As the Trump administration takes its law and order show on the road after a dress rehearsal at Lafayette Square in Washington, D.C., and a soft opening in Portland, Oregon, let me just say Im disgusted with almost everybody involved.

Lets start with the Portland demonstrators. Contrary to heroic PR efforts from many in the mainstream media, these arent great people. Oh sure, I have no doubt some, even many, are decent enough on a personal level. But even decent people become ugly when they lend their bodies and voices to mobs and riots. Even if they just watch, theyre encouraging rioting and violence.

Then theres the mainstream and left-wing media. When right-wing protesters foolishly in my opinion, but also peacefully gathered to denounce lockdown orders during the early days of the pandemic, virtually everybody to the left of Fox News insisted it was dangerous, fascistic and scary (which, by the way, is how the media mostly covered tea party rallies a decade ago).

But whether it was peaceful protests in the wake of George Floyds killing or even rioting and arson, the non-right media covered it all in a spirit of near celebration, with the occasional tsk-tsking for some excesses.

Now let us turn our gaze rightward. To listen to many on the right, in and out of the administration, the goons in Portland are domestic terrorists on par with al-Qaeda or ISIS. Indeed, President Trump said in June he would designate antifa a loose affiliation of radicals, jackasses and radical jackasses a terrorist organization. Characteristically, he hasnt followed through on that threat (though that hasnt stopped antifa sympathizers from pretending he did so they can spin conspiracy theories about how the administration is denying antifa members due process).

The goal is to create a domestic enemy that only Trump can save us from. Its part of the administrations larger effort to re-create the moral panic he fomented in 2016 with his American carnage rhetoric, and failed to foment with the immigrant caravan in 2018. Many on the right are only too happy to help with the messaging.

Thats the basic context for Trumps decision to send federal agents into Portland and now other cities. This has elevated the ridiculousness on both sides by an order of magnitude. Those on the left insist its illegal and unconstitutional. Its neither. Democrats and media commentators glibly talk about how this use of a gestapo makes us a police state no different from China. Thats absurd, not least because the law is on the administrations side (so far), but also because Chinas police state is competent. If the Trump administration wanted to act like China, it would round up (or kill) all of the protesters, violent and peaceful alike.

I have no principled objection to federal agents protecting federal property from rioters and arsonists. What bothers me is that the administrations tactics and motives are all about manufacturing a political narrative that helps Trumps campaign, elevates the status of the rioters and arsonists, and gives critics license to prattle on about dictatorship.

Trump long ago proved he doesnt really want to be a dictator. (That requires too much work.) He wants to be a TV star. Whats outrageous isnt that Trump is using federal agents on American soil, or even that hes doing it without an invitation from local politicians. Whats outrageous is why hes doing it.

When China crushes protests, it crushes them because thats the goal. Trump has the opposite goal. He wants more protests, more riots, because his campaign thinks it needs to make facts on the ground fit its law and order sloganeering and exaggerations.

The idiot mobs of Portland are only too happy to give Trump what he wants, which is why they started focusing their wrath on federal buildings in the first place. Indeed, all the stakeholders (save for the majority of Americans) get what they want. The resistance-drunk left-wing media is gleeful to further heighten tensions by downplaying the dark side of the protests to fit their preferred narrative about Trump being an authoritarian. The Trump-besotted right-wing media gets to highlight the mainstream medias cleanup operation to show how the fake news is just out to get Trump.

Its a collective action problem, a tragedy of the political commons, in which all actors get to harvest the facts that help their cause, leaving the rest of us wondering how things got so stupid.

Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.

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Theres idiocy on all sides in the law and order road show | Jonah Goldberg - News-Herald.com