It was the warmest day that Portland had seen in a while, with sun peeking out from the clouds here and there. Many people had brought their entire families; not just older children, but toddlers in strollers and wagons, too. Some brought their dogs. The chants were typical: "ICE out of Portland" and "No hate, no fear, immigrants are welcome here."
Even before inception, the lawsuit has been dogged by a war on reality fueled by social media influencers, some of whom have direct lines to federal officials. At every turn, influencers and the imperatives of content creation have been an inextricable though not always visible part of the National Guard case. The influencers have broadcast their content directly to figures in the administration, they have shaped national policy around "domestic terrorism," and they have seeped into the legal record itself.
While ICE personnel have been using chemical agents, rubber bullets, pepper balls, and other "non-lethal" ammunition on protesters, Portlanders have been donning dinosaur costumes, clown outfits, and pied-piper paraphernalia or have been shedding their clothes and cycling naked before the camo-wearing government thugs. Others have put on PJs and distributed doughnuts in the early mornings to the bemused defenders of the home front. Protest costumes are even being given away for free on the streets.
Portlanders deploying inflatable animal costumes, a brass band, mass ukulele renditions of "This Land Is Your Land," naked bike rides, and other tactics in their ICE protests are undermining the Trump administration's lurid claims that Portland, Oregon, is a "war-torn" city under siege by a violent left. It's hard to portray someone dancing in an inflatable frog or chicken costume as a terrorist.
Yet federal agents are responding with increased force. Federal police unleashed a volley of weapons and chemical agents on anti-ICE protesters and journalists on Saturday, October 11. It was a notable escalation in the response to protests at the Portland immigration processing facility that led to violent arrests, a photojournalist getting shot with a pepper ball, and a large group being sprayed indiscriminately with tear gas.
On Wednesday, Trump told reporters, "The amazing thing is, you look at Portland and you see fires all over the place. You see fights, and I mean just violence. It's just so crazy." The president went on to compare Portland to a postapocalyptic movie that features "bombed out cities." He added, "I don't know what could be worse than Portland. You don't even have sewers anymore. They don't even put glass up. They put plywood on their windows. But most of the retailers have left."
has banned the president's deployment of National Guard units to Portland on the grounds that the president's claim that Portland is a "burning hellhole" besieged by violent anarchists is "untethered to facts."
Newsom, a Democrat, said in a statement that California personnel were on their way Sunday and called the deployment "a breathtaking abuse of the law and power." "The commander-in-chief is using the U.S. military as a political weapon against American citizens," Newsom said in the statement. "We will take this fight to court, but the public cannot stay silent in the face of such reckless and authoritarian conduct by the president of the United States."
In the days since Donald Trump directed his "Secretary of War" to marshal troops against "domestic terrorists" in Portland, encouraging the use of "full force" in a city he likened to a "war zone," I have been hanging around the demonstration that the president wants to crush. What I've found is an atmosphere that is more like a carnival than combat.
US President Donald Trump on Saturday expanded his controversial deployment of National Guard troops to cities where he claims "domestic terrorists" are operating and where crime is rampant. The latest city will be Portland, Oregon, known across the US for its progressive politics. All of the other cities to which Trump has deployed National Guard troops to Washington DC, Memphis and Los Angeles have Democratic mayors.
