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wsj.com
Opinion | If Trump Is Re-Elected, Oregon Could Be Headed for a Crackup
Dave Seminara
This year’s protests in Portland and Bend, Ore., have many wondering how the Beaver State’s increasingly radicalized left will cope if President Trump is re-elected. After the 2016 election, a group of Oregonians submitted a petition for a ballot measure asking voters to consider secession. It went nowhere, but this year could be different. A 2017 Zogby poll concluded that a plurality of Americans (39%) believe states have a right to secede, so perhaps the idea isn’t far-fetched.
Rioters in Portland laid siege to the city’s federal courthouse for more than two months this summer. Mayor Ted Wheeler, who failed to control the chaos, is facing a serious re-election challenge from Sarah Iannarone, an avowed antifa supporter, who has outraised him and could win the nonpartisan contest.
But Portland isn’t the only place in Oregon that seems to be drifting further from what passes for normal in the U.S. Consider the hysterical reaction of locals and election officials in Bend when Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents attempted to take two illegal aliens into custody in August. Hundreds of protesters blocked ICE buses, and a 12-hour standoff ensued before agents could remove the men.
Bend’s political establishment defended the protesters. “I’ve never been so disgusted by my government and so proud of my community,” tweeted John Hummel, Deschutes County’s district attorney. Bend’s Mayor Sally Russell added: “In no way do I support ICE. Nor can our Bend Police Force, because Oregon is a sanctuary state and it is illegal. . . . ICE is a Federal agency and frustratingly we have no power over the Executive Branch of our country.”
ICE hasn’t detailed the charges against Marco Zeferino and Josue Cruz-Sanchez, whose detentions triggered the standoff, other than to say they have “violent criminal records” and re-entered the U.S. unlawfully after prior apprehensions. But both men have arrest records reported by local media. Mr. Cruz-Sanchez pleaded guilty in 2018 to fourth-degree assault (domestic violence) and felony coercion for injuring and threatening his partner. In February 2019 he was arrested for burglary and a parole violation and pleaded guilty to first-degree criminal trespassing. Three months later, he pleaded not guilty to fourth-degree assault charges related to a separate incident.
Mr. Rios was arrested for attempting to assault a woman in 2019. The charge was reduced to harassment and he pleaded guilty.
That both men have a history of attacking women doesn’t seem to trouble their left-wing supporters. The men have received free legal assistance from a Portland-based nonprofit called the Innovation Law Lab, which says on its website that it works “on-the-ground to defeat the Vast Deportation Machine.”
During the siege in Portland and the standoff in Bend, voices in the media began referring to the federal agents sent to enforce the law as “storm troopers.” In many precincts of the left, the police are now viewed as criminals while actual criminals are revered, getting bonus intersectionality points if they’re in the country illegally. Other U.S. states are subject to this dynamic, but Oregon’s open flirtation with secession makes it notable.
Several right-wing groups are gathering signatures from residents of 15 Eastern Oregon counties that have had enough of this coastal insanity. They want either to become part of Idaho or form a new state with rural counties of Northern California. Well before Portland became the fashionable place for woke young retirees, Oregon was a reliably red state. Richard Nixon carried it in 1960, 1968 and 1972. Gerald Ford held it in 1976, and Ronald Reagan won by large margins in 1980 and 1984. In 1992 third-party candidate Ross Perot won 24% of the vote, almost certainly stealing Oregon for Democrat Bill Clinton.
Now the heavily pierced and tattooed masses in Portland, Eugene and Bend have teamed up with recently arrived hippies from California and metro Seattle to turn the state deep blue west of the Cascades. Oregon hasn’t elected a Republican governor since 1982 or sent a GOP senator to Washington since 2002. Urban progressives dominate state government.
I lived in Oregon between 2014 and 2019 and love it dearly despite its dysfunction. It broke my heart to see this summer’s devastating wildfires tear through the state. I hope and expect that Oregon will remain in the Union, but I worry that Mr. Trump’s re-election could lead to a mass mental-health emergency. If Oregon’s blue cities try to secede, the gun-loving inland counties aren’t likely to go with them. Things could get ugly.
Imagine—if Mr. Trump wins, the bluest part of Oregon could forgo becoming a new state and go straight to establishing an independent country, where far-out progressive policies can be road-tested. It could fulfill the wishes of the protesters who occupied a Portland ICE building and establish open borders, though Trump supporters would be able to visit only on special visas. Capital punishment could be outlawed and prisons emptied, except for those established to be anti-woke terrorists.
An independent Oregon could use state funds for cannabis production. Schools would remain virtual for as long as the teachers unions desire, but in-person re-education camps would be established for Republican dissidents, who would be indoctrinated in critical race theory and forced to pledge allegiance to the Green New Deal and Medicare for All. Guns and police could be banned. Crime victims could receive free draft kombucha and autographed copies of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s memoir.
An Oregon untethered from the bourgeois U.S. could become a laboratory for the left’s wildest dreams. Perhaps it would become the Pacific Northwest’s version of Copenhagen, but I doubt it. More likely it would come to resemble Venezuela without the sunshine, oil and arepas.
Mr. Seminara is a former diplomat and author of “Footsteps of Federer: A Fan’s Pilgrimage Across 7 Swiss Cantons in 10 Acts,” forthcoming in March.
Opinion | If Trump Is Re-Elected, Oregon Could Be Headed for a Crackup
Dave Seminara
This year’s protests in Portland and Bend, Ore., have many wondering how the Beaver State’s increasingly radicalized left will cope if President Trump is re-elected. After the 2016 election, a group of Oregonians submitted a petition for a ballot measure asking voters to consider secession. It went nowhere, but this year could be different. A 2017 Zogby poll concluded that a plurality of Americans (39%) believe states have a right to secede, so perhaps the idea isn’t far-fetched.
Rioters in Portland laid siege to the city’s federal courthouse for more than two months this summer. Mayor Ted Wheeler, who failed to control the chaos, is facing a serious re-election challenge from Sarah Iannarone, an avowed antifa supporter, who has outraised him and could win the nonpartisan contest.
But Portland isn’t the only place in Oregon that seems to be drifting further from what passes for normal in the U.S. Consider the hysterical reaction of locals and election officials in Bend when Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents attempted to take two illegal aliens into custody in August. Hundreds of protesters blocked ICE buses, and a 12-hour standoff ensued before agents could remove the men.
Bend’s political establishment defended the protesters. “I’ve never been so disgusted by my government and so proud of my community,” tweeted John Hummel, Deschutes County’s district attorney. Bend’s Mayor Sally Russell added: “In no way do I support ICE. Nor can our Bend Police Force, because Oregon is a sanctuary state and it is illegal. . . . ICE is a Federal agency and frustratingly we have no power over the Executive Branch of our country.”
ICE hasn’t detailed the charges against Marco Zeferino and Josue Cruz-Sanchez, whose detentions triggered the standoff, other than to say they have “violent criminal records” and re-entered the U.S. unlawfully after prior apprehensions. But both men have arrest records reported by local media. Mr. Cruz-Sanchez pleaded guilty in 2018 to fourth-degree assault (domestic violence) and felony coercion for injuring and threatening his partner. In February 2019 he was arrested for burglary and a parole violation and pleaded guilty to first-degree criminal trespassing. Three months later, he pleaded not guilty to fourth-degree assault charges related to a separate incident.
Mr. Rios was arrested for attempting to assault a woman in 2019. The charge was reduced to harassment and he pleaded guilty.
That both men have a history of attacking women doesn’t seem to trouble their left-wing supporters. The men have received free legal assistance from a Portland-based nonprofit called the Innovation Law Lab, which says on its website that it works “on-the-ground to defeat the Vast Deportation Machine.”
During the siege in Portland and the standoff in Bend, voices in the media began referring to the federal agents sent to enforce the law as “storm troopers.” In many precincts of the left, the police are now viewed as criminals while actual criminals are revered, getting bonus intersectionality points if they’re in the country illegally. Other U.S. states are subject to this dynamic, but Oregon’s open flirtation with secession makes it notable.
Several right-wing groups are gathering signatures from residents of 15 Eastern Oregon counties that have had enough of this coastal insanity. They want either to become part of Idaho or form a new state with rural counties of Northern California. Well before Portland became the fashionable place for woke young retirees, Oregon was a reliably red state. Richard Nixon carried it in 1960, 1968 and 1972. Gerald Ford held it in 1976, and Ronald Reagan won by large margins in 1980 and 1984. In 1992 third-party candidate Ross Perot won 24% of the vote, almost certainly stealing Oregon for Democrat Bill Clinton.
Now the heavily pierced and tattooed masses in Portland, Eugene and Bend have teamed up with recently arrived hippies from California and metro Seattle to turn the state deep blue west of the Cascades. Oregon hasn’t elected a Republican governor since 1982 or sent a GOP senator to Washington since 2002. Urban progressives dominate state government.
I lived in Oregon between 2014 and 2019 and love it dearly despite its dysfunction. It broke my heart to see this summer’s devastating wildfires tear through the state. I hope and expect that Oregon will remain in the Union, but I worry that Mr. Trump’s re-election could lead to a mass mental-health emergency. If Oregon’s blue cities try to secede, the gun-loving inland counties aren’t likely to go with them. Things could get ugly.
Imagine—if Mr. Trump wins, the bluest part of Oregon could forgo becoming a new state and go straight to establishing an independent country, where far-out progressive policies can be road-tested. It could fulfill the wishes of the protesters who occupied a Portland ICE building and establish open borders, though Trump supporters would be able to visit only on special visas. Capital punishment could be outlawed and prisons emptied, except for those established to be anti-woke terrorists.
An independent Oregon could use state funds for cannabis production. Schools would remain virtual for as long as the teachers unions desire, but in-person re-education camps would be established for Republican dissidents, who would be indoctrinated in critical race theory and forced to pledge allegiance to the Green New Deal and Medicare for All. Guns and police could be banned. Crime victims could receive free draft kombucha and autographed copies of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s memoir.
An Oregon untethered from the bourgeois U.S. could become a laboratory for the left’s wildest dreams. Perhaps it would become the Pacific Northwest’s version of Copenhagen, but I doubt it. More likely it would come to resemble Venezuela without the sunshine, oil and arepas.
Mr. Seminara is a former diplomat and author of “Footsteps of Federer: A Fan’s Pilgrimage Across 7 Swiss Cantons in 10 Acts,” forthcoming in March.
