by liberal japonicus
An open thread to allow you to talk about the current political mess(es). CNN posted this article “Kamala Harris has a five-word response to the Comey indictment“, but I’ll be damned if I can find the 5 words, though I suppose it is possible that it is the phrase that begins “are you…” I was kinda wishing she had said “I f**kin’ told you so”.
Libertarians can become outrage exhausted since they can be continuously outraged regardless of who’s running the government.
And yet, with the exception of Radley Balko, the exhaustion always seems to kick in just before they raise their voices against (R) excesses.
On one hand, some activists yelling at ICE all night long with a bullhorn. Yes, that’s a PITA.
On the other hand, federal agents invading an apartment complex, breaking into any apartment they can force their way into without AFAICT presenting warrants of any kind, rousting people out into the street in the middle of the night and making them wait zip-tied in their pajamas (if that) for hours while they “look up their records”, tossing the contents of people’s apartments into the halls, leaving doors broken open, and throwing many folks into vans to be whisked away… somewhere.
Same / same.
Antifa isn’t gonna do anything to you if you’re not a declared fascist, white supremacist, Nazi, or similar, or possibly open and vocal supporter of same.
The feds are gonna come after you if you’re brown.
I’ve been listening to libertarians and right wing folks talking for decades – literally, for decades – about how they’re gonna rise up against government overreach and abuse of power.
When it actually arrives, nothing. Silence. Or open acquiescence.
So I don’t believe you. Any of you.
Over and out.
The federal government has the right to protect the ICE facility.
Wow, the facility really needs it too – that broken door in June is crying out for federal protection. Or, what russell said. Honestly Charles, when you you look at the big picture and make these kinds of arguments, I seriously question what you actually believe and value, if anything.
I’ve been listening to libertarians and right wing folks talking for decades – literally, for decades – about how they’re gonna rise up against government overreach and abuse of power.
When it actually arrives, nothing. Silence. Or open acquiescence.
This. Shame on them.
Have they forgotten what happens when fascists rule? How can anti-fascists be the people they fear?
I am anti-fascist.
How many arguments with the theme of “anti-racists are the real racists” have you read over the years? Perhaps the same goes for anti-fascists, says NOT me.
Wow, the facility really needs it too – that broken door in June is crying out for federal protection.
I suppose then that cladding the facility with plywood is just a design preference. The local authorities seem unwilling or unable to enforce the law, ordinances, and protect the facility. When vehicles need to enter or exit the facility and there are protestors, ICE personnel have to suit up and physically push the protestors back to make a path.
Honestly Charles, when you you look at the big picture and make these kinds of arguments, …
The big picture is that, at best, Trump and his cronies are a bunch of idiots. Not so different from previous administrations, just more in your face with it. Though I’d admit, Trump is proving to be uniquely bad.
On one hand, some activists yelling at ICE all night long with a bullhorn. Yes, that’s a PITA.
When you, unlike the narcissistic brats protesting, have a job and responsibilities, it’s more than just a PITA.
Antifa isn’t gonna do anything to you if you’re not a declared fascist, white supremacist, Nazi, or similar, or possibly open and vocal supporter of same.
Some journalists who have been beaten to the point of brain injury may wish to quibble.
The big picture is that, at best, Trump and his cronies are a bunch of idiots.
In December, you could have made that argument. Plausibly, if not particularly persuasively. Today? Not so much.
At this point, it’s pretty clear that they are not merely a bunch of idiots. At minimum they are a bunch of armed and dangerous psychopaths and sociopaths. Many of them are also idiots. But that is rather beside the point.
I suppose then that cladding the facility with plywood is just a design preference.
Something that happens to any office or sales premises from time to time which has been burgled. Doesn’t seem to call for federal troops.
When vehicles need to enter or exit the facility and there are protestors, ICE personnel have to suit up and physically push the protestors back to make a path.
Given what ICE personnel are perpetrating around the nation, including on US citizens, this seems to be the least they can expect and will, probably, get worse in various places. Time for the government to go to war with the people, is it?
Some journalists who have been beaten to the point of brain injury may wish to quibble.
I believe that injuries by ICE are not unknown either, as well as deaths in ICE custody.
The big picture is that, at best, Trump and his cronies are a bunch of idiots. Not so different from previous administrations, just more in your face with it. Though I’d admit, Trump is proving to be uniquely bad.
If this is actually how you see the big picture, it’s really hard to know what the point is in discussing this with you.
CharlesWT – Some journalists who have been beaten to the point of brain injury may wish to quibble.
I assume that this is about Andy Ngo. Important to note that Ngo does not usually wear anything identifying himself as a member of the press, and often follows groups like Patriot Prayer to film confrontations with antifa groups. He also is known for doxxing antifa protesters on his own channel, and selectively editing them.
His lack of any press identification while traveling with Patriot Prayer is going to get him in the middle of things and mistaken for being a member of that group while they are engaging in their own violent provocation. They may not be “attacking a journalist” so much as they are just trying to hold their own in a clash between violent groups, and they have no indication that Ngo is not a member of Patriot Prayer or associated with them.
But also, more than a few of the antifa people may know who Ngo was, and were going after him because of his having doxxed them or one of their friends. Ngo has given Portland antifa plenty of reasons to hate him personally. He could have been targeted for a beat down, but “journalist” is far too innocent and anodyne a description of his role in context. No one is attacking him for being there and trying to document things while staying out of the confrontation. He’s an active participant on one side using his ambiguous position as a journalist to cast himself in a more innocent light.
I’m not defending antifa here. I’m sure that more than a few among them were engaged in felony violence. I’m also sure that many among them were also victims of felony violence and that some of that felony violence was committed by the people who were personal associates of Ngo.
I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve heard or read an alt-right associate say “play stupid games, win stupid prizes” to footage of college students being beaten by police, or by a right-wing activist during an escalation. Ngo is an avid player of stupid games. He’s made his name as such, and has hundreds of thousands of subscribers, not all of whom are Russian bots.
A bit about antifa violence and videos, including some of Ngo’s work – from Bellingcat:
https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2020/11/18/million-maga-march-unravelling-a-violent-viral-video/
I have a hard time watching any Ngo video and video of neutrally positioned (and clearly identified) journalists being targeted and fired upon with pepper balls and rubber rounds by riot police, and feeling like that’s a legitimate comparison for both-siderism.
Antifa is a big threat to the US Constitution and the American people’s civil liberties, unlike the powerless federal government.
I wonder if anyone will miss the sarcasm in that.
A profile of Andy Ngo
Andy Ngo: Polarizing Journalist, Ideological Divide
Not so different from previous administrations
With all due respect, this is utter nonsense. Full stop.
A profile of Andy Ngo
Andy Ngo waded into a riot and got beaten up. I’m not justifying the violence, I’m just pointing out the obvious.
Like Marty during the first He, Trump regime, CharlesWT now freely denounces He, Trump while supporting His anti-anti-fascist actions. The Libertarian(TM) attitude is getting awfully close to the MAGAt position on free speech: “I will defend to the death your right to agree with me.”
Speaking of defending rights, russell pointed out upthread that those who insist they need guns to defend against government tyranny never seem to get around to defending other people’s rights with them.
I ask CharlesWT in all seriousness: what does he want National Guard or even Regular Army troops to actually do in “war-ravaged” American cities?
–TP
Afterword to my earlier comment about “play stupid games, win stupid prizes…”
I’d prefer that the prizes that people won for playing stupid games were the most gentle possible version of the prize that would actually relieve them of the urge to play stupid games and steer them into playing smart games that have prizes we all get to share to our mutual benefit.
“I told you so”. LOL. Been sayin’ that since 1967.
https://paulwaldman.substack.com/p/we-were-right
Charles, did you actually read russell’s link at 7.35? Is that necessary, or OK with you?
Charles, did you actually read russell’s link at 7.35? Is that necessary, or OK with you?
I agree with most of the criticisms of Trump. I don’t feel compelled to reiterate them.
The government has more important things it could be doing than chasing down illegal immigrants who haven’t broken the law, have jobs, and families. The ones who have been here for some number of years and stayed out of trouble should be given a path to becoming legal. More legal immigration should be allowed, and the bureaucratic nightmare of doing so should be fixed.
To be perfectly honest, I am less concerned about violence between folks like the Proud Boys and Patriot Prayer and their ilk, versus “antifa” however that term is construed.
What I am most disturbed by is the violence brought by federal law enforcement, most especially ICE.
You can walk away from a Proud Boy vs. antifa fight. If they really insist on bringing to you, which is only likely to happen in situations you can pretty easily avoid, you can fight back to the best of your ability. Or just run away.
If ICE or the FBI or similar come for you, the options of walking away or fighting back are not really available. They’ll get you jailed or shot.
This is explicit, unlawful, and unaccountable state violence – in some cases extreme – toward harmless people. It is utterly unnecessary for purposes of finding and dealing with people who are here without legal status.
It’s terrorism, by the government, directed toward peaceful residents, both legal and not. It’s not something we have seen here at this level, and as far as I can tell we have no means of curbing it.
It’s out of control.
Exactly what russell said.
And Charles, that was what I was getting at by asking if you had read that link: you were arguing in favour of the need for the feds to fight small numbers of “Antifa” protesters outside an ICE facility, in a state which had rejected their “help”, while ICE and other DOJ forces are going after often harmless, blameless people because they look brown or speak Spanish, irrespective of any grounds for suspicion of illegality.
This is explicit, unlawful, and unaccountable state violence – in some cases extreme – toward harmless people.
***
It’s terrorism, by the government, directed toward peaceful residents, both legal and not. It’s not something we have seen here at this level, and as far as I can tell we have no means of curbing it
That is the point.
I don’t know if it is because I have been digging around the archives, but my sense is that Charles is trying to replicate those glorious conversations of old between liberal and conservative voices. Unfortunately, Charles (and Grok, I assume) are really only a pale imitation of those commenters past. First rule of holes, Charles.
I don’t think the fault lies in CharlesWT so much as in the devolution of what passes for mainstream right wing politics. There’s no way to structure things in a way that looks even and balanced when the right has decided that they don’t need to listen to, work with, or care about anything and anyone on the other side.
An entire genre of blog commentary cannot function anymore, no matter how we try to replicate it.
nous: well, I don’t think we need to have things be (or look) even and balanced to want someone who is arguing in good faith to acknowledge that while approving of some things the government is doing, they also acknowledge that those things may pale into insignificance compared to some of the other things it is doing.
When Charles says “I agree with most of the criticisms of Trump. I don’t feel compelled to reiterate them.”, but still argues in favour of suppression of the ICE protests in Portland, while ignoring for example what is fuelling the anti-ICE movements nationwide, I think that this shows a certain amount of bad faith (whether intentional or not). The context of the anti-ICE protests, including but not limited to the unwillingness of the states to have them operate in these ways, is an important element, surely? It is still possible to have conservative (and I am supposing libertarian) voices discuss how they do not disagree with everything the government is doing, but still despise and condemn others of their actions. You see it with people like David Frum, and the Lincoln Project people, for example. I do not think we should give up on aspiring to have rational, good faith discussions with people of opposing opinions.
I’m not a mind reader and I don’t wish to speak for Charles.
All of that said, his comments here strike me as an attempt to be even-handed. And to the degree that is so, I appreciate it.
The problem, as nous notes, is that the “two sides” aren’t really comparable at this point.
I think a lot of people found the way that the early centrist blogs performed that even-handedness that russell identifies above to be productive and valuable for getting past ideological positions to something more dynamic. It was widespread enough that people learned how to do it as a sort of generic exercise. A lot of bright people have a hard time knowing how to get at that sort of cross-cutting commentary without falling back on the structures they have learned for writing those sorts of commentary.
That’s not always a failure of good faith, sometimes it’s just a struggle with form combined with an impatience with impasse.
But the effect of that, of course, is to create a sort of artificial leveling of the sides through equivocation, which hollows out the resulting conversation. That leads to a different form of impatience and frustration.
There’s something I’m missing here.
There’s no way to structure things in a way that looks even and balanced when the right has decided that they don’t need to listen to, work with, or care about anything and anyone on the other side.
Why do we need to “structure things in a way that looks even and balanced”? Any discussion we have on a blog surely just needs to be argued reasonably civilly, without tricks or ignoring the context – the kinds of things “the right” might argue here will not necessarily change their unwillingness “to listen to, work with or care about anything and anyone on the other side”, but if they’re commenting here there’s presumably some reason for it, and as we have often seen in the past, such discussions can provoke interesting exchanges.
The problem, as nous notes, is that the “two sides” aren’t really comparable at this point.
Alas, this is inarguably so. But surely that is exactly what our discussions highlight? Most of us have already acknowledged that we do not or cannot have these conversations in real life. But isn’t there some benefit to continuing to have them here, even if it is only (and I don’t think it is) as a way to vent some of our feelings? After all, we still talk to Charles, and he still talks to us, even though his opinion of Ubu has (glacially slowly) somewhat changed?
Sorry, cross-posted with nous because of tedious copy-editing! The only thing I need to add, having read his, is that I see no necessity for an “artificial [or even non-artificial] levelling of the sides”. Arguing about something does not preclude one calling it immoral, or dangerous.
Interesting stuff. My own feeling is that a big problem arises when people take positions that they don’t really have a stake in, but use it to fight against the other side. This raises the question of whether an issue is something that a person is really committed to or if it is ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’. So when Charles argues, after a long history of arguing for libertarian principles, how front doors of ICE facilities need National Guard protection, I wonder if he’s for real or just trolling or possibly just doesn’t know the difference.
It is rather illiberal to argue that someone’s opinions doesn’t matter, but I can think of a number of examples on both sides of people seemingly taking on opinions that don’t really have a lot to do with them but arguing for them vehemently. This goes hand in hand with the larger issue of astroturfing and fake identities. It may be a lost cause, especially for larger platforms, but we can try to do a Candide and cultivate our gardens.
Ah, I see from this Ian Leslie piece that Roxane Gay in the NYT(I hadn’t read it) may have been making something like the argument that I was finding hard to get my head round from nous and russell. The piece by Leslie reflects at least some of what I think about it. (I have not ever tried to copy such a long piece on the new site before – let’s see what happens).
Is Civility a Fantasy?
Maybe – But It’s One That Democracy Depends On
Ian Leslie
Oct 04, 2025
∙ Paid
This week: is there any point to civility? (Includes a brief jaunt through its history).
In the aftermath of Charlie Kirk’s assassination, JD Vance hosted an edition of The Charlie Kirk Show. This is what America’s leading statesman do now, at moments of national crisis: rather than deliver a sober address from behind a lectern, they grab a mic and start frothing. In conversation with Stephen Miller, Vance said, “When you see someone celebrating Charlie’s murder, call them out. Hell, call their employer. We don’t believe in political violence, but we do believe in civility, and there is no civility in the celebration of political assassination.”
It was the latest example of Vance’s frictionless hypocrisy. In February, the Wall Street Journal reported that a DOGE staff member had boasted, just last year, about being a racist. Vance defended the aide and attacked “journalists who try to destroy people”. He said, “I obviously disagree with some of Elez’s posts, but I don’t think stupid social media activity should ruin a kid’s life.” So – cancel culture is bad, but if you see someone posting a dumb tweet about Kirk, it’s your patriotic duty to get them fired. This is before we get to the absurdity of claiming to believe in civility while acting as head boy to a president who glories in insulting opponents and using the f-word. You might suspect Vance of self-parody if he weren’t so joyless.
Last week the academic and essayist Roxane Gay denounced Vance’s words in a column for the New York Times. She didn’t just criticise his double standards; she denounced the idea of civility itself, calling it “a fantasy”. Often, people criticise a double standard without saying which of the two standards they prefer, which always strikes me as evasive, so I commend her boldness. But I think Gay comes down on the wrong side here.
Gay declares her argument in this paragraph:
Civility — this idea that there is a perfect, polite way to communicate about sociopolitical differences — is a fantasy. The people who call for civility harbor the belief that we can contend with challenging ideas, and we can be open to changing our minds, and we can be well mannered even in the face of significant differences. For such an atmosphere to exist, we would have to forget everything that makes us who we are. We would have to believe, despite so much evidence to the contrary, that the world is a fair and just place. And we would have to have nothing at stake.
She goes on to argue that demands for civility assume everyone operates from equal footing, ignoring actual inequalities. She says that civility is used to silence dissent and exercise social control. It requires marginalized people to be polite, even as their rights are stripped away.
Let’s start with what I agree with.
I agree with Gay that in what she calls the “beautiful mess” of a modern democracy, political protest can’t be cautious or demure. Even if I think there’s too much anger in politics at the moment, I don’t yearn for a world in which politics is a super-rational Oxford seminar. Politics entails disagreement over things we care about; it’s inevitably emotional and personal. It shouldn’t be a blood sport but it shouldn’t be bloodless. An emotional outburst can sometimes tell us more than a carefully constructed argument. As Ralph Waldo Emerson put it, “Sometimes, a scream is better than a thesis.”
I also agree that the “fantasy” of a perfectly polite political conversation can be used to exclude whole groups of people from the realm of legitimate discourse. In fact, that was one of the original functions of civility. In England, the distinction between civilised and barbarous behaviour emerged around the same time – the early modern period – as Englishmen were asserting the right to invade, dominate and exploit other countries.
Society was also becoming less stratified, which led the upper classes to develop an elaborate and strictly enforced system of social etiquette, partly to keep vulgar tradesmen in their place. They then bequeathed these fine manners to genteel American Southerners, who used them to justify the exclusion of black Americans from the democratic commonweal.
To rebel against an established order has often meant rebelling against its version of civility. When Martin Luther took on the Catholic Church, he adopted the Trump-like tactic of using deliberately rude and offensive language, in order to signal that this wasn’t going to be business, or theology, as usual. He described his opponents as “the scum of all the most evil people on earth” and called Pope Paul III “dearest little ass-pope” and “pope fart-ass”.
But the post-Reformation era also shows us why Gay might be wrong to conclude that civility is unnecessary. Modern ideas of “diversity” and inclusion”, which I’d guess she supports, are rooted in habits of social behaviour which emerged during that time. As the Church splintered, people in Europe and the New World struggled to work out how to live alongside those they regarded as fundamentally alien, and wrong about everything. The rise of commercial society in the eighteenth century made this question more pressing, as did an unwillingness to return to the religious wars of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries.
The profit motive bred respectful interactions across barriers of race and religion. Voltaire said of the London Stock Exchange: “Here Jew, Mohammedan and Christian deal with each other as though they were all of the same faith.” Civility ceased to mean just decorum, which was about maintaining distinctions of rank, and started to mean politeness, which was more democratic. The French novelist Mademoiselle de Scudry described it as “not wanting to be the tyrant of conversation.” As a woman in male society she would have appreciated norms which allowed quieter voices to be heard over louder ones.
Gay argues that civility is inauthentic, a mere “performance”. In almost Lutheran terms, she writes, “Civility obsessives love a silver-tongued devil, wearing a nice suit, sporting a tidy haircut, while whispering sweet bigotries.” It’s a perennial objection. Civility, in its various forms, has always been criticised as dishonest and hypocritical. Why can’t be just be true to who we are, and speak as we feel?
The problem is that if we always do that, we won’t be able to live with each other. Thomas Hobbes lived through England’s civil war, which he viewed as a religious war. and came to believe that a measure of pretence is vital to peaceful society. He found virtue in hypocrisy. Within the skull of each individual may be thoughts filthy, profane or sublime. We can’t necessarily control those, but we can control which thoughts we display to others. Civility helps us to govern this performance in accordance with the public good.
We ought to have learnt by now that too much ‘authenticity’ is harmful. Today’s hottest differences of opinion may not be religious in the traditional sense but they are hardly less fervent. One of the dangers of social media is that it allows us to see other people’s unvarnished inner monologues, which spreads conspiracy, hostility and distrust. (As John Podhoretz asks, how would American society have behaved if social media had existed on September 11, 2001?). Civility might be a fantasy, or at least a social fiction, but it’s one that democracy depends on. That’s why enemies of democracy disdain it.
It’s true that basic courtesies can ramify into a complex code that, like any code, hands an advantage to those who know it. But eighteenth-century English aristocrats are hardly the only culprits here. Modern codes of political correctness, ambiguous and ever-shifting, are used by the educated middle classes to hoard authority. If I can successfully label the words you use as “offensive” then I can stop people listening to you. Of course, some words and some views really are offensive and should be disqualifying. But narrowing the boundaries of civil discourse has long been a means by which the powerful silence undesirables, ever so politely.
The minimal sufficient response to anyone who argues against civility is, “Fuck you”. That would, of course, mean the end of the argument, but that’s the point. You cannot have any argument, you cannot have any politics, without some measure of civility. Nobody truly believes it to be unnecessary, otherwise they wouldn’t bother making an argument against it and certainly not in the august pages of the New York Times.
What we’re really debating is the form it should take. Yes, some forms stifle dissent and punish the weak; that doesn’t make civility itself any less essential. The problem with Vance and Trump is obviously not that they uphold civility too stringently; it’s the opposite. They are making war on civility. It’s odd that one of their passionate opponents should want to join the same side.
I don’t agree with Gay (or at least Gay’s point of view as presented here) and generally do agree with Leslie.
Yes, civility is absolutely “inauthentic”, as Gay states, in the sense she calls out – it absolutely is a performance. As are many of the basic daily protocols we engage in to avoid pissing each other off and generally making each other’s lives unnecessarily difficult.
Don’t cut in line. Let folks get off the bus before you try to get on. Make sure everyone at the table has had at least something to eat before you go for second helpings. Say “please” and “thank you”.
All of these things require us to consider other folks before, or at least in addition to, asserting our own wishes and interests.
And all of these things make it possible for us to co-exist large and complex societies. Or even small and complex societies, where “complex” is just way of saying different people want and value different things.
So there is tremendous value in civility.
The statement I’ve been making about civility in current-day social and political discourse in this country is not that it’s a fantasy or of no value.
My statement is that it’s not *available*. It’s not on offer.
If I decline to engage in discussion about where things are at right now with Trumper friends and family members, it’s not because I have no interest in their perspective or their experience. It’s because my experience has been that the conversation will not be particularly fruitful.
To be perfectly candid, the mindset of most conservatives, and especially of Trump supporters, most reminds me of people I knew (and know) from my days among the Christian fundamentalists. They have a set of beliefs that lets them interpret the world in a way that makes sense of their sense of threat or unease. That provide them with an identity. And to challenge those ideas is to challenge that sense of identity, which changes the conversation from a thoughtful exchange of ideas into something more existential.
It is possible to get through all of that, but it’s a huge amount of work, and there really aren’t any contexts for doing it.
I first started hanging out on political blogs somewhere around 2001 – just after 9/11, when the whole USA Patriot Act debate was going on and Bush II was ginning up support for invading Iraq. I wanted to understand what people were thinking so I went to conservative blogs. I forget all of them, but the place I spent the most time was RedState, back in the early days before they purged anybody who wasn’t on board with the conservative agenda. And I do mean purge, it was explicit and intentional. I used to post there as “amos”.
Before I left I spent probably hundreds of hours having what were, to me, some of the strangest conversations I’ve ever had. The things a lot of folks there believed seemed outlandish to me, almost to the point of parody. But there they were, and for a while at least, they were open to discussing all of it with the likes of me.
That *is no longer available*. I would no longer be welcome there, at all.
I found my way here when there were still a lot of conversative voices here. And over time this place has sorted itself into a by-far-majority liberal to left-ish place.
Which I find congenial, but it doesn’t afford conversation across the “great divide”.
And to be honest, the actions of the current administration pretty much demand that folks pick a side. What is the reasonable conversation to have about the utter denial of due process to people who happen to speak Spanish?
The conversation I would really like to have would begin with “why are you afraid of Hispanic people?”. Or black people, or trans people, or gays. It really seems like folks don’t just disapprove or dislike those folks, but instead feel threatened by them.
“It’s the end of Western civilization!”. Right?
Where the hell does that come from? I’d like to know that. But I don’t see an available path to getting to that conversation.
And so here we are.
Long comment, thanks as always for your indulgence.
One can’t profitably debate anything with Trumpists – they don’t believe in facts, or reason. But one be civil when explaining that.
I welcome CharlesWT’s presence here. It’s helpful to have someone to show us the evidence of unlawful behaviour by protesters in Portland. Before his comments, I had a slight concern that there might be facts I was unaware of which could shift my view: now I am sure there are not. Still, I’d welcome it if he were to acknowledge that what he’s reported is a long, long way away from Trump’s “the radical left’s reign of terror” in a “war-ravaged” city.
The minor property damage and a bit of unwelcome noise that constitutes the alleged “unlawful behavior” on the part of the demonstrators does not come within a billion parsecs of the lawless violence being unleashed by our government upon its own citizens. A dyed in the wool glibertarian should be up in arms about this (ya’ know, small government, FREEDUMB, yadda’ yadda’)….but all we get is the sanewashing of fascism.
Come on folks….perspective, please.
What does Portland think of this?
https://www.npr.org/2025/10/02/nx-s1-5558406/oregon-officials-and-residents-say-portland-isnt-war-ravaged