Behind its neat facades and its Bobo terraces, Portland has changed in a street battle. For the past week, the largest city in Oregon, in the west of the country, has lived a kind of small civil war that the United States watched live on TV. A confrontation between a radical, urban America, carried by the university left and the anarchist groups, and the federal administration, decided to settle the accounts of the first Trump mandate by breaking the antifas, even if it means sending the troops. The images are looped on Fox News: federal soldiers deployed, masked demonstrators, flames on the background of black flags. Trump was only waiting for this shadow theater to embody his credo: “Law and order”,, “Law and order”. After Charlie Kirk, who has become a conservative martyr, Portland serves as a giant screen for this revenge.
It is no coincidence that this open war broke out here. Portland, self -proclaimed capital of the antifas, is more than a city. It is a manifesto. On paper, it is a beautiful bourgeois city of the Pacific, prosperous, white and green, where you pedal by drinking its latte. In reality, it is a laboratory of anti-prumpism, a cardboard showcase of the left. It was here, in 2020, that the Black Blocs took up residence, transforming the nights into an urban guerrilla warfare. Here, again, that the antifas organize against “Fascist America”making the world’s Mecca of Mecca in hood.
Undermined
Take a walk in the center today: the smell of cannabis jumps in the face. Not a street corner without its puff of smoke, tolerated, blessed, almost claimed. A stone’s throw away, clusters in clusters, lying in front of the microbrewery windows. Tents are piled up under the bridges, the slums tolerated in the name of a compassion that has become municipal political. This is the paradox: a rich city, saturated with start-ups and flashy lofts, but undermined by social anomie.
The death of Charlie Kirk on September 10, a rising figure in American conservatism, served as a catalyst. If Floyd was the trigger for the 2020 riots, Kirk is that of the Trumpian counter-offensive. The difference? The riots did not break out on the side of the supporters of Kirk. They are in the street, but under the black banner of the Antifas, which multiply the rallies before the centers of the ICE (the immigration agency), accused of“Embody state violence”.
Trump took the opportunity. On September 22, in a live decree live on television, he hit hard: the antifas are now classified “Domestic terrorist organization” – A first in American history. Coast lawyers are creaking teeth, recalling that no legal framework exists to transform an ideological movement exploded in “terrorist group”. But Trump does not cling to subtleties. For him, “These are terrorists” that it is a question of fighting “With total force, if necessary”.
The president ordered the deployment of 200 national guards in Portland, under federal command, for sixty days. The Pentagon followed, despite the protests of the local authorities. Democratic governor, prosecutors, municipal elected officials: all denounce a “Illegal occupation” Oregon by Washington. The state has even filed a complaint. “Portland manages its business”argues Mayor Keith Wilson. Trump response: “Portland is ravaged by war. »» Implied, by that led by anarchists.
This time, the White House is not satisfied with speeches
Behind the image of Épinal of a quiet city, with its peasant markets, Portland sinks into a cocktail of violence and narcotics. According to the Division of Strategic Services of the Portland Police Bureau, cited by Timesome indicators have exploded in just a year. In the city, kidnappings and rapids jumped approximately 50 %. Criminal fires increased by 25 %. As for drug -related crimes, they have experienced a real outbreak: + 226 % since the beginning of 2025. On the ground, the presence of the military is visible. Patrols in front of federal centers, armored vehicles in certain sensitive districts, drones flying over demonstrations. Nothing to do with the riots of 2020. This time, the White House is not satisfied with speeches.
The Ministry of Internal Security (DHS) highlights the violence: projectile jets, lasers robbed on the eyes of the agents, attempts to intrusion in the buildings of the ICE. The videos are circulating, taken up by Fox News and the media close to Trump. The left chains, minimize, speak of “Some clashes” and presidential exaggeration. America lives again in two parallel realities.
A wider strategy
In Washington, the case exceeds the only security framework. The war against antifas is part of a broader strategy. It is a question of asphyxiating a radical left deemed accomplice of the disintegration of the country. Since his re -election, Trump has resumed a speech of “National Restoration”. According to him, there is a continuity between the antifas squats of Portland, illegal immigration to the southern border and the “Moral decadence” campuses. The same battle, waged on several fronts. In Oregon, anti-Iic demonstrations also join pro migrant slogans. “No Borders, No Nations”chant the processions. Exactly what Trump wants to eradicate.
The opinion is on the side of Trump: America is fed up. Enough broken windows, drug addicts, masked processions that defy the police. An AP-Norc survey reveals that 53 % of Americans now approve how the president manages crime. Better: 81 % consider that violence in big cities has become a problem “Major”. The United States wants order. The Gallup Institute confirms this: 58 % judge the judicial system, in fact, too lax. The country demands the return of the baton. And the Battle of Portland is only the beginning.
