Trump is right to clamp down on Portland’s Jacobins

President Donald Trump ordered the National Guard to “war ravaged Portland” last week in a move that has been a long time in coming.

Federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities have been besieged for months in the Oregon city with little indication that local authorities will do anything to get control of the situation.

In early September, after a serious anti-ICE riot in which protesters violently clashed with police, Portland Mayor Keith Wilson said that he would do nothing to help the federal government enforce the law and would protect the city’s “sanctuary” status for illegal aliens.

“We will not engage with the federal immigration enforcement that goes on,” Wilson said, according to KOIN 6 News. “That is our sanctuary city goals; that is what the governor’s goals are. So you can rest assured we won’t be engaging with or working with ICE in any circumstances.”

That came after Portland’s city council plotted earlier in the year not to stop the violence but to eject ICE from the city.

It couldn’t be clearer that Portland’s leaders have little interest in getting the rioters under control outside of pressure from the Trump administration.

Now, Oregon Democrats and their legacy media defenders are doing their best to spin a tale that Portland has no problems at all, and this is just the Trump administration being real mean.

Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden, a Democrat, posted a video on X supposedly showing that all is well around Portland’s ICE facilities in the middle of the day when the sun is shining.

This is a part of the genre of crime deniers who think that a single snapshot of the city at an ideal time is indicative of how things are going in general. I’m pretty sure you could find a nice spot of countryside along the Eastern Front in World War II during the spring and have said, “Look, all is well! What war?”

As many noted in response, the problems at ICE facilities typically occur at night when the protesters gather to cause chaos.

Here’s a different view of the same place at a different time.

An even more laughable comment was made by New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, who said that Portland couldn’t possibly be bad because it has such good wine.

Yes, really.

“’Hell’ does not serve Pinot Noir this good,” he wrote.

I’d say the French Revolution was a largely hellish experience, and I’m sure France is good at making Pinot Noir.

Outside of the outright denials, some Oregon Democrats are simply trying to pin the blame for Portland’s problems on the Trump administration’s presence.

An open letter to Trump by Oregon state Democrats and other local leaders insisted that Trump’s deployment was “perpetuating outdated narratives” about Portland being out of control.

They wrote that the incredible crime surge in the city and the complete mayhem in the summer of 2020 was Trump’s fault rather than the fault of left-wing activists and irresponsible city leaders. Americans are supposed to believe that all is well in Portland, and if it isn’t, it surely must be the president’s doing.

But it’s the Democrat narratives that are completely bunk. The primary issue right now for Portland is not just an intractable problem with basic street crime, though that was a big one after the George Floyd riots when the city defunded the police.

No, the problem is that Portland is returning to violence and chaos because organized agitators in their city — like Antifa and other similar groups — want to stop federal immigration enforcement. They are throwing a continual violent tantrum because they aren’t getting their way.

Not only are the ICE facilities besieged on a regular basis, but many residents are fed up with having their lives disrupted while local officials do nothing.

Since Portland is clearly not willing to do its job to protect the lives of federal employees in the city, the Trump administration has a duty to step in and put the kibosh on Portland’s Jacobins.

Originally published at The Daily Signal.