"I believe that if right now there is a huge increase in salaries forced by the government, the organization I know best will have to do the very thing that will kill it: cut its quality."

It’s no wonder that gun rights, racism, white nationalism and issues of masculinity continue to swirl together in a toxic brew.

Portland has not become a micro version of Hong Kong; most of the activity is not directed against a repressive government. It’s primarily a staged event for social media, used to recruit for a motley assortment of fascists and white nationalists on the right and masked and violence-prone pushback on the left.