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The President is now offering to send federal help to other cities dealing with nightly protests.

I guess it’s because the decision to help in Portland was such a big success. Maybe more successful than the President expected, attracting a whole new group of protesters – not just the – but also former army officer Jenine Betschart who showed up in full uniform and said the Constitution was being violated.

“You don’t spray tear gas on peaceful protesters who have the constitutional right to peaceful assembly,” Betschart said.

Having served 16 years in military intelligence, she said she would never handle an adversary this way.

“The federal troops arrived and there’s all these peaceful protesters getting attacked. And it’s unacceptable. You don’t do that in a war zone. That’s bad policy in a war zone,” she said. “You want to win the hearts and minds, you want to de-escalate the situation, that’s how you get good intel – you build trust by doing the right things.”

But what if this wasn’t ABOUT de-escalation?

Because it appears that the Portland demonstrations were already de-escalating. Chanting gets boring; eventually even activists find better ways to spend an evening.

But when anonymous federal officers dressed in camouflage and dispatched by Donald Trump show up – now you have a fresh enemy!

Protesters get a second wind, video confrontations flood social media, and suddenly those terrifying COVID numbers are pushed to the bottom of the screen. Sounds like mission accomplished to me …

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