Portland braces for far-right rally
Anti-fascists and others will protest white nationalists and white supremacists
PORTLAND, Ore. — Portland police are mobilizing to prevent clashes between out-of-state far-right groups planning a rally here and the homegrown antifascists who oppose them as America’s culture wars seep into this progressive haven.
Saturday’s rally — and the violence it may bring — is a relatively new reality here, as an informal coalition of white nationalists, white supremacists and extremeright militias hones in on Oregon’s largest city as a standin for everything it feels is wrong with the U.S. At the top of that list are the masked and black-clad antifascists who turn out to oppose right-wing demonstrators, sometimes violently.
“It’s Portlandia, and in the public mind it represents everything these [farright] groups are against,” said Heidi Beirich, director of the Intelligence Project at the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate groups. “It’s progressive, and even more offensive to them, it’s progressive white people who [they think] should be on these guys’ side.”
The groups know they will get a headline-grabbing reaction from Portland’s socalled antifa, whose members have issued an online call to their own followers to turn out to “defend Portland from a far-right attack.” Portland’s Rose City Antifa, the nation’s oldest active anti-fascist group, says physically stopping rightwing demonstrators is “exactly what should happen when the far-right attempts to invade our town.”
Portland leaders plan a major law enforcement presence on the heels of similar rallies in June and last summer that turned violent, and the recent hate-driven shooting in El Paso. None of the city’s nearly 1,000 police officers will have the day off, and Portland will get help from the Oregon State Police and the FBI. Mayor Ted Wheeler has said he may ask Gov. Kate Brown, a Democrat, to call up the Oregon National Guard.
“There’s no winning for the cops in a situation like this. There just isn’t,” Beirich said. “This is hardcore stuff, and I don’t think you can be too cautious.”
Experts who track rightwing militias and hate groups warn that the mix of people heading to Portland also gathered for the Unite the Right rally in 2017 in Charlottesville, Va., which ended when a participant rammed his car into a crowd of counter-protesters, killing one person and injuring 19.
The rally is being organized by a member of the Proud Boys, which the Southern Poverty Law Center classifies as a hate group. Others expected include members of the American Guard, the Three Percenters, the Oathkeepers and the Daily Stormers. American Guard is a white nationalist group, according to the law center, while the Three Percenters and Oathkeepers are extremist anti-government militias. The Daily Stormers are neo-Nazis, according to the center.
Portland’s fraught history with hate groups adds to the complex dynamic.
Many of today’s anti-fascists trace their activism to a group that battled neo-Nazis in Portland’s streets decades ago, and they feel this is the same struggle in a new era, said Randy Blazak, an expert on the history of hate groups in Oregon.
White supremacists killed an Ethiopian man, Mulugeta Seraw, in Portland in 1988. By the 1990s, it was known as Skinhead City because it was the home base of Volksfront, at the time one of the most active U.S. neo-Nazi groups. As recently as 2007, neo-Nazis attempted to gather in Portland for a three-day skinhead festival.
“When I’m looking at what’s happening right now, for me it’s a direct line back to the 1980s: the battles between the racist skinheads and the anti-racist skinheads,” Blazak said. “It’s the latest version of this thing that’s been going on for 30 years in this city.”
Police, meanwhile, have seemed overwhelmed by the cultural forces at war in their streets.
At the June rally, antifa members beat up conservative blogger Andy Ngo. Video of the 30-second attack grabbed national attention and further turned the focus on Portland as a new battleground in divided America.
Republican Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Bill Cassidy of Louisiana have introduced a resolution calling for anti-fascists to be declared domestic terrorists, and President Trump echoed that theme last month. Portland’s City Hall has been evacuated twice for bomb threats since the June 29 skirmishes, and Wheeler has been pilloried by critics who incorrectly said he told police to stand down while anti-fascists went after right-wing demonstrators.
“I don’t want for one minute anyone to think that because we’re being thrust into this political show, that I or the public have lost confidence in [police officers’] ability to do what we do,” said Police Chief Danielle Outlaw, who is regularly heckled as she leaves City Hall by those who feel the police target counterprotesters for arrest over far-right demonstrators.
Police have noted the violence in June was limited to a small area of downtown Portland despite three different demonstrations lasting more than five hours. They have also made two arrests over a May Day assault on an antifa member.
“We’ll be ready for the 17th here in little Portland, Ore.,” Wheeler told the Associated Press. “But at the end of the day, the bigger question is about our nation’s moral compass and which direction it’s pointing.”
Blazak said he worried the extreme response from a small group of counter-protesters is starting to backfire. Many in the city oppose the right-wing rallies but also dislike the violent response of antifa, which provides social media fodder for the far-right.
“The opposition is playing right into the alt-right’s hands by engaging with them this way,” he said.