“Repeat after me: Our riots are all Trump’s fault! It’s all Trump’s fault! He’s a raaaacist! A raaacist!”
As noted here more than once last week, Democrat/”resistance”/mainstream news media (The AUC) attacks on President Trump are becoming more shrill and desperate, and I expect them to keep getting more so as November approaches. They really appear to be going with the “The riots that have taken place overwhelmingly in Democrat-run cities having been organized by Black Lives Matter (a Democratic party endorsed group) and inflamed by the antifa (an anti-Trump domestic terrorist group) after being provoked by police-involved incidents in those Democratic Party-run cities are President Trump’s fault!” They really are. Well, good luck with that! It’s an all-in bet that the American public is made up of morons.
I’ll take that bet, and so will Abe Lincoln.
The panic and hysteria—it turns out that those polls showing Joe Biden winning by a lap despite his many problems weren’t so solid after all! ARGHHHHHH!—has caused, naturally, a stamped to the Big Lie store, the inventory of which is listed here.
Portland’s Mayor Ted Wheeler grabbed himself an armful of Big Lie #4: “Trump Is A Racist/White Supremacist,” the first and one of the most popular, unconscionable and predictable of the Big Lies (and it is a lie, as explained in detail at the link above). Then he revealed just how ridiculous he is yesterday, saying in part as he attempted to blame his own city’s riots on the President,
“President Trump, for four years, we’ve had to live with you and your racist attacks on black people, we learned early about your sexist attitudes towards women,We’ve had to endure clips of you mocking a disabled man. We’ve had to listen to your anti-democratic attacks on journalists. We’ve read your tweets slamming private citizens to the point of receiving death threats. And we’ve listened to your attacks on immigrants. We’ve listened to you label Mexicans — rapists. We’ve heard you say that John McCain wasn’t a hero because he was a prisoner of war. And now you’re attacking Democratic mayors and the very institutions of democracy that have served this nation well since its founding. Do you seriously wonder, Mr. President, why this is the first time in decades that America has seen this level of violence? It’s you who have created the hate and the division. President Trump, you bring no peace. You bring no respect to our democracy. You, Mr. President, need to do your job as the leader of this nation. I, Mr. President, will do my job as the mayor of this city. We will both be held accountable as we should. I’m calling out every other elected official in Oregon to join me. Not only in defeating racism but helping me to stop the violence as we are and will continue to be held accountable by all of our residents.”
I hate being blunt and vulgar, but what an asshole!
And I must say, anyone who would vote for or defend a public official capable of vomiting out a statement like that is an irresponsible citizen. That goes way, way beyond Ethics Dunce territory, Unethical Quote regions, or even Incompetent Elected Official range. That’s a full-on Orange Man Bad tantrum constituting unprofessional and uncivil political speech, slaughtering facts and language left and right. It is useful as a list of symptomatic Trump Derangement tropes, talking points and tricks, however, like claiming that the Trump said Mexicans were rapists (he said that rapists here illegally from Mexico were rapists) or calling illegal immigrants, who the President has rightly condemned, immigrants, which is textbook deceit. It also employs that Obama-era race-baiting tactic that any criticism of a black individual is proof of racism—I think this one is so abused and discredited that it is next to useless now, other than to damage the eyes of millions from over-rolling.
To me the astounding thing is that the people who began this President’s term by comparing him to Hitler and insisting that he conspired with Russia to steal the election actually believe that he is the divisive one. I just had a conversation with such a gaslighting victim over the weekend. I believe they may be have been brain-damaged by partisan hate. Will they ever be cognitively stable again?
How does a mayor who has allowed the city he runs to be engulfed in “mostly peaceful” demonstrations that have cost lives and property for three months have the chutzpa to blame anyone else for “this level of violence”? Who elected this idiot? Why is he still in office? He goes to the bin of bad Trump campaign moments to complain about the John McCain slur and the mockery of the disabled journalist? That a tell, Ted: they show what a jerk candidate Trump was, but they have nothing to do with the conduct of President Trump. (How did you miss “grab ’em by the pussy” and questioning Obama’s birth certificate?) The President is responsible for the riots; look what he did when he wasn’t President! This blather translates into “Oooh, I just hate this guy so much!“, and that’s the truth. It’s also at the root of the riots. We’re full of bind and unreasoning hate, and its his fault.
Got it.
Nevertheless, there’s no evidence that the President is a racist, no matter how often Big Lie #4 is repeated. Repeat it, however, they will. Jonathan Turley, who apparently pays attention to the increasingly unhinged CNN staff more thoroughly than I do (thanks, professor!) notes that the network’s Chrs Cillizza is claiming the the President’s use of the work “riots” to describe…well, riots, is racist. So is NPR, which banned me as a commentator because a host thought I was defending President Trump. The professor is bemused:
It is the parsing of the term that intrigues me. In Portland, the Portland police have reportedly declared 13 riots in 80 days. Newspapers in these cities have referred to rioting from Portland to Minneapolis to Kenosa. David Brown, the Chicago Police superintendent, said, “This was not an organized protest, rather, this was an incident of pure criminality.”
Even Cillizza’s tweet condeming Trump’s use of “riots” included a photo of flaming buildings. It appears to me that all these years of claiming things are not what they obviously are have damaged the Orwellians more than their targets. They are thrashing in self-parody, appearing foolish to everyone but the similarly inflicted.
Would it be unethical to say, “It serves them right”?
Ethics Alarms 
No wonder the Qs exited post haste: Portland has a deranged Facebook lefty for its mayor. His complaint about Trump is essentially the standard Dem assertion about any Republican: “Gee, if they’d just stop acting like Republicans and acted like we want them to, like, you know, Democrats, everything would be just fine!” This is Nancy Pelosi’s and Chuck Schumer’s and Hillary Clinton’s working definition of “bi-partisanship.”
-Would it be unethical to say, “It serves them right”?-
Surely it is the better part of humanity that shows kindness to fools.
But when they’ve been such hateful pricks, as well as being fools, it would require the patience of Job to not take some satisfaction in their self-parody. Plus, they’re trying to destroy the country, so fuck ’em.
The mayor is a product of those who voted him in. He was like this before as a member of city council and citizens voted for him anyway. Last year or so I actually tried to tell Wheeler and the others in city council that their rhetoric was inviting more division not less. After the other Mrs. Q was harassed multiple times (by other so-called minorities no less) downtown, I hoped I could appeal to these “leaders” as both a citizen, and yes, a minority.
I was ignored. For all the pandering regarding black lives, gays, and whatever downtrodden unicorn of pain catagory there is, my family certainly didn’t matter. Wheeler and his band of holier-than-thou uber progressives, couldn’t give a crap. I’m not sure how many bodies have to pile up before this mayor is willing to concede he isn’t helping, but I’m not holding my breath. Portland is still full of his hypocrite enablers ready to cast that vote.
Yet in November the choice is between Wheeler and an avowed member of antifa with a prominent member of her staff that was convicted of kidnapping and strangling his ex. Portland will get the exact kind of mayor it deserves.
And yet, Senator Jeff Merkley criticized the use of federal agents to protect a courthouse!
I do wonder how this ends up in the long run for Portland?
I’m under the presumption that we’re going to see Portland end up like another Detroit or Baltimore. Wheeler did a sudden 180 recently and is listening to some of the downtown businesses and the threats to leave. At least that’s his story, but I do wonder if it is the realization that this is hurting, not helping Biden. But either way, in the last few days it looks like real progress is being made at cracking down on the riots. It remains to be seen if anything meaningful happens for Portland.
My concern is how this plays out. Do the people who voted for this mess flee Portland for the burbs, or do they bail from the state? For me, the latter certainly would be preferable. One would think that maybe some of them would consider that their vote is the cause of all of this, but they already demonstrated that they were incapable of learning that lesson when they relocated from the Bay Area to Portland.
Let us not forget Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
I was surprised at this, as well as Jack Marshall not blogging about this at the time.