Updated 12:12 p.m.

Summer is a time for bike rides and cold craft beer in Portland. Lately, it’s also been a time for bear spray and bursts of violence.

For nearly three years, rival political factions have descended on the city’s downtown. They’ve vented and raged. Too often, they’ve beaten and brawled with one another.

The demonstrations will return next week when right-wing activists from around the country plan to hold a waterfront rally to condemn anti-fascists, or antifa, and push to have their adversaries designated as domestic terrorists.

This time police and city leaders are more alarmed than usual.

“We’ve been sitting on a powder keg and everything is kind of coming to a head at this point,” Police Chief Danielle Outlaw told The Oregonian/OregonLive in an interview this week. “Not just because of what’s happening locally, but nationally.”

Cities across the U.S. have seen street skirmishes erupt between right- and left-wing groups since Donald Trump entered the White House, yet Portland has emerged as one of the most contested centers in the country’s culture wars.

Fanning the flames is the zeitgeist of incendiary political rhetoric, including recent remarks by President Trump, that has deepened divisions and resentment as partisan lines harden nationwide.

But a large share of the turmoil is Portland’s alone. Its long legacy of left-wing activism, notably its militant anti-fascists, has drawn the ire of the conservative movement as well as the pundits and politicians who lead it.

Meanwhile, the city’s liberal free speech tradition has allowed the bitter confrontations to continue while police struggle to keep the peace.

“It’s undeniable that the far-right has been able to achieve the outcome they’re looking for by coming here again and again,” said Lindsay Schubiner, program director for social justice group Western States Center, which monitors right-wing extremism from its base in Portland. “Whether that’s direct violence or viral media clips.”

ASSIGNING BLAME

Looming over next Saturday will be the double mass shootings in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, that have outraged many Americans and left them looking to assign blame.

In El Paso, authorities say a 21-year-old white man shot and killed 22 people at a Walmart and later confessed to officers that he targeted Mexicans. Most of the dead had Hispanic last names and eight were Mexican nationals.

The suspected gunman also published a manifesto before the rampage that railed against immigration and appears to echo language used by the president and his hardline supporters. The shooting has since sparked a widespread debate about whether to designate white supremacists as domestic terrorists.

Hours after the El Paso massacre, another armed man opened fire in an entertainment district in Dayton that left nine dead, including the suspect’s sister.

While federal investigators have offered no evidence that the Dayton shooting was politically inspired and continue to seek a clear motive, conservative news outlets and politicians have repeatedly highlighted the suspect’s apparent support for anti-fascists and liberal politicians on Twitter.

The focus culminated Wednesday with Trump using the Dayton shooter’s alleged political affiliation to draw an equivalency between him and the El Paso gunman.

“I don’t like it, any group of hate, whether it’s white supremacy, whether it’s any other kind of supremacy, whether it’s antifa,” he said.

“As I was saying, it just came out, the Dayton situation, he was a fan of antifa,” the president continued. “Nothing to do with Trump, but nobody mentions that.”

‘A CLEAR ESCALATION’

His remarks have converged with an event weeks in the making by two Florida men with large followings in the right-wing movement.

The “End To Domestic Terrorism” rally seeks to draw like-minded people from around the country to Tom McCall Waterfront Park as a show of force against antifa.

Participants plan to decry a June 29 attack against conservative writer Andy Ngo by black-clad demonstrators in Portland, video of which racked up millions of views online and generated days of national headlines.

They also back a U.S. Senate resolution to label antifa members as “domestic terrorists” sponsored by Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, who cited the assault and accused Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler of prohibiting police from arresting “left-wing anarchists.”

Trump, too, has addressed the Ngo attack and has said publicly in recent weeks that he’s open to cracking down on anti-fascist activists.

The ongoing attention has helped create a surge of interest in the upcoming rally, said organizer and former InfoWars staffer Joe Biggs. He expects to have up to 1,000 people in attendance.

The event also is getting help from Enrique Tarrio, national head of the Proud Boys, whose members describe themselves as “Western chauvinists” and opponents of Islam, feminism and liberal politics.

Proud Boys have routinely brawled with left-wing activists in the streets of Portland, New York and elsewhere.

Some supporters of the gathering have spoken openly online about bringing weapons to the Portland event and the desire to “exterminate” anti-fascist activists. Others have posted images depicting graphic beat downs, knives slicing the throats of enemies and corpses in body bags.

“Those represent a clear escalation from the rhetoric they’ve used before” said Stanislav Vysotsky, a sociologist at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater who has studied the conflict between right-wing and anti-fascist groups. “They’re infinitely more violent.”

Biggs in the last few days has tried to tone down the combustible exchanges, many that he led himself. He now says he wants a peaceful demonstration and has told his followers to keep their weapons at home.

“We’re not looking to throw punches or deliver brain bleeds,” Biggs said. “All we want is for the country to see antifa for who they are – the maskless thugs that run around and act above the law.”

‘COMMITED TO SHOWING UP’

Rose City Antifa, Portland’s homegrown, amorphous band of anti-fascist activists, is calling on supporters to turn out in opposition to the rally. The use of physical force isn’t out of the question.

“We will not allow Portland to be a playground for far-right violence,” said a Rose City spokesman who identified himself only by the first name David. “We will not shy away from defending the city or ourselves.”

Founded in 2007, the loosely organized group is considered one of the oldest and largest of its kind in the U.S. It often shields the identity of its members to avoid having them become targets of law enforcement or political enemies.

They publicly confront those who they believe espouse racist and bigoted views or seek to harm marginalized people. Some are willing to fight their adversaries in the streets. Others have clashed with police and destroyed property.

But the anonymous activists have also sought to soften their image in the face of mounting scrutiny.

“Anti-fascists are regular people: moms, teachers, carpenters, servers, healthcare workers, and veterans,” Rose City Antifa said last month in response to Cruz’s domestic terrorist resolution, which called out the group by name.

“Fighting against the oppression, bigotry, and violence that we call fascism requires ordinary people to do extraordinary things.”

Anti-fascists also mix among, and overlap with, the hodgepodge of social justice activists, anarchists and other radical groups at the center of Portland’s protest movement.

Raucous demonstrations have landed the city in the national spotlight more than a half-dozen times in the last 2 ½ years on issues ranging from Donald Trump’s election to immigration policy to police use of force.

But antifa supporters often gather simply to counter-protest right-wing activists such as Joey Gibson and his Vancouver-based group Patriot Prayer. Gibson began leading rallies and marches in Portland after Trump’s election and has been criticized for attracting white nationalists and others who promote hate.

“Anti-fascists are ideologically committed to showing up against them,” said Joe Lowndes, a professor of political science at the University of Oregon who studies social movements.

‘CONFLICT IS ALMOST GUARANTEED’

As the left- and right-wing clashes continue, Mayor Ted Wheeler acknowledges Portland’s protest tradition as a robust form of political expression. But he believes it’s been co-opted lately by people more interested in simply causing trouble than having any cogent discourse.

And in picking a fight with antifa, they’ll get one.

“I think they come to Portland because it gives them a platform,” he said this week. “They know that if they come here conflict is almost guaranteed.”

Though he doesn’t name names, Wheeler said, “There’s no question in my mind that some people are hiding behind the protections of the First Amendment but whose clearly stated intentions are to come here to commit acts of violence.”

Yet the mayor said his role in containing the tumult runs up against the state’s expansive civil liberties. Often, he is the lone voice among Portland’s elected leaders on the city’s ongoing protest clashes.

Oregon’s constitution carries unusually strong protections of free speech and expression that are broader than those of the federal level’s First Amendment and extend into all manner of public conduct in Oregon.

That legal framework has earned Oregon a reputation as a stalwart defender of free speech. But it has frustrated officials in Portland who wish to curtail violence at protests.

Wheeler drew a fierce backlash in June 2017 when he tried to derail a pro-Trump demonstration held only days after authorities accused Jeremy Christian of murdering two men aboard a MAX train after he launched into an anti-Muslim rant.

Last fall, concerns about free speech led the Portland City Council to reject an ordinance offered by the mayor and the police chief to restrict the time, place and manner of protests.

Wheeler has voiced similar concerns about a recent proposal by the police chief to bar protesters from wearing masks.

‘SHADES OF CHARLOTESVILLE’

As such, the outcome of demonstrations has hinged in large part on the strategy employed by Portland police to provide public safety and protect the First Amendment rights of participants.

The bureau has vacillated between having a heavy police presence aimed at keeping rival protest groups separated and taking a more hands-off approach even as factions sometimes have come to blows in the streets.

Both have led to controversy.

Police drew condemnation last August when officers fired dozens of flash-bang grenades and other less-lethal munitions at those protesting Patriot Prayer and Proud Boys downtown, injuring multiple demonstrators.

The bureau has also faced rebukes, from both the left and the right, for failing to make arrests in violent attacks captured on camera during the protests.

“We get criticized for doing too much, either arresting the wrong people or focusing our efforts on a side or using force. On the other hand, we get criticized for not doing enough,” Outlaw said.

The police chief said she agreed that protesters bent on violence may feel emboldened to return to Portland after seeing scenes captured from past protests showing bloody beatings occurring without immediate police intervention.

“It’s given a perception that we’re hands-off, and we’ve let the tail wag the dog,’’ Outlaw said.

In response, Wheeler and Outlaw have promised a larger turnout by police Aug. 17 and vowed to use the full force of the law against those who commit acts of violence and vandalism. City officials have been working with federal, state and local law enforcement agencies to secure the officers and equipment necessary to respond, Outlaw said.

The mayor and chief also have gone on video and given interviews, pledging to do what it takes to keep the city safe during the demonstration and urged trouble-seeking participants to stay away from Portland.

Vysotsky, the Wisconsin scholar, said he’s cautiously optimistic about the city’s new response.

But the build-up among some of the protest participants, he said, has him concerned about the possibility of a deadly confrontation like the one in Virginia when a white supremacist came from out of town and mowed down a counter-protesters with his car, killing one of them.

“In some ways,” he said, “this all has shades of Charlottesville.”

Oregonian/OregonLive staff writers Maxine Bernstein and Gordon Friedman contributed to this report.

-- Shane Dixon Kavanaugh; 503-294-7632

Email at skavanaugh@oregonian.com

Follow on Twitter @shanedkavanaugh

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