One of the most horrifying symbols of national impotence during the first Trump administration wasn’t just the nationwide BLM riots or even the assault on the White House, but the sustained assault day after day by Antifa on the Mark O. Hatfield US Courthouse in Portland, and the helplessness of federal authorities to intervene.
Small pods of three to four protesters dressed in black circulated in the crowd, stopping every few minutes to point green laser beams in the eyes of agents posted as lookouts on porticoes on the courthouse’s upper stories. The agents above were silhouetted against the dark sky as dozens of green laser dots and a large spotlight played on the courthouse walls, projected from the back of the crowd.
Thirty minutes later, someone fired a commercial-grade firework inside the fence. Next came a flare and then protesters began using an angle grinder to eat away at the fence. A barrage of items came whizzing into the courthouse: rocks, cans of beans, water bottles, potatoes and rubber bouncy balls that cause the agents to slip and fall.
The firework came whizzing over the fence so fast that the agent didn’t have time to move.
It exploded with a boom, leaving his hearing deadened and bloody gashes on both forearms. Stunned, with help from his cohorts, he stripped to his boxer shorts and a black T-shirt so his wounds could be examined and photographed for evidence.
He told his fellow agents he was more worried about his hearing than about the gouges and burns on his arms.
By the end of the night, five other federal agents would be injured, including another who got a concussion when he was hit in the head with a commercial-grade firework. One agent was hospitalized. Several agents have lingering vision problems from the lasers.
This was part of a war that went on for months. This time around, the Trump administration is signaling that this will no longer be tolerated with a large-scale intervention in Los Angeles.
Last night, over 1,000 rioters surrounded a federal law enforcement building and assaulted ICE law enforcement officers, slashed tires, defaced buildings, and taxpayer funded property. It took the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) 2 hours to respond.
2,000 National Guardsmen, double the number of rioters, are to be deployed.
The fact that communist rioters in LA are painting Hamas target symbols and calling for murders of police officers immediately predisposes me against them. pic.twitter.com/Ppx7KsPlv4
— Drew Pavlou 🇦🇺🇺🇦🇹🇼 (@DrewPavlou) June 8, 2025
President Trump has taken control of the California National Guard, over the protests of Gov. Gavin Newsom, “to address the lawlessness that has been allowed to fester.”
Newsom is calling the move “purposefully inflammatory”. But it will help police whose resources have been taxed by the latest round of open borders rioting and whose hands are routinely tied by the state and country’s radical leadership.
And it also sends the larger message that this time around, riots will be thoroughly suppressed.
As I noted in the past, nationwide riots are election prep. And that means we’ll be far more likely to see them leading up to 2026 and 2028. We’ll be less likely to see if them is the message is sent early on that they will be shut down. And shut down hard.
The best way to avoid a repetition of 2020 is to make it clear that riots will not be tolerated.
