This Machine Kills Fascists

Motorcycles, Molotovs, and rape threats.

Readers, I would need twenty pages to provide an update just on this weekend’s political actions around Portland. In the course of reporting an article for YahooNews, I spent Friday, Saturday, and the Labor Day Monday in a sometimes futile attempt to find and report on demonstrations by pro- and anti Trumpers. Sometimes the frustrations of reporting—like finding an empty parking lot where you expected a major event—still reveal the horrible underpinnings of our national breakdown. 

On Friday night I pursued reports of demonstrations around Portland, without getting particularly close. That was probably good, as I had decided, after much discussion and a supporting prompt form my wife, to take my 13-year old son with me. In the past I had visited demonstrations that were mostly peaceful but occasionally terrifying, and I had refused the endorse the curiosity of my son about what was happening when “dad goes downtown.” But as the son of a journalist he is already widely familiar with the problems of the world, from the slums of Rio to BLM in Portland. So by allowing him to come with me on Friday night, I felt like I was continuing his process of education and grounding in American reality. But obviously, many of the small risks I would take reporting were inappropriate with him. We agreed we would stay in or near the car, in case we needed to protect ourselves, and set out driving. 

We made a quick visit to the federal courthouse that was the scene of so many street battles in June and July—absolutely no protest presence, completely quiet and abandoned. We drove on—visiting a police precinct often subject to protests (nothing) and checking a couple of other sites, before finding the BLM protest very far out SE Stark street, on the edge of Portland. We actually encountered police lines closing off streets and stopped there, to watch, probably four blocks from the actual protest. That meant we saw nothing of the protest itself—good, because it was a riotous and dangerous evening, in which some nitwit threw a Molotov cocktail at police (Don’t—their lives matter, too) but only succeeded in hitting another protestor, setting him on fire (protestor lives matter, too). With choppers circling overhead, and long lines of armored officers closing off streets, the dark city had the feel of an occupied foreign capitol, and I stood with my son and watched for a while. But over time the situation grew more tense. Protestors, dispersed from the rally by police force, were wandering down Stark, and began to gather in small clusters. Police cars raced through the area; my son was frightened by the site of about twenty riot officers clinging to the outside of a special van (a poor man’s helicopter) as they raced past, then reappeared, and circled the area again. When protestors began shouting through a bullhorn at the police (“Quit your job! Take your uniform off and walk away! Y’all are just slave catchers!”) the atmosphere changed and we got in the car and went home. It was more than enough education for a 13-year old, and a reminder that protestors often engage in self-defeating actions, including violence that hurts their own allies. 

On Saturday, a planned Trump caravan kept changing its route and schedule, probably in a deliberate attempt to throw off the media and protestors. Thanks to an idiotic video circulating on right wing social media, some Trumpers were convinced that a major homeless camp downtown is actually an “Antifa war camp” and headquarters for the protestors. (It’s not. Since Covid-19, the city has formalized an existing encampment downtown, with better tents, shower trucks, and other supports for the vulnerable). Hearing rumors that Trumpers would target this camp, I went downtown to check and immediately noticed strange groups of young people standing on the street corners. They seemed like normal Portland hipsters at first, standing around with bicycles and man buns and rock band T-shirts, until I noticed there were 3-6 on every corner around the homeless camp, and that they were coordinated. They were in fact volunteers who had come to guard the camp, and “make a perimeter” as one told me. They were not friendly or very sharing with this reporter, declining to identify themselves, or their organization (“If you don’t already know, I’m not sure we should tell you”) but were clearly in the general antifa movement. After I spoke to several, handing out my card and explaining my work, one said, “If you are really who you say you are, that’s good.” They were worried that I was a Trumpist scout, wandering the homeless camp alone to spy on them. It’s great that “the resistance” can rally to preemptively defend what one of them called “the most vulnerable people in Portland,” and I understand their reluctance to be identified. But I do worry that a closed and even paranoid attitude toward the rest of the world can deform that movement. 

I  took Sunday off. So did most everybody else. 

But on Monday, Labor Day, the Trumpers pulled off a large and effective demonstration. Keeping their plans secret until the last moment, and moving quickly, they called a rally at Clackamas Community College. I strapped a GoPro camera to my helmet and motorcycled out to Clackamas, about ten miles from here and the standard place I would go to ride my motorcycle anyway. By the time I got to the parking lot, the caravan had already departed, heading this time to Salem, the state capitol, about 45 minutes away. I followed for a while, with the usual pickup trucks overequipped with the flags of Trump, Gadsen (“Don’t Tread on Me”) and Blue Lives Matter. 

There is something appealingly vulnerable about motorcycles. I have often used them when reporting on extremist movements, and in South America I used to tap my bike on the tank and say, “This machine kills fascists,” like Woody Guthrie. The motorcycle invites conversation and brings out the best in people. 

In the parking lot, the only people left were a couple of pro-Trump vendors selling T-shirts and flags. I fell into conversation with them, which started out very nicely. But a couple of girls on skateboards went by, and one shouted out, with amazing vigor and determination, “Fuck Blue Lives Matter! Fuck the police!” Her anger was upfront and daunting, a sign of how radicalized suburban white kids are right now. Yet the response from the Trumpers was even more stunning. After an few seconds of trying to win the kids over (“Why don’t you come talk to us, we can educate you”) they went straight for the threats. 

“I wouldn’t go around that corner,” one man called out to them. They skateboarders stopped. They were about to go around a bend in the road, where we couldn’t see what was happening. “Don’t go over there,” the man yelled, increasingly delighted with himself. “There’s some bad hombres around the corner there, you might get in trouble!” Mystified, the girls stood there staring at him. He doubled down: “There’s a bunch of tough guys around there. Don’t go over there! You wouldn’t want anything to happen to you! ” 

Reader, that was a rape threat. The skateboarders were frozen in disbelief.

I couldn’t stand to leave it there, and rode my bike around the bend in the road to check. There was no one there. I cruised around the campus for ten minutes, checking carefully to make sure it was bullshit, and eventually saw the girls skateboard away. 

To state the obvious, I don’t believe all cops are bastards. And I don’t believe you should threaten rape against your opponents. Rape threats are not “owning the libs.”

C’mon America, we can do better. For the sake of my son, and all children, we leanign

I followed the Trump caravan out into the beautiful rolling hills of Molalla, leaning into the curves, feeling the swell in the landscape, and wishing we had peace in this great country.