Mob Rule?
Mob Rule? Alex Zielinski

In today's Wall Street Journal, Portlander Andy Ngo (the WSJ's go-to author for right-leaning reports on Portland anarchy) wrote an opinion piece subtly titled "A Leftist Mob ‘Polices’ Portland." His op-ed centers on last Saturday's protest of the Portland Police shooting of Patrick Kimmons, and the subsequent march in which a driver plowed into a protester instead of... you know... just stopping. Ngo's description of the incident isn't exactly an accurate depiction of what happened:

As the crowd made their way to a nearby courthouse, they marched in the middle of the street, bringing traffic to a stop though they didn’t have a permit. Kent Houser, 74, made the mistake of attempting to pass them in his sedan. His car slowly pushed against a masked marcher. The crowd surrounded the car and started kicking it.

Here's video of how Houser's Lexus "slowly pushed against a masked marcher."


This just in: CARS DON'T PUSH PEOPLE. Drivers do. In addition, Ngo doesn't mention that in order for the driver "to pass the marchers" (who had filled the street) he would've literally had to drive up on the sidewalk. Most importantly, he neglects to label the driver's crime for what it is: hit and run.

Speaking of breaking the law (and it's ridiculous that I need to remind people about this, but...), here's what the law says about what drivers are supposed to do when they encounter pedestrians (yup, protesters are pedestrians too) who are in the road:

2017 ORS 811.028: Failure to stop and remain stopped for pedestrian

1) The driver of a vehicle commits the offense of failure to stop and remain stopped for a pedestrian if the driver does not stop and remain stopped for a pedestrian when the pedestrian is:

(a) Proceeding in accordance with a traffic control device as provided under ORS 814.010 (Appropriate responses to traffic control devices) or crossing the roadway in a crosswalk; and

(b) In any of the following locations:

(A) In the lane in which the driver’s vehicle is traveling;

(B) In a lane adjacent to the lane in which the driver’s vehicle is traveling;

Hopefully Ngo already knows this and isn't siding with another (and nationally infamous) hit-and-run driver. It's much more likely that Ngo's opinion piece is another example of the right's newest method of trying to gain an advantage in the midterms: Portraying dissent as "mob rule," and attempting to paint themselves as victims.

Here's yet another recent example of Republican crybabies trying to stop Americans from practicing their First Amendment rights from today's National Review:

Legally protected protest is safe. It’s consistent with the best traditions of American dissent. It’s truly what “democracy looks like.” Mob action, by contrast, is dangerous. It creates imminent risk of personal harm. It’s designed to frighten and intimidate. There is no place for the mob in a constitutional republic.

And here's another example. And another. And another. (I'll stop there.)

Republicans have broken the system. And they expect the left—who they've depended on in the past to exhibit meekness and guilt—to stay on the sidelines while they run roughshod over the country. Those days are over. While we may have had considered their concerns in the past, Republicans have abused America to the point where many of us no longer have a shred of empathy for what they want. And they know this. This is why panicky editorials written by Ngo and other members of the right are sprouting up like weeds. They've become the snowflakes, and it's because they know the truth: Their anti-democratic system of cruelty is going to be dismantled.