OregonLive reports, "Bloody clashes in downtown Portland put police, mayor on defensive."
The NY Times opines, "The Trump Fallacy: Despite what some of the president’s supporters think, you cannot celebrate his policies and ignore his poor behavior."
Greg Weiner at the NY Times dutifully lines up his straw men:
"In the version of the fallacy his defenders espouse, Mr. Trump violates customary standards of presidential behavior and then delivers desired policies, so the assumption is that the violations produced the policies.
No one believes this more vehemently than Mr. Trump himself, a man who crows before the stock market rises and believes he caused it to occur. The challenge in his case is that the boorishness that supposedly yields conservative outcomes is so unrelenting it is impossible to correlate with anything and plausible to associate with everything."
Possessed of his box matches, Weiner then lights them on fire:
"Edmund Burke would recognize the error Mr. Trump’s base makes. He noted similarly flawed logic in the French Revolution. By destroying all political institutions, Burke wrote, the French revolutionaries had doubtless done away with some bad ones. By starting everything anew, they had inevitably done some good. But to credit their successes or excuse their crimes, it was necessary to show “that the same things could not have been accomplished without producing such a revolution.”"
Odd, that Weiner should quote Burke's 'Reflections on the Revolution in France' in the aftermath of the bloody, violent street brawls perpetrated by AntiFa in Portland over the weekend.
In 1790, Burke had this to say of revolution, "...On the scheme of this barbarous philosophy, which is the offspring of cold hearts and muddy understandings... laws are to be supported only by their terrors... In the groves of their academy, at the end of every vista, you see nothing but the gallows."
It was in fact the guillotine at the end of every vista, not the gallows, but you get the point. I've yet to see guillotines erected by Trump upon the National Mall to stain the water red in the reflection pool, or arranged down Pennsylvania Avenue as a bloody procession leading from the Hill. Nor do I find any evidence of Trump 'destroying all political institutions.' I reject the malevolent vision of Greg Weiner at the NY Times, and declare he is not who we are as Americans.
I also reject the violent masked Marxists of AntiFa in Portland who roam the streets with near impunity - as if aided by those at City Hall - to terrorize and attack anyone deemed 'the other.' This is not who we are as Americans.
Maxine Bernstein at OregonLive explains, "The city core filled with hundreds of protesters of all stripes Saturday as Proud Boys followers, a #HimToo movement organizer and black-clad supporters of Rose City Antifa, many hiding their faces with dark motorcycle helmets or bandanas, converged. It’s clear the city and police are still struggling with how to prevent demonstrations from dissolving into bloody bedlam.
This time, police eventually declared “civil disorder” as at least three people were assaulted -- two in bloody brawls videotaped by observers and widely shared on social media. A third person, conservative writer Andy Ngo, was kicked, punched and deluged with milkshakes, in another video that went viral.
On Monday, critics blamed police for not acting more quickly to break up the attacks. In a turning of the tables, the complaints came mostly from right-wing demonstrators. In the past, police have come under fire from left-wing demonstrators for not protecting them. Police arrested three people in the weekend fights."
According to Portland Police, a total of 8 people were injured, including three police officers, during violent demonstrations on Saturday. So, what does the most damage to a cityscape or national character? Never-Trump nonsense, or violent masked Marxists? What Constitutional Rights has Trump repealed? Which liberties have been terminated by Trump's tweets? AntiFa is the brutal manifestation of Stalinist dystopian terror, not Trump.
If a rude, crude, foul-mouthed Trump nets this nation historic economic growth, soaring GDP, record job growth, lowest unemployment in 50 years, rise in median income, 4.6 million Americans off food stamps, real tax cuts, real bonuses, roll-back repressive regulations, record high crude oil production and exports, net natural gas exporter for the first time in 60 years, withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement, ended war on coal, expanded association health plans, ended Obamacare’s individual mandate penalty, reinstated and expanded the Mexico City Policy, Rebuild America's military, ISIS in Iraq CRUSHED, U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, etc., I'll take all that winning, - cringe-worthy tweets included - and declare Trump 'the worst Robespierre, EVER.'
This is not the French Revolution; not even close. It is a re-alignment of the American Revolution - and the Left will howl every inch of the way - as they prove Kaiser's Maxim true at every turn.