To understand how Portland fits into the political situation you have to understand what happened in Portland to make it blow up like this from a political standpoint, and it wasn't a right v left fight.

It was a police vs human rights fight from the start, and many supposed liberals were on the side of the police, and still are. Including the mayor.

The mayor of Portland is a Democrat, why does it have one of the worst police departments in he country?

Until you ask yourself that question you can't understand any of this.

Who gets denied human rights by police in Portland? BIPOC, houseless, poor, mentally ill, disabled. People without power get harmed to defend the sensibilities of the middle class.

Sorry, the white middle class.

And the side that has been saying the police will reform while the police continue to harm and kill people has been the democrats who own homes and businesses in the area.

As well as the conserves and the others who might openly believe that it's OK to hurt people, there's a whole bunch of other who know it's not OK but think stopping it would mean more problems for them.

Now write that story in national terms and you get an idea of why this is an intractable problem.