Guno צְבִי
We fight, We win, Am Yisrael Chai
Here in Portland, this supposed city of darkness, happy kids splash around in a fountain next to the sparkling Willamette River, senior citizens practice tai chi in a park, bald eagles and ospreys soar past office building windows, chefs and bakers win national awards, world-class jazz musicians draw locals into clubs, and hiking trails course through the largest urban forest in the country, with glacier-draped Mount Hood as a backdrop.
It’s hardly the hellscape depicted by Donald Trump. What the city is, however, is a primary target in Trump’s scheming to militarize American cities — at least progressive ones like Portland, my home for the past 25 years..
Trump is employing a playbook that’s eerily similar to ones that have been used by despots, including Adolf Hitler, who consolidated his control over Germany by deploying Sturmabteilung shock troops to spread fear across the populace.
Trump has effectively weaponized ICE as his own personal police force, and is using it to bait protestors into clashes and create a pretext for exerting military-style control over cities led by Democrats. From the very beginning of Trump’s second term, federal agents’ pursuit of undocumented immigrants has been marked by the spread of fear and terror. Trump says ICE’s heavy-handed tactics are necessary to fulfill his promise that undocumented immigrants “will not be tolerated.” But the scale and spectacle of ICE actions suggest another motive: to manufacture war-like images that justify crackdowns on leftists, whom Trump routinely portrays as domestic terrorists.
forward.com
It’s hardly the hellscape depicted by Donald Trump. What the city is, however, is a primary target in Trump’s scheming to militarize American cities — at least progressive ones like Portland, my home for the past 25 years..
Trump is employing a playbook that’s eerily similar to ones that have been used by despots, including Adolf Hitler, who consolidated his control over Germany by deploying Sturmabteilung shock troops to spread fear across the populace.
Trump has effectively weaponized ICE as his own personal police force, and is using it to bait protestors into clashes and create a pretext for exerting military-style control over cities led by Democrats. From the very beginning of Trump’s second term, federal agents’ pursuit of undocumented immigrants has been marked by the spread of fear and terror. Trump says ICE’s heavy-handed tactics are necessary to fulfill his promise that undocumented immigrants “will not be tolerated.” But the scale and spectacle of ICE actions suggest another motive: to manufacture war-like images that justify crackdowns on leftists, whom Trump routinely portrays as domestic terrorists.
Who needs a Reichstag fire when you can just pretend Portland's burning?
Donald Trump's demonization of Portand and other cities led by Democrats has a precedent in the playbook of despotism.
forward.com
