Two Months of Protests in Portland, Oregon

While there have been continuing protests and riots throughout the US, the largest and most continued protests have taken place in the country’s “whitest” city: Portland, Oregon. As of this writing, July 30, between 4,000 and 15,000 people have been attending nightly protests and riots.

The Trump administration has decided to use Portland – a port city in the Pacific Northwest with nearly 700,000 residents – as a demonstration of his “law and order” strengths. Federal police agents from various agencies have been deployed here. In an unprecedented move the Federal Police have been snatching suspected protest leaders off the streets and holding them without legal recourse.

Trump the Fascist?

“On the face of it, what these federal officers are doing is illegal and unconstitutional. It’s possible that they are acting under the 2011 National Defense Authorization Act, signed by Barack Obama, which legalized the detention of Americans suspected of being terrorists. If so, then the War on Terrorism has truly come home” – Willamette Week Newspaper.

A revolutionary’s consideration needs to be the powers the bourgeoise is directing for its class dictatorship. The protest movement on the Portland streets sees Trump, the police and the Republican party as a hegemony arrayed against them.

This is partially true, but arrayed against them are also the other factions of the ruling class. The “nice guy” Obama authorized the detention of Americans, Candidate Biden sponsored bills for mass incarceration on levels greater than the Gulag in the USSR.

Further left, social democrats, Senator Bernie Sanders, the DSA’s so called “Squad” of congress members – identified primarily with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez – in Washington, DC, Seattle City Council Member Kshama Sawant and activists in their midst. All making amends with the various repressive forces of capital class rule – notably Sawant’s aid in passing police budgets used against later protestors.

So we can’t be surprised at the various political con games – from Trump’s bombastic law and order caricatures, the Portland Mayor’s “solidarity” appearance and tear gassing to jeers and mockery after 50 nights of protests.

The Direction of Militarized Policing

The American bourgeoise is using the protests in Portland as a modeling for new responses in a new era of control over the working class.

Some observations on the plans of the ruling class:

• The Border and Customs police seem to be becoming a national police force – they have been the only police forces to been solidly behind Trump.
• The adaption of Snatch and Grab tactics and “pre‑emptive” arrests
• Use of Sound Weapons have been useless in large crowds.
• The US Military Joint Chiefs have refused to be used as internal policing forces.

More fluid tactics

• There are shifts tactics, with church and family participation in the summer evening becoming more aggressive late at night
• Splits in the Black Leadership – Black Lives Matter is becoming various fundraising NGO organizations which are competing with traditional Church and Civil Rights leadership for finances and black community loyalty
• There is a petit bourgeois shift from the slogan “Black Lives Matter” to calls for support Black owned Businesses

Proletarian Moves

-Increasing organization – instead of an ad‑hoc group, people with similar interests are starting to organize and form identifiable blocs with specific tactics – the well known Wall of Moms who lead; the Wall of Dads who use lawn equipment to return tear gas; a Health Care Workers Bloc as well as a Trade Unions Bloc, Brewery Workers Bloc as well as Unemployed Workers Bloc.

• The workers blocs are not yet free of employers but are increasingly led by workers.
• As protests and Trump’s federalized opposition spread different tactics are spreading as well.
• Promote Covic Strikes and encourage protests on a class terrain
• Encourage the new Worker’s Bloc phenomenon with class unions as the desired outcome
• Break with the bourgeoisie – Working class needs to lead.