As a Portlander, we had our fair share of riots… The problem is any lack of a coherent message.
Things would start off fine during the day with a Black Lives Matter protest, but as soon as the sun went down it became taken over by anarchist white kids who just wanted an excuse to break things and steal shit.
Not all protests are the same, and when you have people attacking an Historical Society for no good goddamn reason, that’s where you lose support:
As a Portlander, we had our fair share of riots… The problem is any lack of a coherent message.
Things would start off fine during the day with a Black Lives Matter protest, but as soon as the sun went down it became taken over by anarchist white kids who just wanted an excuse to break things and steal shit.
Not all protests are the same, and when you have people attacking an Historical Society for no good goddamn reason, that’s where you lose support:
https://www.oregonlive.com/news/2021/04/portland-church-park-historical-society-damaged-in-downtown-riot-the-destruction-is-pretty-gnarly.html
Same for blocking streets and freeways. You want to piss off your intended audience? Keep them from going home.
https://www.wweek.com/news/2020/06/09/portland-protesters-briefly-seize-a-freeway-but-police-refrain-from-using-more-force/
To top things off… the things they were protesting had fuck all to do with Portland. What do you want Portland to do about ANY of this shit?