American nightmare, but dream come true for some

Mothers know best?: A ‘wall of moms’ opposing the federal interference at a Black Lives Matter protest. – AP

PORTLAND in Oregon was among the several American cities where the spontaneous protests sparked by the police murder of George Floyd just over two months ago never quite died out. Until a few weeks ago, though, a certain amount of imagination would have been required to identify it as a potential epicentre of any kind.

That began to change, however, when the Trump administration decided, ostensibly against the wishes of the city authorities, to inject federal forces into the city, claiming there was a threat to federal property. Mostly borrowed from an elite border force that has previously been deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan, the troops, wearing no insignia, came clad in camouflage combat gear.