oh shit. I don’t know who you are or what you want with us.’”
The incidents being described sound eerily reminiscent of the CIA’s post-9/11 rendition program under George W. Bush, where intelligence agents would roll up in unmarked vans in foreign countries, blindfold terrorism suspects (many of whom turned to be innocent) and kidnap them without explanation. Only instead of occurring on the streets of Italy or the Middle East, it’s happening in downtown Portland.
Donald Trump’s war on protesters is escalating, with reports emerging out of Portland, Ore., that federal law enforcement officers, wearing camouflage but without any other visible insignia, have been rounding up American citizens. On Thursday, Oregon Public Broadcasting (OPB) reported that “federal law enforcement officers have been using unmarked vehicles to drive around downtown Portland and detain protesters since at least July 14. Personal accounts and multiple videos posted online show the officers driving up to people, detaining individuals with no explanation of why they are being arrested, and driving off.”
. . . On the face of it, what these federal officers are doing is illegal and unconstitutional. It’s possible that they are acting under the 2011 National Defense Authorization Act, signed by Barack Obama, which legalized the detention of Americans suspected of being terrorists. If so, then the War on Terrorism has truly come home.
The Trump administration used unidentified federal officers to patrol Washington, D.C., in early June when the scale of the protests forced Trump to go into the White House bunker. Those officers turned out to be guards from the US Bureau of Prisons who had been repurposed as ad hoc praetorian guards.
Protests have been roiling Portland for over six weeks. Even prior to these protests, Portland was a site of a long-running battle between right-wing groups like the Proud Boys and left-wing activists who are usually lumped together under the antifa label. It’s possible that the antifa connection made Portland a spot of particular interest to the Trump administration, which has used the loosely organized anti-fascist groups as a scapegoat for social upheavals in the wake of police brutality.
The deployment of unidentified federal officers is particularly dangerous in a situation like that in Portland and elsewhere in America, because it could easily lead to right-wing militias’ impersonating legal authorities and kidnapping citizens. As former CIA counterintelligence analyst Aki Peritz notes, “All it takes is one of these similar-kitted out militiamen groups to start grabbing folks off the street as well, but then having their way with them, for there to be huge, possibly violent pushback for these tactics. This hurts the police, and the citizenry.”
Above: Writes Tommie Sunshine: “This is 26-year-old Donavan La Bella. He was shot in the face last week by the rogue Department of Homeland Security troops occupying Portland while standing still in peaceful, non-violent protest. His face and skull were fractured and he underwent facial reconstructive surgery in the hours after the assault. He had a tube in his skull to drain blood and is left with vision problems in one eye. Ignore this at your peril. Fascism is upon us and most people are looking the other way. I’d suggest you look at this until you get what’s going on.”
The month after Donald Trump’s inauguration, the Yale historian Timothy Snyder published the best-selling book On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons From the Twentieth Century. It was part of a small flood of titles meant to help Americans find their bearings as the new president laid siege to liberal democracy.
One of Snyder’s lessons was, “Be wary of paramilitaries.” He wrote, “When the pro-leader paramilitary and the official police and military intermingle, the end has come.” In 2017, the idea of unidentified agents in camouflage snatching leftists off the streets without warrants might have seemed like a febrile Resistance fantasy. Now it’s happening.
According to a lawsuit filed by Oregon’s attorney general, Ellen Rosenblum, on Friday, federal agents “have been using unmarked vehicles to drive around downtown Portland, detain protesters, and place them into the officers’ unmarked vehicles” since at least last Tuesday. The protesters are neither arrested nor told why they’re being held.
There’s no way to know the affiliation of all the agents – they’ve been wearing military fatigues with patches that just say “Police” – but The Times reported that some of them are part of a specialized Border Patrol group “that normally is tasked with investigating drug smuggling organizations.”
The Trump administration has announced that it intends to send a similar force to other cities; on Monday, The Chicago Tribune reported on plans to deploy about 150 federal agents to Chicago. “I don’t need invitations by the state,” Chad Wolf, acting secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, said on Fox News Monday, adding, “We’re going to do that whether they like us there or not.”
. . . There’s something particularly terrifying in the use of Border Patrol agents against American dissidents. After the attack on protesters near the White House last month, the military pushed back on Trump’s attempts to turn it against the citizenry. Police officers in many cities are willing to brutalize demonstrators, but they’re under local control. U.S. Customs and Border Protection, however, is under federal authority, has leadership that’s fanatically devoted to Trump and is saturated with far-right politics.
“It doesn’t surprise me that Donald Trump picked C.B.P. to be the ones to go over to Portland and do this,” Representative Joaquin Castro, Democrat of Texas, told me. “It has been a very problematic agency in terms of respecting human rights and in terms of respecting the law.”
It is true that C.B.P. is not an extragovernmental militia, and so might not fit precisely into Snyder’s On Tyranny schema. But when I spoke to Snyder on Monday, he suggested the distinction isn’t that significant. “The state is allowed to use force, but the state is allowed to use force according to rules,” he said. These agents, operating outside their normal roles, are by all appearances behaving lawlessly.
Snyder pointed out that the history of autocracy offers several examples of border agents being used against regime enemies.
“This is a classic way that violence happens in authoritarian regimes, whether it’s Franco’s Spain or whether it’s the Russian Empire,” said Snyder. “The people who are getting used to committing violence on the border are then brought in to commit violence against people in the interior.”
Castro worries that since the agents are unidentified, far-right groups could easily masquerade as them to go after their enemies on the left. “It becomes more likely the more that this tactic is used,” he said. “I think it’s unconstitutional and dangerous and heading towards fascism.”
As protests in Portland over police brutality and racial inequity near the end of a second month, [Trump's] heavily camouflaged, helmeted, and anonymous agents have routinely fired tear gas – even though courts have mostly banned local police from deploying it – and projectiles at protesters near a federal building in Oregon’s largest city. And – as captured in video or described by victims – these agents even snatched peaceful protesters off Portland sidewalks, shoved them into unmarked vans, and took them for questioning without identifying themselves or their agency.
These are the kind of Kafkaesque, police-state tactics that most civilized folks hoped had gone the way of Chile’s late authoritarian (and U.S.-installed) 20th-century dictator Augusto Pinochet, only to return for the increasingly desperate and dangerous final days of Trump’s disastrous presidency, and America’s descent into madness and chaos.
These hazy, tear-gas-soaked nights in the Pacific Northwest have been five years in the making — the inevitable climax of a storyline that began on a morning in June 2015, when Trump descended a gilded escalator to start building a movement of right-wing rabble with hate speech against Mexicans. You were warned in the early days of his presidency, when Trump made good on his promise to the white supremacist unions of cops and federal border and immigration agents to “take the shackles off,” cheering on police brutality while setting the stage for agents to show up at schools and courthouses and disappear undocumented immigrants with deep roots in their communities. Those who said nothing or uttered toothless platitudes at these tactics, or the agents ripping toddlers from the arms of their parents at the Mexican border, shouldn’t be shocked by now seeing Gestapo tactics in the streets of Portland.
Indeed, Trump’s inexorable frog-in-boiling-water push toward full-on authoritarianism has been so successful that almost no attention was paid on July 1, when the government announced a program with the Orwellian name of Protecting American Communities Task Force, or PACT (apparently the “F” is silent), which had the stated goal of protecting statues and monuments. But PACT’s real open-ended and ill-defined mission seems to be escalating conflict in a handful of cities, like Portland, with the most-active far-left communities.
[Trump’s] renegade Homeland Security army is tragic vindication for those of who’ve been warning since the early 2000s that the extensive security apparatus that America created after 9/11 – from that ominous too-1930s-Germanic sounding moniker of “Homeland Security” to the level of militarized policing unavoidable seen since George Floyd’s murder – would be turned against U.S. citizens, especially if America ever elected a president with an authoritarian streak.
For now, though, Trump’s 21st-century fascism is mostly a political performance. Unable to run on his leadership or his record, with a mounting coronavirus death toll that just passed 140,000, and an 11% unemployment that may get worse again before it gets better, the president is hoping to save his presidency with fear. But his desperate and misguided efforts to recreate Richard Nixon’s 1968 “law and order” campaign and somehow scare voters about Joe Biden won’t work unless he can bring nightly scenes of disorder and chaos into your living room.
Portland – home to folks on both the far-right and the far-left, in a state with a white supremacist past that contrasts with its reputation for hipster liberalism – has been in many ways the perfect laboratory. Until the last couple of days, the national media – with few, if any, reporters based in the region’s second-largest city – had been slow to grasp what was happening, yet pro-Trump Fox News was right on top of it, leading its newscasts with tear gas rather than coronavirus bumbling.
It’s a strategy that won’t work, as evidenced by a slew of recent polls showing Trump trailing Biden by anywhere from 11 to 15 percentage points. Far too many Americans have lost someone or watched friends and family members get sick from COVID-19, or experienced job losses, to get really worked up about graffiti on a federal courthouse.
Above: Protesters hold their hands in the air during a Black Lives Matter protest in front of the Multnomah County Justice Center on July 20, 2020, in Portland, Oregon. (Photo: Nathan Howard / Getty Images)
Trump is shifting his reelection pitch, and it has frightening implications for the country.
Over the weekend, the federal crackdown in Portland, Oregon continued, with people in unmarked camouflage uniforms arresting peaceful protesters and taking them away in unmarked vehicles. And then, they appeared – for now – to let them go. The administration appears to be constructing a scene of violence and disorder for the news media to show to viewers.
It seems clear that the Trump campaign – which got a new director last Wednesday – is going to make its case for reelection on the idea that there is violence in America’s cities that must be addressed with federal force, and that only Trump is willing to do so.
This is an apparent attempt to overshadow the increasingly alarming news about the coronavirus, which is now burning across the country with renewed vigor. Even as Republican governors are backtracking and asking people to wear masks, Trump continues to insist—falsely – that our spiking numbers are because of increased testing and that the virus will eventually disappear.
. . . The footage from Portland shows what looks like a war zone, but the Department of Homeland Security’s own list of the actions of the “violent anarchists” in the city consists of graffiti, torn down fences, and fireworks, all situations the local police insist they can handle. The mayor, both senators, and the governor of Oregon have all asked for the federal troops to be removed, but the administration refuses. Yesterday, Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler said the protests were winding down before the federal troops came in and escalated the situation.
In comments from the Oval Office on Monday, President Donald Trump intensified rising fears that his administration will deploy federal agents to Democrat-led cities across the country to replicate a widely condemned crackdown in Portland, Oregon that critics charge is not only authoritarian but part of the president's effort to win a second term by stoking division and chaos.
Trump told reporters that in cities which have seen Black Lives Matter protests since Minneapolis police killed George Floyd in late May, police are “restricted from doing anything” and “weak” local politicians are “afraid” of demonstrators, whom he described as “anarchists” who “hate our country.”
“I'm gonna do something, that I can tell you,” the president said before naming New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Detroit, Baltimore, and Oakland as potential targets, echoing his remarks from the weekend. “We're not gonna let this happen in our country. All run by liberal Democrats.”
Asked by a reporter whether he will send federal law enforcement to some of these cities, Trump said that “we'll have more federal law enforcement, that I can tell you. In Portland, they've done a fantastic job . . . in a very short period of time. No problem.”
. . . “Get ready, New York. We can't allow these fascist tactics in our city,” Democratic New York State Sen. Mike Gianaris wrote on Twitter. He was far from alone in denouncing the administration's approach as fascist.
“Fascism coming to a city near you,” tweeted writer Thor Benson. Alex Kotch, an investigative reporter at the Center for Media and Democracy, similarly said: “Watch Fascism™ spread in real time!”
Brave New Films blasted Trump as “an authoritarian wanna-be dictator.”
. . . Democratic Rep. Rashida Tlaib – who represents Michigan's 13th Congressional District, which includes portions of Detroit – declared in a tweet that “they'll have to arrest me first if they think they're going to illegally lay their hands on my residents.”
Charles Booker, who narrowly lost a Democratic primary race in Kentucky last month to take on Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, delivered a similar response on Twitter. He mentioned Breonna Taylor, who was shot to death in March by Louisville police officers while she was asleep in her home.
“We are standing against out of control government because of our love,” Booker wrote. “We love Breonna, we love our home, we love our families, and we love ourselves. Trump and Mitch can spew hate all they want. We won't back down. If they set foot in Kentucky, they'll have to arrest me first.”
Above: Federal police stand guard after pushing protesters away from the Mark O. Hatfield U.S. Courthouse in Portland, Ore. (Photo: Nathan Howard/Getty Images)
[I]t now appears clear that part of [Trump's reelection] strategy is to send Federal agents dressed like Iraq War troops to Democratic-run cities, on the pretext of protecting Federal property, and then for them to attack and provoke Black Lives Matter and Defund the Police protesters, causing violence to escalate and using it . . . to scare the suburbs. The exercise also has the advantage for Trump of entrenching a new form of secret police and of turning Federal agents into instruments of his authoritarianism. White House chief of staff Mark Meadows has confirmed the plan to send the Feds into those cities.
Provoking social conflict so as to polarize society was part of the Russian hacker playbook in 2016. It is the preferred tactic of terrorist groups such as ISIL and the Neo-Nazis, since a polarized society is much easier to scare into submission.
The administration’s unprecedented development of a federal police force reflects that the U.S. military has refused to support Trump’s power grab. That refusal was in the news again on Friday, when even as the administration was defending Confederate statues, the Pentagon officially banned all displays of the Confederate flag on U.S. military property, including barracks and common areas. “Flags are powerful symbols, particularly in the military community for whom flags embody common mission, common histories, and the special, timeless bond of warriors,” Defense Secretary Mark Esper wrote in the memo. “The flags we fly must accord with the military imperatives of good order and discipline, treating all our people with dignity and respect, and rejecting divisive symbols.”
The administration’s attacks on Black protesters have actually gained power for the movement. Tonight the official account of Major League Baseball tweeted a photo of members of the San Francisco Giants kneeling during the national anthem along with the hashtag BlackLivesMatter. When users complained about their stance, the account user responded in a defense of the tactics that brought football quarterback Colin Kaepernick such anger from Trump and Pence. The administrator wrote: “It has never been about the military or the flag. The players and coaches are using their platforms to peacefully protest.”
Trump’s attempts to downplay the coronavirus are not getting the traction he wishes, either. The Washington Nationals baseball team has invited “Nats super-fan,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, to throw out the ceremonial first pitch on Opening Day, Thursday, July 23. “Dr. Fauci has been a true champion for our country during the Covid-19 pandemic and throughout his distinguished career, so it is only fitting that we honor him as we kick off the 2020 season and defend our World Series Championship title.” Fauci donned a Nationals face mask when he testified before a House Committee on the coronavirus.
Trump’s attempt to divert attention from the coronavirus and protests against police violence against Black Americans is not working. He is attempting to portray those who oppose him as violent criminals, and promises to bring back LAW & ORDER, as he repeatedly tweets. But it is not working. Only 33% of Americans approve of his handling of the coronavirus pandemic and only 31% approve of his handling of race relations. And as for law and order: most people also trust Biden, rather than Trump, on that issue, too, by a margin of 49% to 42%.
And the federal intrusion into the cities appears to be backfiring. The crowds in Portland are increasing dramatically. Tonight the Wall of Moms waved their hands above their heads as they softly sang a new lullaby: “Hands up, please don’t shoot me.”
I am so proud of the city of Portland, and particularly the Wall of Moms. I’ve often talked about how in every advanced mammalian species, a common characteristic is the fierce behavior of the adult female when she senses a threat to her cubs. They can make fun of the Divine Feminine all they want, but she is rising up powerfully right now.
The Wall of Moms phenomenon occurring in Portland is making a huge difference, and it will spread to any city [Trump] sends his troops to. The love that will save the world is not just a love for our own children, it is a love for all children. Black women in America have been worried for so many years every time their sons left the house; so many have told me so. Such stress and fear must be unbelievable. But Americans are awakening, as usual somewhat late but with power and glory once we get there. All injustices are connected to every other. What started with Black Lives Matter has opened our eyes to so many things. Portland is the new Concord. Fascism will not be tolerated in America. This is where we must draw the line.
Related Off-site Links:
Federal Officers Respond to Portland Protests With Gas and Munitions Amid Growing Attention from Trump Administration – Piper McDaniel (The Oregonian, July 17, 2020).
Anyone Can Buy the Same Military-style Gear Worn by Federal Officers Making Secretive Arrests in Portland – David Choi (Business Insider, July 17, 2020).
Oregon Will Sue Federal Police Agencies and Open Criminal Investigation Into Use of Force – K. Rambo (The Oregonian, July 17, 2020).
To End “Unconstitutional Nightmare,” ACLU Sues Trump Administration Over Use of Secret Police in Portland – Jake Johnson (Common Dreams, July 18, 2020).
Trump Plans to Expand the Federal Invasion of American Cities – Dan Friedman (Mother Jones, July 19, 2020).
Trump's Suburban Outreach Follows the Nixon and Wallace Racist Playbook – Alex Henderson (Salon, July 19, 2020).
“Existential Threat to Our Democracy”: Trump Refuses to Commit to Accepting 2020 Election Results – Jake Johnson (Common Dreams, July 19, 2020).
Feds and Right-wing Media Paint Portland as ‘City Under Siege.’ A Tour of Town Shows Otherwise – Eder Campuzano (The Oregonian, July 20, 2020).
A Navy Veteran Had a Question for the Feds in Portland. They Beat Him in Response – John Ismay (The New York Times, July 20, 2020).
‘Trump’s Thugs”: GOP Group’s Powerful Ad Warns Paramilitary Assault in Portland ‘Is How Freedom Dies” – Dara Brewton (Front Page News, July 20, 2020).
Defense Secretary Mark Esper Concerned Over Federal Agents Dressed Like Military Troops in U.S. Cities – Lara Seligman (Politico, July 20, 2020).
Facing Federal Agents, Portland Protests Find New Momentum – Gillian Flaccus (Associated Press, July 21, 2020).
Portland’s Wall of Moms Joined by Dads With Leaf Blowers Against Trump’s Police – Chris Walker (TruthOut, July 21, 2020).
Trump Administration Poised to Deploy Feds to More US Cities as Tensions in Portland Boil Over – Igor Derysh (Salon, July 20, 2020).
Nothing Can Justify the Attack on Portland – Quinta Jurecic and Benjamin Wittes (The Atlantic, July 21, 2020).
Moms, Tear Gas, and Flash Bangs – Just Another Monday Night in Portland – Justin Grinnell (PSU Vanguard, July 21, 2020).
Chicago Won't See “Portland-style Deployment” of Federal Agents, Mayor Lori Lightfoot Says – Grace Hauck (USA Today, July 21, 2020).
Will Trump’s Secret Police Succeed in Provoking Riots in Your City? – Thom Hartmann (Common Dreams, July 21, 2020).
UPDATES: Portland’s Mayor Tear-gassed by US Agents as Protest Rages – Gillian Flaccus (Associated Press, July 23, 2020).
Paramilitary-Style Tactics in Portland Mirror Decades of U.S. Violence on the Border & Abroad – Democracy Now! (July 23, 2020).
Judge in Portland Bars Federal Officers From Arresting or Using Force Against Journalists and Legal Observers – David Shortell (CNN, July 23, 2020).
MSNBC Analyst: Trump Sending Feds To Portland As “Trial Run” to “Steal” Election – Jake Thomas (The Intellectualist, July 23, 2020).
Do Americans Get That Trump Is Instituting Martial Law? – Umair Haque (Medium, July 23, 2020).
Trump Is Using Federal Agents as His “Goon Squad,” Says ICE's Ex-Acting Head – Daniel Strauss (The Guardian, July 24, 2020).
In Portland, Questions Swirl Around Local Police's Coordination With Federal Officers – Arun Gupta (The Intercept, July 24, 2020).
“Wall of Veterans” Arrives in Portland to Protect Black Lives Matter Protesters from Trump’s DHS Troops – Colin Kalmbacher (Law and Crime, July 25, 2020).
In Portland’s So-Called War Zone, It’s the Troops Who Provide the Menace – Nicholas Kristof (The New York Times, July 25, 2020).
Oregon Governor and Federal Authorities Reach Agreement to Begin Withdrawing Agents from Portland – Grace Hauck, Kevin Johnson and Bart Jansen (USA Today via MSN News, July 30, 2020).
Trump’s “Law-and-Order” Approach Falls Flat: Poll – Susan Milligan (U.S. News and World Report via MSN News, July 31, 2020).
Portland Sees Peaceful Night of Protests Following Withdrawal of Federal Agents – Chris McGreal (The Guardian, July 31, 2020).
Portland Suffers Serious Street Violence as Far Right Return “Prepared to Fight” – Jason Wilson (The Guardian, August 31, 2020).
“Fascism at Our Door”: Asked to Condemn White Supremacist Groups, Trump Tells Them to “Stand By” Instead – Jon Queally (Common Dreams, September 29, 2020).
See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• Trump's Playbook
• Progressive Perspectives on the Rise of Donald Trump
• Progressive Perspectives on the Election of Donald Trump as President of the United States
• On International Human Rights Day, Saying “No” to Donald Trump and His Fascist Agenda
• Trump's America: Normalized White Supremacy and a Rising Tide of Racist Violence
• Global Condemnation for Trump's Latest Ignorant and Racist Comments
• Quotes of Note Regarding the Impeachment of President Trump
• Quotes of Note Regarding the Senate’s Impeachment Trial of President Trump
• Progressive Perspectives on Corruption in U.S. Politics
• Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor: Quote of the Day – June 9, 2020
• Marianne Williamson: Quote of the Day – June 2, 2020
Opening image: President Donald Trump as depicted on the cover of the June 6, 2020 issue of Der Spiegel, Germany’s leading news magazine and the largest-circulation newsweekly in Europe. Writes Simon Dumenco: “[The magazine's] cover story decries President Donald Trump’s incendiary approach to governing. The cover illustration depicts a hubristic Trump holding a match in the Oval Office, while outside, as seen through the window behind him, Washington, D.C. burns. The cover headline, 'Der Feuerteufel,' translates literally as 'the fire devil' but is used to mean firestarter or firebug, while the subhead, 'Ein Präsident setzt sein Land in Brand,' translates to 'A president sets fire to his country.'”
