Once an up-and-coming city, Portland was destroyed from within by radical activism and political ineptitude.

The dream of the '90s is alive in Portland Sleep till 11, you'll be in heaven The dream of the '90s is alive in Portland The dream is alive -Portlandia Around the turn of the century, Portland was the new belle on the block, not despoiled like San Francisco or in bed with high tech like Seattle.

Some who'd come to Portland expecting the city to deliver their dreams grew restless.

"It's not a well-governed city. It's not a well-governed state. Portland has basically had three failed mayors in a row," says T.B., who previously held a high-ranking position in state government and who asked not to be identified by name.

In a preview of the protests that would come to roil Portland following the death of George Floyd, those who considered themselves more finely calibrated toward injustice than the rest of us took matters into their own hands.

"How many people in the Pearl District voted for Donald Trump? It's probably not even 1 percent. Who on earth are these people who declare war on a place where nobody voted for Donald Trump? That's not how people in a democratic society are supposed to behave. You don't go trash neighborhoods with the opposing political party in a healthy democracy, but they didn't even do that. They declared war on the city as a whole." If there was zeal in using one's power thus, crude as it was, there was also a mandate: If good citizens needed to fight racism, why not start at home? The food world, which arguably more than any industry had put Portland on the cultural map, was the first target.

Y Ricker, whose restaurant Pok Pok was the only place the late Pulitzer Prize-winning food writer Jonathan Gold wanted me to take him when he visited Portland in the early 2010s, was called out for making Thai food while not being Thai.

"The Portland police are murdering all our black friends in the streets!" a young woman shouted at me that night, by way of explaining why she was lobbing flaming trash at the courthouse.

If Portland activists made their bones by playing the aggressed, by summer 2020 they had become fully the aggressors.

With not much squinting, Portland activists and those who supported them saw selflessness in trashing the courthouse; in setting fire to Justice Center and trapping employees in the basement; in erecting a guillotine on the roof of the police union; in squeezing little piggy toys in the faces of officers and yelling, "KILL YOURSELF!"; in dancing around a street fire set in front of the mayor's condo and demanding that "Teargas Ted" resign.

The activists, with ample support, sang in one voice in Portland: They were the ones who were going to tell the story.

"We've started carrying in Portland, and overall, we've gotten a great reception," one young man told me.

https://reason.com/2021/03/22/the-dream-of-the-90s-died-in-portland/