The two sides squared off across a field, defined by police cordons at each end, like disparate, ragged Medieval armies. Well, sort of-- the field was so broad I couldn't tell what the "nazi" side was doing, and if there were more than the few dozen of them I had passed on my way to the larger crowd where I expected to find their main body.
The police stretched the no-go zone by pushing one cordon south, then let the counter-demonstrators on my side through.
As it was they cleverly herded the Patriot Prayer group, after its quickly concluded "domestic terrorism" demonstration--calling out antifa directly this time--over the Hawthorne Bridge, which had been closed for the protests, letting them escape the advancing throng. I never got close to them, and missed the battle of bridge below;
As it was I would never see a group of them numbering more than ten after that. Later I'd read news reports estimating their number to be about a hundred--video of them marching over the bridge made the group look bigger, and I anticipate the local left's outrage over this latest favoring--in their eyes--of the right wing invaders over antifa and allies, as the very discipline forced on Patriot Prayer and indulgence allowed antifa
Not content with this failure, the left then engages in what is now par for the course, a floating, amorphous march taunting police and searching out stray right wingers, journalists and others to harass.
Outright violence is still rare. The police were as often as not nowhere to be found when small scuffles broke out
Where were the cops? Where was the mayor of Portland ???? pic.twitter.com/UDIBH2DgjA— T Gilbert, JD (@tponews) August 18, 2019
Here's someone identified as working for Glenn Beck's Blaze network, and I hope he's pleased with his newfound relevance as scourge of Portland, because his associate here had a very long day:
#pdx @eladsinned Portland— Dennis Dale (@eladsinned) August 19, 2019
Man identified as Blaze reporter is harassed, Portland 17, 2019.https://t.co/9h4QKGAHOj
As I first walked up a shirtless black man emerged, making his way to the cordon, announcing himself and his attention to take on all nazis. He found a pair of them and then engaged in a mock standoff with them that would inevitably--for I saw him engage in a few of these myself--break down in anticlimactic debate.
I saw him arrested later. He turned up on the street within an hour, to cheers--everyone recognized him. He strutted and flexed and announced, like the first time: "It's me baby, it's me baby!" Behind him came another black man, a street preacher with eyes full of woe and desperation, trailed by a Mexican girl holding a microphone: "Hallelujah...conversation is meaningless...hallelujah...you're not going to solve one thing in a conversation..."
