Editor’s note: This is a lightly edited transcript of today’s video from Daily Signal Senior Contributor Victor Davis Hanson. Subscribe to our YouTube channel to see more of his videos.
Hello, this is Victor Davis Hanson for The Daily Signal. President Donald Trump is sending federalized troops into Portland, Oregon, because the Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center and headquarters there is under veritable assault, especially in the night hours.
In other words, Antifa-like protesters surround the facility. They make it almost impossible to drive in and out. And they’re trying to disrupt the idea itself that the federal government has a right to apprehend illegal aliens that have warrants out for their deportation.
Why would Donald Trump want to get into that morass in Portland, Oregon? Why would he want to incur such anger from liberal Portland? I don’t think he wants to. After all, he’s going to be judged in the November midterms on the economy, maybe the border, but not whether he went into Portland or not. In some ways, it’s a lose-lose situation.
There’s a lot of you listening who say: “You know what? If Portland wants to destroy their city, let them stew in their own juice.” But Trump’s point, I think, is different. He is saying that the city of Portland, by its nonenforcement, by intent—not just capability, by intent—it is allowing an area of Portland to be free of, exempt from the law. Local law, state law, but more importantly, federal law, too.
In other words, people can commit mayhem against federal personnel with impunity.
And Donald Trump is saying that I have to protect the civil rights of those agents and that agency. And I have jurisdiction, as the president of the United States and the ultimate enforcer of federal law. So, I’m going to go into Portland with sufficient force. And I’m going to guarantee that ICE facility works as it does elsewhere, without harassment. And if this now-designated terrorist organization Antifa tries to disrupt, we’re going to charge them, not with local statutes, not with state, but federal charges. And these carry severe penalties.
So, this puts the ball in the Oregon court and the Antifa court because if you object to what Donald Trump is doing, you’re finding yourself, as to quote former President Barack Obama, “on the wrong side of history” in two senses.
Antifa is a terrorist organization. The only mystery is, it’s centralized, with a head that runs the tentacles of this octopus. I don’t know. But by branding people who identify with Antifa, de facto, as terrorists, it makes anybody who wants to create a safe haven for their terrorist activity part and parcel to terrorism. Do you really want to be defending terrorism if you oppose the federal government’s efforts to protect its own personnel from terrorists?
But more importantly, there’s a larger historical question. This is a civil rights issue. Donald Trump is saying that no city, no state, no county has the right to take away the civil rights of any citizen. And this was a civil rights issue in the 1950s and ’60s.
Remember, in 1962, George Wallace stood in the doorstep of the University of Alabama, and he said: As far as I’m concerned, segregation forever exists here, in Alabama. I’m governor.
And the Kennedy administration said: Nope. You’re a citizen of the United States of America. We’ve already adjudicated this. We had a civil war over it. No state can violate federal law. And so, you may think that the University of Alabama is sovereign, but it is in the United States. And I’m federalizing your National Guard. And federal troops will come and they will remove you. And they will ensure that people that you do not want into the university, on the base of race, will have the right to do so.
And it was successful.
What am I getting at? The mayor of Portland, the governor of Oregon, that liberal community of Portland, by allowing this direct violation of federal law and the denial of civil rights to ICE agents, is basically nullifying federal law. It is a neo-Confederate idea. They are in league with the George Wallaces of history by saying: We, in our infinite morality and wisdom, can adjudicate what the federal government can do and what it can’t do.
I’m sorry, Oregon, we fought a civil war over that. And your idea lost. There is no legal justification for state nullification of federal law. Legally and morally, you’re on the wrong side of history. You’re siding with terrorists who are trying to maim and hurt federal agents. For what? Trying to enforce an existing federal law, and specifically, targeting people who have criminal records, here illegally, and are dangers to the community that you will not protect.
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