Inanity Abounds on Both Sides in the ‘Law and Order’ Road Show
Trump thinks he benefits from the protests, and demonstrators are giving him exactly what he wants.

As the Trump administration takes its “law and order” show on the road after a dress rehearsal at Lafayette Square in Washington, D.C., and a soft opening in Portland, Oregon, let me just say I’m disgusted with almost everybody involved.
Let’s start with the Portland demonstrators. Contrary to heroic PR efforts from many in the mainstream media, these aren’t great people. Oh sure, I have no doubt some, even many, are decent enough on a personal level. But even decent people become ugly when they lend their bodies and voices to mobs and riots. Even if they just watch, they’re encouraging rioting and violence.
Then there’s the mainstream and left-wing media. When right-wing protesters—foolishly in my opinion, but also peacefully—gathered to denounce lockdown orders during the early days of the pandemic, virtually everybody to the left of Fox News insisted it was dangerous, fascistic and scary (which, by the way, is how the media mostly covered Tea Party rallies a decade ago).
But whether it was peaceful protests in the wake of George Floyd’s killing or even rioting and arson, the non-right media covered it all in a spirit of near celebration, with the occasional tsk-tsking for some excesses.
Now let us turn our gaze rightward. To listen to many on the right, in and out of the administration, the goons in Portland are domestic terrorists on par with al-Qaeda or ISIS. Indeed, President Trump said in June he would designate “Antifa”—a loose affiliation of radicals, jackasses, and radical jackasses—a terrorist organization. Characteristically, he hasn’t followed through on that threat (though that hasn’t stopped Antifa sympathizers from pretending he did so they can spin conspiracy theories about how the administration is denying Antifa members due process).
The goal is to create a domestic enemy that only Trump can save us from. It’s part of the administration’s larger effort to re-create the moral panic he fomented in 2016 with his “American carnage” rhetoric, and failed to foment with the immigrant caravan in 2018. Many on the right are only too happy to help with the messaging.
That’s the basic context for Trump’s decision to send federal agents into Portland and now other cities. This has elevated the ridiculousness on both sides by an order of magnitude. Those on the left insist it’s illegal and unconstitutional. It’s neither. Democrats and media commentators glibly talk about how this use of a “gestapo” makes us a “police state” no different from China. That’s absurd, not least because the law is on the administration’s side (so far), but also because China’s police state is competent. If the Trump administration wanted to act like China, it would round up (or kill) all of the protesters, violent and peaceful alike.
I have no principled objection to federal agents protecting federal property from rioters and arsonists. What bothers me is that the administration’s tactics and motives are all about manufacturing a political narrative that helps Trump’s campaign, elevates the status of the rioters and arsonists, and gives critics license to prattle on about dictatorship.
Trump long ago proved he doesn’t really want to be a dictator. (That requires too much work.) He wants to be a TV star. What’s outrageous isn’t that Trump is using federal agents on American soil, or even that he’s doing it without an invitation from local politicians. What’s outrageous is why he’s doing it.
When China crushes protests, it crushes them because that’s the goal. Trump has the opposite goal. He wants more protests, more riots, because his campaign thinks it needs to make facts on the ground fit its “law and order” sloganeering and exaggerations.
The idiot mobs of Portland are only too happy to give Trump what he wants, which is why they started focusing their wrath on federal buildings in the first place. Indeed, all the stakeholders (save for the majority of Americans) get what they want. The “resistance”-drunk left-wing media is gleeful to further heighten tensions by downplaying the dark side of the protests to fit their preferred narrative about Trump being an authoritarian. The Trump-besotted right-wing media gets to highlight the mainstream media’s cleanup operation to show how the “fake news” is just out to get Trump.
It’s a collective action problem, a tragedy of the political commons, in which all actors get to harvest the facts that help their cause, leaving the rest of us wondering how things got so stupid.
Photograph by Paula Bronstein/Washington Post/Getty Images.
Get a grip, Johah.
I live in Portland, and you may as well live in outer space -- or at least a bubble, where media narratives construct far too much of the reality you perceive. Maybe we are all succumbing to our worst impulses, being locked up for the past few months, learning that we will probably be locked up for a few more.
The angle of your article is political, concerning the presidential race, so I won't bother setting the record straight on the unrest here in Portland, however crookedly you've portrayed it, along with the Portlanders I've stood with.
But I also think your political analysis is way off.
On 'Operation Legend', Trump's proverbial goose has not even begun to cook. He's already disgraced himself, with his handling of COVID. It wasn't only his flatfooted, dishonest, incompetent response, but also his remarkably stupid push towards a rushed reopening, causing the nation to pay at least twice the price, in lives and money, than it might have, under a more responsible president.
I don't give one rat's rear-end, about the legalities of this stunt -- and only the president's remaining defenders do. Law enforcement, in any community, is the product of a bond between local government, and those who elect them. When the feds are not welcome by local authorities; indeed when their presence is recognized as a hostile, and sadistic takeover, by a disgraced president, who doesn't give a fig about their well-being, don't tell anyone to shut up and read the fine-print. These goons deserved every rock, and every brick that was thrown at them.
It is not the cold legality, of this cynical, destructive gambit, that will concern the American public. As the feds plant themselves, in more cities, where they're not wanted, trying to stir up unrest; to dominate, or 'own the libs', the anger, towards Trump, will only grow. He will have committed the absolute worst offense, to democratic norms, of his entire presidency. The media narrative will rightly capture this, and it should. Unless you're watching FOX, of course.
American voters will see through this stunt, and it's likely that Trump will realize it's going badly for him, meaning he'll retreat in failure, but declare SUCCESS!!, which is his well-established pattern.
Most Americans thought the Ukraine stunt (remember that?) was awful, even if only a narrow majority favored impeachment and removal. What he's doing now is far worse, because it's on U.S. soil, and it is a flagrant offense that the average American will be able to sense. "Can he really get away with this?" is a question that will enter every voter's mind. "Yes." is not going to be a comforting, or sufficient answer, especially when the president is a disgraced, serial liar.
Jonah, I joined the Dispatch because I'm normally in awe of your work, and that's no exaggeration. I'm not sure what's going on, but this piece is remarkably dumb.
This is a good take, but I think it gives short shrift to the problems with *how* this is being executed. If what we're seeing were only lines of federal police in riot gear creating a barrier around federal buildings, that would be one thing. But we're also seeing anonymous armed camo-clad people (who look nearly indistinguishable from right wing militia members to me) rounding up people on random streets that don't appear to be near any federal buildings and stuffing them in unmarked vehicles to take them who knows where. Maybe this is legal and constitutional, as you say, but you have some work left to do to convince me that it should be.