Trump Has Unleashed Authoritarian Violence In Portland. What City Is Next
07/21/2020 10:08 am ET
The moms shuffled into position on Sunday night, arms linked, backs to the fence in front of Portland’s federal courthouse. The sky had darkened. Behind the fence, anonymous federal agents in fatigues leveled their weapons at the women’s backs. The human shield was in place, a barrier against the secret police. The “Wall of Moms.”
These weren’t looters or rioters or the “anarchists” President Donald Trump says hate our country. They weren’t the “violent extremists” that acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf has vowed to put down, nor the fabled “antifa” bogeymen who keep Tucker Carlson up at night. They were just moms, worrying ― as moms tend to do ― about kids being beaten and shot and black-bagged in unmarked vehicles. Ready to put their bodies on the line to defend the U.S. Constitution. About 100 of them. Some had never been to a protest before. Some were pregnant.
Outside the federal courthouse, which has become a flashpoint for conflict in the city, they were tear-gassed.
Scenes like this have played out repeatedly since Trump urged governors to “dominate” protesters speaking out against racism and police brutality after the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis nearly two months ago. Anti-racist protests have persisted in many U.S. cities and remained largely peaceful, but the administration’s response has been anything but — and nowhere has state violence against civilians been worse than in Portland, a city Trump has promised to “quell.”
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https://www.huffpost.com/entry/tear-gas-kidnappings-trump-authoritarian-violence-portland_n_5f166610c5b615860bb6803d
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