A Sense of Doubt blog post #3892 - The Reality in the "Burning Hell Hole" That Is Portland, OR
Portland is not a war zone.
In contrast, the protesting Portlanders are peaceful and funny, mocking this administration's authoritarian wet dreams.
This next link is to my favorite video, but I cannot embed it. It's from the Daily Show:
https://youtube.com/shorts/BSkDJ7eCpb8?si=vAX95EQ2N1Lu9XJc
A conservative influencer was arrested in Portland. Trump was watching.
As the president tries to send in the National Guard, a phalanx of conservative influencers is working to support his claim that Portland is burning.
PORTLAND, Ore. — During the four hours Nick Sortor sat in jail
on the morning of Oct. 3, the conservative influencer wondered if anyone even
knew he’d been arrested. He had no cellphone. He could make local calls, but he
didn’t know anyone’s number in Portland.
Outside, though, his online allies were blaring the news: A
right-wing journalist — and not the leftists who assaulted him at an ICE
protest — had been arrested by Portland police. Within hours of his release,
Sortor had a message from Donald Trump, via a White House aide: “Nick, I saw
you on television,” the message read. “Great job. We’re behind you 100%. Let us
know if there’s anything we can do. … President DJT.”
Over the next few days, conservative media spotlighted Sortor’s
arrest to amplify Trump’s claims that leftists were engaging in destructive
mayhem in Portland. By Wednesday, Sortor himself was at the White House,
addressing a roundtable where Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi
L. Noem compared antifa — a catchall concept used to describe loosely
affiliated far-left groups — to the Islamist Hezbollah, one of the most heavily
armed non-state military forces in the world.
“The fact that we are here today, on such short notice, shows
how serious you guys are taking this issue,” Sortor told Trump and other
Cabinet members. He continued: “The Portland politicians are literally willing
to sacrifice their own citizens just to appease these antifa terrorists. It’s
sickening. I’ve seen it first-hand, obviously.”
Floodlit by DHS spotlights, the square outside the ICE facility
where Sortor was arrested is more stage than battleground, which in recent
months has become a real-life, live-action set for an increasingly fevered
standoff over the nation’s future. Sortor’s experience — and the White House’s
use of it — shows how those events can be shaped and polished in a fractured
media ecosystem that selectively spins 10-second video clips into furor, and
ultimately policy, in an administration that has harnessed the power of social
media to inspire and enrage.
Much of the footage from Portland doesn’t originate from
traditional TV networks but from a phalanx of activist-journalists, on both the
right and the left, filming on their phones. Despite the protests largely being
confined to one city block, it has resulted in a cascade of videos that has
bolstered the conservative depiction of Portland as a city under siege by
left-wing terrorists — video the White House has cited to justify and build
support for deploying the National Guard to cities across the country.
In the weeks since Trump said he would send the National Guard
to the city, two distinctly different scenes have developed. During the day, a
crowd of mostly homegrown activists stage deliberately absurd protests designed
to provoke or embarrass government officials, wearing pajamas,
inflatable animal costumes, or, if all goes right at the planned Naked Bike
Ride on Sunday, nothing at all.
But at night, the scene often turns violent, with leftist demonstrators
exchanging blows with counterprotesters, at times shoving or spitting on
federal law enforcement officers, lobbing fireworks and attacking conservative
influencers and journalists. Portland police have largely held back, stepping
in sporadically to make targeted arrests rather than clearing the block, to the
frustration of federal authorities.
Almost every moment is captured to push a political message
online, as leftists aim their phones at law enforcement officers and
conservatives turn their cameras at those leftists, documenting their crimes,
reveling in their frustration and celebrating the at-times violent arrests that
result from their faceoffs with federal officers.
When Sortor returned to the protest site the evening after his arrest, he
received a hero’s welcome from his conservative allies, some of whom wore
Charlie Kirk tribute shirts or carried American flags. Before his arrest,
Sortor had snatched a burning American flag from a demonstrator and stomped out
the flames. By the weekend, he was carrying the charred flag on a pole and
shoving his way through the leftist sidewalk encampment.
“Nick, I’m sure you know, but we have about a hundred and
something people live-streaming,” one of Sortor’s fans said while
recording him on TikTok. “And anytime that we brought you up or talked about
you we have tens of people in here talking about Nick’s a hero. We support you,
Nick. We hope you’re doing okay.”
“Just know the nation’s behind you right now,” the fan told
Sortor.
The moment that brought Sortor to national attention, and
eventually to the notice of the White House, began with a shot of pepper spray.
Leilani Payne, 19, has been a fixture at the protests; she describes herself as
anti-fascist, but says she isn’t aware of any organization or leadership
structure behind the demonstration. On the night of Oct. 2, as agents cleared
the sidewalk of protesters — though Payne did not make contact with officers or
cross a blue line on the asphalt separating the ICE facility from the sidewalk
on South Macadam Avenue — a federal officer pepper-sprayed her directly in the
face.
“They really enjoy picking on people smaller than them,” Payne
said later in an interview.
As pepper spray burned her esophagus, Payne’s screams of distress
caught Sortor’s attention. By this point, he had also become a familiar figure
outside the ICE facility, known for engaging in arguments with leftists and
appearing on Fox News, where he accused Portland police of “openly siding with
antifa terrorists.”
Sortor bent down and held his camera close to Payne’s face.
Payne’s fellow anti-fascists and leftist activists encircled
Sortor. Sortor took a swing — and missed, he said — at a masked protester who
kept blocking his path. In the scuffle, someone shoved him into a flower bed
with the tip of an umbrella.
Portland police later arrested Sortor for disorderly conduct,
along with two other people involved in the episode. Upon his release from
jail, Sortor was interviewed by multiple news outlets, including Fox News. He
claimed that police arrested him because he was a conservative.
The day he was released, Assistant Attorney General for Civil
Rights Harmeet K. Dhillon sent the city a letter claiming “potential viewpoint
discrimination,” citing incorrect claims proliferating across social media that
Sortor was the only person arrested. By Monday, the Multnomah County District
Attorney’s office had dropped the disorderly conduct charges against Sortor,
while it continues to prosecute the other two people, the office said in
a statement.
Over the past few years, Sortor has built a following by showing
up at national dramas, sharing his videos and opinions with conservative programs.
Two years ago, he was at the train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio,
giving reports to Tucker Carlson. He argued with
a heckler during an appearance on Stephen K.
Bannon’s podcast from the scene of the Maui wildfires. Dwayne “The Rock”
Johnson tweeted about what he called Sortor’s
“toxic, false clickbait garbage” after a WWE appearance where Sortor claimed
the crowd was booing Johnson for his lack of Maui philanthropy.
But nothing boosted Sortor’s stature like his Portland arrest.
“At least that horrible night made you famous,” Trump told
Sortor at the White House on Wednesday. “You got something out of it.”
Afterward, Sortor was welcomed inside the ICE facility, which
has opened its doors to a host of reporters and political commentators working
for conservative news outlets or presenting as Trump loyalists. One of them,
Quincy Franklin, has appeared at rallies across the Pacific Northwest alongside
members of far-right groups Patriot Prayer and Hell Shaking Street Preachers,
bellowing slurs over loudspeakers at Pride events. Another guest welcomed in by
ICE was conservative commentator David Medina, a Jan. 6 rioter who vandalized
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office during the 2021 riot at the U.S. Capitol.
ICE agents invited some inside for their own safety: After Katie
Daviscourt, a reporter for the conservative online outlet Post Millennial, was
assaulted by a masked demonstrator, she filmed the action from ICE’s roof the
next evening. Protesters gazing up at her chanted “Nazi Barbie!”
Portland police said there have been 47 arrests near the ICE
facility since June 8, including people associated with the leftist protest.
But even though Daviscourt followed her attacker down the street and flagged
down an officer, no arrest was made.
Aaron Schmautz, a Portland police sergeant who is president of
the city’s police union, called the situation outside the ICE facility ugly —
and avoidable. The city’s riot playbook calls for officers not to break up
demonstrations but to keep them contained and to arrest people for observed
violent behavior. But, Schmautz said, if officers are ordered to
decisively break up the demonstrations, they may be hesitant because of a
sympathetic posture from local elected officials toward the protests.
“When you have city officials encouraging people to break the
law,” Schmautz said, “the politics betray the outcome.”
The scene outside the ICE facility these days is far tamer
than the street brawls that erupted over the past decade in Portland between
rival protesters and federal law enforcement.
During Trump’s first term, gatherings by the Proud Boys and
Patriot Prayer, an evangelical movement based in nearby Vancouver, Wash., often
devolved into fights with leftist protesters. Portland is also home to the
first anti-fascist organization, Rose City Antifa, formed in 2007 to oppose
white supremacists in the Northwest. For months after Minneapolis police killed
George Floyd in 2020, Portland saw nightly clashes between protesters, federal
officials, and local police.
One of the conservative chroniclers of that time was Andy Ngo.
He began covering the far left as a student at Portland State University in
2018 and was assaulted twice by leftists in 2019 and 2021.
Ngo said he’s received death threats from antifa members for
years and moved to London in 2021 for his safety. He said the party atmosphere
among leftist protesters in Portland betrays the toxicity of antifa’s online
presence. This year, for example, a foreign-hosted website claiming to
represent Rose City Antifa has doxed federal agents and encouraged violence,
including a coordinated laser attack on federal helicopters monitoring protests.
“There’s been lots of threats that I didn’t publicize because I
felt so isolated,” Ngo said. “I’m really demonized in the press, treated as
persona non grata, and a liar, and illegitimate. I felt like, what was the
point of sharing publicly that people want to kill me? No one’s going to
condemn it.”
His work has enjoyed new attention since Trump’s Sept. 22 order labeling antifa a
terrorist organization. And some of the conservative commentators in Portland
have adopted Ngo’s gonzo, up-close-and-personal approach.
Justin Allen, a veteran of the Portland leftist protest scene,
said he has seen a pattern emerge among right-wing streamers. “You
saw folks like Andy Ngo start a cottage industry of antagonizing antifa and
then filming what happens next,” said Allen, 40, who served in the Navy from
2005-2009. “And all you have to do is clip out the antagonism and then boom,
you get your money and attention.”
“In any protest you have people who are there to cause
problems,” Schmautz, the police union chief, said. “But there seem to be a lot
more people who are trying to go out there and become relevant or famous than
ever.”
The conservative journalists often don’t identify themselves to
interview subjects and don’t share their social channel names with political
adversaries. They seek out the most abrasive people on the left and work them
into a fury, said Andrew Mercado, a YouTuber with 85,000 followers who was also
live-streaming the Portland protests around the time of Sortor’s arrest.
Mercado, 32, who wore a flak jacket, a helmet and a patch
identifying him as press, was careful to straddle the shifting DMZ between the
left and right outside the facility.
“Some people come out and agitate and provoke the protester and
kind of make themselves the story. I don’t consider that journalism,” he said.
“I just want to focus on what’s happening and not put myself in it. I’m not going
to get high views, but it’s important still to show it, whether it’s chaos or
not.”
At 8:15 p.m. on Oct. 4, the day after Sortor’s release, the
metal gates of the ICE facility swung open and dozens of federal police in
respirators and helmets walked out, prompting protesters to cue up the
“Imperial March” theme from “Star Wars” on a portable speaker. The police
formed a semicircle in the intersection and stood in place for more than 10
minutes, as protesters showered them with insults. “Quit your f---ing job you
stupid fascists,” one man shouted.
Suddenly, federal officers started shooting pepper balls. Later,
they tossed canisters of tear gas at the feet of demonstrators. The canisters
erupted in sparks and a cloud of white smoke.
After the protesters were forced to retreat several blocks away,
federal police tore down a banner erected on a chain-link fence that said
“ABOLISH ICE” in giant letters. Daviscourt, embedded with federal agents, tweeted video of ICE officers jogging
back into their facility with the balled-up banner.
A gathering of conservatives — allowed to remain in place while the leftists
were cleared from South Macadam Avenue — celebrated the banner’s seizure. Among
them was Thomas Wayne Allen, 36, who had earned the nickname “TKO Tommy” since
joining his fellow conservatives in Portland a few days earlier.
One night, a man had kicked him, and Allen swung back.
Daviscourt had filmed from the ICE roof as Allen
connected with his seventh punch, dropping the man. Both were briefly taken
into custody by Homeland Security and released. Allen was arrested by the
Portland police the next day for disorderly conduct.
His Twitter account, amplified by Sortor and others, ballooned
from a few hundred followers to more than 16,000 in days. After he accused
leftists of smashing his car windows, he raised more than $3,000 through online
fundraisers.
“It’s still so surreal,” said Allen, who was sporting a version
of the white “Freedom” shirt Kirk was wearing when he was shot. “I never
thought anything like this would happen in my life.”
The maker of the seized banner, Bennett Haselton, filed a police
report for stolen property. (“This is not their jurisdiction. This is not their
property,” he later said in an interview. “I come out every day with extremely
low expectations for their behavior and I’m always disappointed.”)
Haselton said he came to the protests to document ICE abuses the
right-wingers ignored, so he was on the spot for clashes between ICE and
leftists that went viral — including the moment Payne was pepper-sprayed.
Haselton also captured video of federal officers shooting pepper
spray into the sole airway of a leftist in an inflatable frog costume, who was
trying to help a downed demonstrator. Liberals online were outraged and said
the man could have been killed inside his inflatable suit. The frog, for his
part, returned saying the spray tasted like peppermint and even shared a laugh
with Sortor.
Last Sunday, Sortor embarked on a new mission to provoke the
liberal protesters: Take the slightly charred American flag and walk through
the leftist encampment.
A woman in a black hoodie and a gas mask stepped up to block
Sortor’s path. He tried to push past her, but several men and women joined in
shoving back.
“You’re no longer allowed to walk down the sidewalk in
Portland,” Sortor said to his viewers as he was being jostled, “or else you’re
going to get jumped and pushed and shoved and assaulted here.”
Sortor turned to another streamer who was filming him. “We’re
live, right?”
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- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 2510.14 - 10:10
- Days ago: MOM = 3757 days ago & DAD = 407 days ago
- New note - On 1807.06, I ceased daily transmission of my Hey Mom feature after three years of daily conversations. I post Hey Mom blog entries on special occasions. I post the days since ("Days Ago") count on my blog each day, and now I have a second count for Days since my Dad died on August 28, 2024. I am now in the same time zone as Google! So, when I post at 10:10 a.m. PDT to coincide with the time of Mom's death, I am now actually posting late, so it's really 1:10 p.m. EDT. But I will continue to use the time stamp of 10:10 a.m. to remember the time of her death and sometimes 13:40 EDT for the time of Dad's death. The blog entry numbering in the title has changed to reflect total Sense of Doubt posts since I began the blog on 0705.04, which include Hey Mom posts, Daily Bowie posts, and Sense of Doubt posts. Hey Mom posts will still be numbered sequentially. New Hey Mom posts will use the same format as all the other Hey Mom posts; all other posts will feature this format seen here.
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