Portland Is Complicated And May Help Donald Trump Get Re-elected

COMMENTARY

People woke up in Portland on Saturday morning and once again discovered that the city had not burned down. It wasn't even on fire.

It's not to say that things are perfect. Far from.

Two recent killings speak to that. Aaron Danielson, a member of the far-right group, Patriot Prayer, was shot and killed last Saturday as his group paraded through the streets of Portland in cars, some firing paint guns at counterprotesters, some dousing them with bear spray, others using their vehicles to push them out of the way.

The second killing was of one of those counterprotesters, Michael Reinoehl, who was affiliated with antifa, not so much an organized group on the far left as it as a movement whose members are often involved in violent protests. He was shot and killed Thursday by law enforcement in Lacey, Washington, hours after telling a reporter for Vice News that he'd been the man who'd killed Danielson.

"I had no choice," Reinoehl told Vice, saying that he had acted in self-defense. On Friday, officials released information that raises questions about that, noting that on video, it appears that Reinoehl could be seen jumping out from an alcove and following Danielson. They did point out that both men had been armed with guns.

The two killings are the latest acts in a tragic drama that has been playing out for years, picking up dramatically since the death of George Floyd in May. While much of it has played out on the streets of Portland — and other cities, of course — it has also been playing out in the speeches of politicians and across the media.

One problem is that what's being shown, what's being described, and what's actually happening are not the same. Another is that what's actually happening is far more complicated than one side versus the other.

Portland, despite its progressive image, has a decades-long history of racism that has manifested several ways including through gentrification. Those tensions have been exacerbated in recent years by a string of fatal shootings by police that didn't always appear justified.

While grand juries have almost always found in favor of the officers, there has been a growing sense that things didn't have to end the way that they did.

The Portland Police Bureau knows it has an image problem and has had one for years. It has made some visible concrete changes in an effort to change that. The city's current chief of police is a Black veteran of the bureau. It has shifted resources in ways that it hopes makes officers more a part of the communities they protect.

But every time that a Black man dies at the hands of police in the United States, it reminds people in Portland of the city's history. It wasn't even 100 years ago that the Klan had enough support here that the mayor and police chief were photographed with members in their robes.

Things like that don't just fade from memory.

The round of protests that started with the death of George Floyd was mostly peaceful, with thousands of people coming out in the name of racial justice, social justice. Justice. There were mothers linking arms, veterans coming out to lend their voices. The marches, the gatherings, would last for hours without incident.

The problem is that as the evenings wore on, the peaceful protesters would be replaced by a couple of hundred people, many of whom were there to cause trouble. They seemed to think that violence was the answer, even though chances are that they had no idea what the questions were.

They come across as tethered more to being against everything rather than being for anything, who cause problems by throwing rocks and other objects at police. Meanwhile, their counterparts on the far right have also spent time establishing themselves more by what they are against — civil rights, equal justice — than whatever exactly it is that they believe in.

For several years now — long before George Floyd — the two groups have occasionally clashed on weekends in downtown Portland, guaranteeing ongoing moments of tension and hostility.

Adding federal officers without de-escalation training into the mix just made things worse. Those officers and those who sent them were not reacting to what was actually happening on the streets. They were reacting to stereotypes, to images of what they think Portland is, to how they thought that Portland could be portrayed.

And that's how Portland could help President Donald Trump get re-elected.

In a different context, years ago when he was a television producer, Trump said to me, "reality is what I say it is."

While the comment was about "The Apprentice," the same seems to be true here. The situation in Portland isn't what matters as much as how he can portray it.

Meanwhile, every time a member of one of these small-but-violent groups throws rocks at cops, shines lasers in their eyes, sets fires, and vandalizes a building, all they are doing is helping Trump's campaign cut new ads to incite his base.

The administration comes across as less concerned about Portland the reality than Portland the talking point. And that talking point is, basically, "Portland bad." They can't even get their specifics straight. One day they are talking about 140 officers being injured, the next day, it's 350. Yes, one officer injured is too many, just as one citizen being injured is.

When people say that Black lives matter, they don't mean only, they mean also. When the administration talks about injuries, they only talk about injuries to officers as if that's all that matters. There's not a lot of discussion from them about people such as Navy veteran Christopher David, who can be seen being beaten by federal officers, his arms at his side, offering no resistance.

There's certainly no acknowledgement that while there are many good police officers, distrust of the police as an institution comes from decades of incidents. I've never been stopped because of the color of my skin, but I know people who have. I know that they also know people who have. I understand why they are skeptical, cautious, afraid.

There are real problems in Portland, none of which can be solved with stereotypes, armed conflict or pronouncements detached from facts, and vitriol. There are people with different beliefs and violent action complicating efforts to solve these very real problems. They are the minority in Portland but have hijacked the image of the city.

The result has been that well-meaning efforts by Portland to shift certain responsibilities from the Police Bureau to other agencies have been described as an effort to "defund the police."

Officers on the street should not have to be social workers and drug counselors. They cannot be everything to everyone. Using that money for agencies and professionals better suited for certain tasks allows officers to focus on policing.

As Portland prepares for a 100th night of protests, the city is not burning. The city is not a war zone. It is a city with a complicated past that has allowed itself to be turned into a poster child for chaos.