As a federal appeals court has cleared the way for Trump to send National Guard troops here, I wrote this essay about the splitting of Portland into two separate identies: Real Portland, and its doppelganger: Internet Portland.

open.substack.com/pub/leahsott...

What The Hell Is Going On, a thread:

I’ve seen some thinkpieces and posts about Portland protests that fail to understand the long-term hyperspecificity of Portland culture/humor, and frame it as a sort of shitposting meme-pilled ironic thing. Which is wrong.

So I’m gonna give you my breakdown.

There's one huge difference between the 2025 Portland protests & the ones in 2020. Today, the ~100 anti-fascist protesters at the ICE facility are sandwiched between the feds who have MAGA-friendly media embedded w/ them, and ~15 MAGA-friendly content creators/counter-protesters out in the crowd.

Okay their dad just took them to the playground so HERE WE GO

(thread)

Packed house in Salem, OR for Town Hall with Senator Jeff Merkeley and Representative Andrea Salinas.

This thread is for folks who'd like a little "Trump's people are incompetent bumblers" schadenfreude to leaven the anxiety and outrage about the democracy-eroding-shock-and-awe campaign we're about to witness. A very well connected Trump megadonor from Oregon is in DC & their experience has been....

NEW: My staff just got ahold of this memo from House Budget Committee Republicans. It's lengthy and hard to digest but it tells us exactly how Republicans plan to sell out the American people for another round of tax cuts to the rich. We're breaking down the highlights as we go:

Pete Hegseth is the Don Jr. of Brett Kavanaughs.

“Protect norms and institutions” – well, yes, but… it depends.
 
Since the election the conversations in the liberal camp have focused very much on the fate of norms and institutions. Fair enough. But they deserve protection only if they are actually aligned with democratic values and commitments.

Post-1960s liberalism has a “Morning Joe” problem, an ideological commitment to bipartisanship rooted in the belief that politics is better when it balances Republican and Democratic ideas and values. So you have a Gingrich Republican hosting MSNBC’s flagship morning show, for instance.

"I remember when the phantom Kamala ad hit me. It drew me in with a photo of Vice-President Harris and a positive and appealing summary of her policies. Then the ad exposed me, to a policy that I would not like – and which the candidate did not in fact advocate."
snyder.substack.com/p/the-phanto...

Naomi Beinart, 16: "We girls woke up to a country that would rather elect a man found liable for sexual abuse than a woman...Where the body I haven’t fully grown into may no longer be under my control. The boys, it seemed to me, just woke up on a Wednesday."