Trump tosses a match onto the gasoline
On today’s social calendar: a likely clash between Proud Boys and Antifa in Portland:
Portland is preparing for a large far-right rally on Saturday that may be the largest in a series of demonstrations that have descended on the city in the Trump era.
Police in the Oregon city are fearful of an outbreak of violence at the “End Domestic Terrorism” rally, which is targeted at Portland’s antifascist groups, who in recent years have clashed with rightwing activists in running street battles.
The protest has been promoted primarily by Floridian Joe Biggs, a member of the rightwing Proud Boys organization. Biggs is a combat veteran and a former employee of the conspiracy broadcaster Alex Jones’s Infowars network. He claims that up to 1,000 people from around the country will attend Saturday’s unpermitted event on the city’s waterfront.
In promoting the rally on social media, Biggs has brandished a Trump-themed baseball bat, appeared in videos wearing a T-shirt bearing the slogan “Training to Throw Communists Out of Helicopters” – a reference to the Chilean Pinochet regime’s methods for executing dissidents – and has taunted antifascists, saying “You’re not gonna feel safe when you go out in public” and “I’m gonna stomp your ass into the ground, Antifa”.
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Other rightwing groups have also said they are attending, or have been mentioned by Biggs and others, including “patriot movement” groups like the Three Percenters and the Oathkeepers, who often openly carry firearms at public events, and American Guard, who the Anti-Defamation League describe as “hardcore white supremacists”.
The rally has also been heavily promoted in conservative media outlets along with its underlying message – the claim that anti-fascist groups, known as “antifa”, are domestic terrorists.
So what does Trump do? He sends a tweet from Bedminster:
Major consideration is being given to naming ANTIFA an “ORGANIZATION OF TERROR.” Portland is being watched very closely. Hopefully the Mayor will be able to properly do his job!
In other words he aligns himself with fascist groups gathering to set off violence. Is that sinister enough yet?
Antifa isn’t even an organization (not that I think”organization of terror” is any sort of official designation)
The clash was referred to in a TV headline as being between “far left” and “far right”. It irks me that politics are viewed on a single horizontal line, and proclivity toward violence is deemed a property of those only at the far ends of the line, rather than a tactic that might be used by anyone to achieve goals. It irks me that “extremism” means both being at the far ends of the line and advocating draconian tactics. It irks me that “moderate” implies both middle of the spectrum and calm, collected action. There are certainly “extremist moderates”, even though that’s confusing under these definitions.
I don’t see antifa as far left. They are anti far right. They might be a good example of “extremist moderates”.
I’m way more aligned with Antifa politically than I am with idiot groups like the Proud Boys.
However, one of Antifa’s main goals is to seeks these groups out…and fight them. They’re quite explicit that they they intentionally use violence in this way.
Antifa has also several times taken over the streets of Portland, not letting cars drive in certain areas, rerouting traffic, etc. They’ve done this on their own, without permits, and the Portland police just looked the other way. There are videos of this on YouTube.
A lot of people also aren’t thrilled about Antifa members hiding their identity.
I think for a lot of people “I agree with this group’s political views” doesn’t extend to “so I think they should be able to do whatever they want”. You don’t have to be a fascist to be concerned about a bunch of masked people roaming all over your town, carrying weapons and spoiling for a fight.
Not that the orange idiot is going to do anything helpful.
@Skeletor:
You’ve definitely got the right of it… I’m 100% on board with Nazis getting their skills cracked but ultimately it’s all gang fighting… You can’t have that sort of thing going on in a city and Portland would do well to make sure the Invaders didn’t show up for the local lads’ amusement.
I’d be much more welcoming of antifa if they dropped the aggressive attacks. They’ve said themselves that assault is their last and least used resort… so why not drop it?
Waving banners and shouting from the sidelines did nothing to stop the facists jackbooting through Europe in the 1930s, and it will do nothing to stop them from stomping across America today, especially now the facists have the support of the President.
Weren’t some people on here just a few days ago wondering how complicit they were by doing nothing about Trump’s immigration policies?
There’s a large gap between ‘doing nothing’ and ‘refraining from assault’ that they can do to good effect.
On the other hand, Holms, there’s horses for courses. What works against one threat will be ineffective against another.