Democrat Violence Takes a Life in Portland
Democrat Violence Takes a Life in Portland
Democrats endorsed and funded the riots, now they pretend to condemn them.
By Daniel Greenfield
Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is an investigative journalist and writer focusing on the radical Left and Islamic terrorism.
Mayor Ted Wheeler recently told Oregon Public Radio that his only strategy for dealing with the violence in Portland is to let it “burn itself out.”
The admission came after he falsely claimed that Federal law enforcement’s presence was “leading to more violence” only to see the leftist violence continue to grow after the pullout deal.
On August 28, Mayor Wheeler tweeted a letter that he wrote to President Trump turning down his offer of federal law enforcement aid while insisting that, “There is no place for looting, arson, or vandalism in our city.”
That was and is an obvious lie.
Several days earlier, Wheeler had let slip his now infamous “burn itself out” line while suggesting that the so-called ‘non-violent’ protests “won’t end for quite some time.”
After a pro-Trump activist was shot by one of the leftist rioters whom Mayor Wheeler had enabled, the Democrat boss began his comments on the shooting by denouncing President Trump and his supporters who had traveled in a caravan flying Trump 2020 flags.
“It’s you who have created the hate and the division,” Mayor Wheeler ranted. “And now you want me to stop the violence you helped create. What America needs is for you to be stopped.”
The mask had come off. Not that the Democrats had ever worn it too tightly on their faces.
On Wheeler’s watch, there had been 93 straight days of riots and mob scenes in Portland. The former City of Roses has become the scene of constant violence, directly related and unrelated to the riots. Almost every month in Portland this year has seen more shootings than in 2019. By July, the shootings had doubled and reached its highest number of murders in three decades.
When pro-Trump and leftist thugs clashed in the streets, Portland cops often just stood by.
On August 29, a day after Wheeler’s letter rejecting Federal law enforcement, a caravan of Trump supporters gathered in Clackamas County. A few days earlier, Clackamas had been the scene of a violent attack on a volunteer collecting signatures to recall the Democrat governor.
The attacker had declared that he wanted President Trump removed from office, and left his victim with a broken rib and a broken nose.
The rally of as many as 1,000 Trump supporters went forward in Clackamas with no major incidents, before hundreds of cars flying Trump and Blue Lives Matter banners headed to downtown Portland.
Leftist thugs had gathered to intercept the caravan at key points in its route leading to a series of escalating confrontations, but none of them significantly stopped or slowed the caravan.
As the caravan drew closer to the Multnomah County Justice Center in Portland, which has been the scene of repeated riots, arson, and violent attacks, the Trump 2020 caravan was blocked by Black Lives Matter and Antifa who hurled objects at the vehicles and tried to physically prevent the trucks from moving forward. The caravan had reached one of Portland’s no-go zones only blocks away from where a Black Lives Matter rally was getting underway.
Just as in the previous 90 plus days, Mayor Wheeler and the Democrats had allowed leftist mobs to rule the streets. And this time their complicity didn’t just lead to violence, but murder.
A member of the pro-Trump convoy associated with Patriot Prayer, who has been named by some sources, including Andy Ngo of the Post Millennial, as Aaron Danielson, was shot and killed. Ngo reported hearing, “We got a Trumper right here” before the shots were fired.
Early confused reports led the mob at the Justice Center to assume that one of their own had been killed, but the initial outrage gave way to celebrations once it realized who had been shot.
“The energy here is joyous now. Dancing, chanting, an American flag burns,” a leftist videographer with the Black Lives Matter mob tweeted.
The mob of rioters was reportedly so jubilant that it decided to forego the actual rioting.
Multnomah County Chair Deborah Kafoury responded to the shooting by claiming that it had been “stoked by a president who has gone out of his way to demonize this city and encourage vigilantism” and falsely claimed that the pro-Trump caravan had “terrorized downtown Portland”.
Instead of condemning the murder, the Democrat complained that the “tragedy” would “be used to paint an entire movement with a broad and misleading brush.”
Kafoury, like Wheeler, and Governor Kate Brown, dedicated their statement about the shooting to blaming President Trump for the violence being carried out by their own political base.
And it wasn’t just Portland.
On Sunday, a pro-Trump caravan was crusing down Ventura Boulevard in Los Angeles, when it came under fire from an apartment building. After some men in the building began throwing beer bottles at the caravan, a woman who was not with the caravan, but was driving past it, heard a gunshot and noticed that her tire had gone flat. While the caravan continued onward, most of its members unaware that anything had happened, a SWAT team converged on the building in Woodland Hills where one of the men had allegedly been spotted with a gun.
Like Wheeler and Brown, local and national Democrats have tried to blame President Trump.
“What does President Trump think will happen when he continues to insist on fanning the flames of hate and division in our society,” Joe Biden clamored in a statement billed as condemning the violence.
Biden’s own campaign had funded bail for rioters. It’s a little too late for the Democrat nominee to disavow the violence he funded and try to blame the whole thing on President Trump.
The coordinated messaging by local and national Democrats shows that they’re responding to negative polls by trying to shift the blame for the violence of their own radicals to President Trump, rather than actually condemning and trying to stop the violence of their supporters.
Like Mayor Wheeler, Democrats had months in which they could have disavowed and forcefully ended the violence. They refused to do it until the polls turned against the riots.
And then the Democrats began to sense that the violence might cost them the election.
The Democrats backed the riots when the polls were going their way. And now, even as they issue hollow condemnations of the violence, they offer no meaningful measures to end it. Instead, like Wheeler, their statements all suggest that it will end once they win the election.
That’s not a condemnation of the violence. It’s a carrot and stick approach to beating Trump.
“It should be clear to everyone by now that no one is truly safe with Donald Trump as President,” Governor Kate Brown said in her statement.
“All of us are less safe because Donald Trump can’t do the job of the American president,” Biden said in his statement.
These are not condemnations of violence, but carefully coordinated talking points, tested in focus groups, whose real message is that the violence is President Trump’s fault and that it won’t stop until the Democrats take over the country.
It’s not just about Black Lives Matter or Antifa.
Democrats touched off the violence, endorsed it, and are still exploiting it to take over America.