The “truth checkers” who decide aside Donald Trump every day took exception to this latest presidential overstatement: “Portland is burning to the bottom, it’s insurrectionists everywhere.” PolitiFact instructed that there’s just a few arson convictions, however all of the protests are “largely confined to a two-block space” exterior the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility.
These two blocks might be brutal. The Washington Put up wrote a front-page story on October 13 lamenting the “right-wing influencers” across the protests, and actuality bubbled up: “However at night time, the scene typically turns violent, with leftist demonstrators exchanging blows with counterprotesters, at instances shoving or spitting on federal legislation enforcement officers, lobbing fireworks and attacking conservative influencers and journalists.” That’s proper. Conservative journalists get assaulted. Nick Sortor was even arrested after being assaulted.
Put up reporters Robert Klemko and Joshua Partlow admitted the Portland police “have largely held again, stepping in sporadically to make focused arrests reasonably than clearing the block, to the frustration of federal authorities.” Aaron Schmautz, head of the native police union, was quoted: “When you have got metropolis officers encouraging individuals to interrupt the legislation…the politics betray the end result.”
Distinction these info with the propagandistic protection of the October 13 New York Occasions. On the entrance web page got here this saccharine blurb: “The Sass Menagerie: To distinction the president’s darkish discuss Portland, Ore., protesters are sporting colourful animal fits.”
Contained in the paper, beneath colourful photos of cutesy anti-fascists, the headline was “In Inflatable Animal Costumes, Protesters Are Maintaining Portland Bizarre.” On-line, the headline was additionally playful: “Amongst Portland Protests, It’s Frogs and Sharks and Bears, Oh My!”
The primary paragraph from Occasions reporters/publicists Anna Griffin and Aaron West: “Animal costumes are the brand new black.” For Antifa. Get it? Below video of protesters blowing bubbles, the Occasions gushed: “In Portland 2025, whimsy and merriment have changed the masked anarchist look of 2020.”
Whereas Staff Trump describes the protesters “as merciless, violent extremists bent on overthrowing the federal government,” they’re apparently dropping the PR battle. “The scenes of colourful, oversize animals dancing to pop music beneath the strict gaze of federal brokers in riot gear has altered the nationwide dialog concerning the protests.”
That was the one use on this story of the phrase “extremist.” As common, the ideological labels are lacking – no makes use of of “leftist,” “socialist,” “progressive,” and even “liberal.” The protesters weren’t anti-anything. The one “anti” got here in a point out of the liberal Anti-Defamation League. The one use of “antifa” got here in quotes, as in a White Home “spherical desk on ‘antifa’ Wednesday.”
There have been no Republican sources or “right-wing-influencers” or police union leaders quoted. The one sources promoted by Griffin and West have been 4 leftists sporting inflatable costumes — or in a single case, a “hen onesie” — and a leftist journalism professor. Whitney Phillips is the creator of the colorfully titled new e book The Shadow Gospel: How Anti-Liberal Demonology Possessed US Faith, Media, and Politics. One blurb gushes it’s “Important studying for understanding the systematic demonization of liberalism prevalent at present.”
Anna Griffin made a Occasions video just lately claiming the protests have been “very peaceable.” It was headlined “How Portland Is Reacting to Trump’s Nationwide Guard Risk.” That’s what the “left-wing influencers” of our media are presenting. Their favourite protesters aren’t a “risk,” whilst they try to dam law-enforcement operations. Their aspect is sporting lovable, inflatable costumes.
Newspapers like The Occasions love to evangelise about crumbling “democratic norms,” however when Trump is elected president, makes an attempt to revive legislation and order throughout violent protests are the “risk.” Deportations are the “risk.” All the pieces sounds upside-down and backwards after they write the “information.”
