Black Days In July

Not Detroit in 1967, as Gordon Lightfoot called it, but Portland, Oregon in 2020.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) recently sent special agents to "protect" federal offices and property in Portland against racial-justice activists whose demonstrations have mostly been peaceful.  The agents have been anything but that, arresting and detaining protesters with brute force.  Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler and Oregon Governor Kate Brown have been demanding that the feds pull their special forces out of the city, but Trump - wanting to burnish his "law and order" credentials with his base in advance of the presidential election- has obviously chosen to ignore their requests.  The acting Homeland Security Secretary - whoever that is - has said that state and local leaders have no right to tell DHS how to do its job.

It doesn't matter that Oregon - like every other Pacific Coast state except Alaska is solidly Democratic . . . except that Trump wants to demonstrate that he can lay down the law where Democratic governors appear to be - appear to be, that's the big disclaimer - unwilling or unable to.  That is the entire point.  Somehow, I don't think demonstrations outside U.S. Government buildings Dallas or Nashville would get the same heavy-handed response from the feds, because local officeholders sympathetic to Trump wouldn't need them.  And now he plans to send DHS agents to other Democratic-run cities; he's already announced plans to send DHS agents to Chicago.  And in Chicago, Mayor Lori Lightfoot (who has nothing to do with Gordon Lightfoot) has suddenly decided to cooperate with the federal government, apparently being under the misconception that she can prevent tit from acting out its worst excesses.

Black days in July . . . Rose City madness . . . Remember in November.