People might imagine that if they found themselves amid a left-wing political rally, they might have some idea how they got there.
That didn’t seem to be the case for several left-wing activists, according to local reports about the protests in Portland, Oregon, on Wednesday night that led to the arrests of eight people. Authorities say they found a number of weapons among those at the demonstration, including a backpack full of Molotov cocktails and two metal batons.
“Where the f— are we going?” one man yelled as the crowd of protesters approached a highway entrance.
When police approached, another exclaimed, “This is the worst f—ing march I’ve ever attended.”
As the demonstrations began, the purpose of them appeared increasingly unclear. Their timing, hours after President Biden’s inauguration, made it seem as though the Democratic Party’s left-wing base remained displeased with a new centrist leader.
During the march through downtown Portland, banners with “WE DON”T WANT BIDEN — WE WANT REVENGE!” could be seen within the crowd.
At one point, the Democratic Party of Oregon’s headquarters was severely vandalized as protesters broke out in “F— Joe Biden” chants. The state Democratic Party released a statement lamenting the damage, noting, “This is not the first time our building has been vandalized during the past year — none of the prior incidents have deterred us from our important work to elect Democrats up and down the ballot, and this one will be no different.”
But as other protesters surveyed the damage, no one seemed particularly inclined to take responsibility. A member of the antifa-aligned group Black Unity PDX said of the vandalism, “We don’t know what that was. That was not us.”
Another person, looking at the smashed windows of the Oregon Democratic Party’s headquarters, said that kind of vandalism is “not what I came for.”
An anarchist group, the Pacific Northwest Youth Liberation Front, tweeted, “F— THE STATE,” “F— BIDEN,” and “LANDBACK. F— 12.” That tweet has since been deleted, and the account has been locked for violating Twitter’s terms of service.
For all the complaints from conservatives over being silenced on the platform, it appeared Twitter began enforcing its rules against left-wing groups in the wake of the unrest in Portland despite doing virtually nothing for months as violence became a nearly nightly occurrence in the city. On Friday morning, the company suspended at least four accounts with more than 71,000 combined followers.
Toward the end of the demonstrations, a unifying theme remained unclear. One protester, Princess Warner, said, “I don’t know where the f— I’m going, but I don’t give a f—.”
“Our comrades w The Base (@TheBasebk), an anarchist social center in Brooklyn, NY of 9 years now took this Twitter thing seriously. Reaching a platform of 17k followers they pushed a very specific line where politics were never blurred,” the Antifa Sacramento Twitter account said on Friday. “Today, Twitter took their account down, and now there’s a void.”
On Wednesday, a nearly identical demonstration played out in Seattle, Washington, as members of the city’s antifa stormed the city’s downtown and broke store windows. Authorities arrested three people on charges of burglary, assault, and damage to property.
Neither Biden nor his administration has addressed the Inauguration Day violence. This summer, the president said he disavowed all “violence, no matter who it is,” but he maintained that former President Donald Trump and his supporters were instigating the civil disorder.
