Yesterday in Oregon:
Proud boy chases down another BLM supporter, beats them down. Police make arrests pic.twitter.com/J9YlhpoRnO
— Sergio Olmos (@MrOlmos) September 7, 2020
Armed with rifles, pistols, knives and clubs, the far-right demonstrators at one point charged into a smaller group of liberal counterprotesters, knocking at least one activist to the ground.
This was part of the twitter thread about the, um, disturbance.
All I got to say about that is I fking told ya so you can only push people around for so long before they fight back
The good guys have had enough of the bull? if the cops can’t or won’t protect the community well the community will protect it self can’t get mad about that— ? Leo-The-Lion ? (@starseed904) September 8, 2020
I doubt many of the Trump thugs in the videos were from “the community.” More likely outside agitators. And it doesn’t appear anyone needed protecting, except from them.
We’ve learned a bit more about last week’s shooting in Portland, although probably we’ll never know exactly what happened since the suspect was killed in a “hail of gunfire” by police. Convenient, that. Court documents say that both the victim, Aaron “Jay” Danielson, and the alleged and now dead perpetrator, Michael Forest Reinoehl, were armed with handguns. Before he was killed, Reinoehl made a video claiming he shot Danielson in self-defense. Unfortunately no video has come to light of the actual shooting, just the immediate aftermath, so there is no way to know if Reinoehl was telling the truth about being in danger.
The bottom line, though, is when you’ve got a bunch of hotheaded men pumped up with anger and self-righteousness running around with guns, people will be shot. I’m sure there will be more before this terrible year is over.
Donald Trump, of course, is trying to stir up fears of thugs and anarchists as part of his re-election campaign, since he can’t very well run on his gawdawful record.
The pattern continued over the holiday weekend, when he tweeted video of a melee in Texas between protesters and security officers during an event for a Trump-affiliated group and two celebratory videos of a protester in Portland, Ore., with his feet on fire. One of the videos was scored to the Kenny Loggins song “Footloose” and the second featured mocking play-by-play commentary by a mixed-martial-arts announcer.
So presidential.
But this is Trump’s campaign. He doesn’t speak to the pandemic any more except for dropping BIG HINTS that a vaccine will be available “before a very special day,” apparently referring to election day, which is not going to happen. He is bragging about economic recovery but seems to not be interested in doing anything to help it along. James Downie wrote this at WaPo yesterday:
You might have noticed that list offered nothing for those looking for work. On that front, the president was content to tweet praise about the new jobs report on Friday before turning back to more substantive issues like vandalism at Graceland. The employment numbers were encouraging, to be sure: 1.4 million jobs added, and an unemployment rate down to 8.4 percent. But as The Post reports, “just over half of the 22 million total jobs lost between February and April have not returned,” and new outbreaks and decreasing government assistance could easily derail the slow recovery. Much hard work lies ahead. Another president might hail Friday’s report yet promise to keep working to improve the economy. This one clearly feels the economy is doing just fine and is no longer worth his time.
Trump’s twitter feed today is all about antifa, Joe Biden’s alleged plans to force low-income housing into suburbs, and Big Ten Football.
Nicholas Kristoff at the New York Times has a lovely rundown of all the promises Trump made in 2016 and how he didn’t keep them. See also Paul Krugman, Gross Domestic Misery Is Rising.
Bottom line: There are thugs and anarchists in the streets of the U.S., and the bulk of them appear to be Trump supporters.