Andrew Jerzy, the son of Polish immigrants who fled World War II, grew up in a circle of southern California Democrats amid the cultural and political uptime of the 1960s.
Following another trail of many members of his generation, he was an unwavering Republican to the conservative vote, listening to Rush Limbaugh, and protecting gun rights. He kept his attractions to himself. Construction contractor in Sandy, Oregon, east of Portland, the liberal home of many of his clients, knew his policy could be bad for business.
This summer, however, he began attending rallies and caravans of President Trump and the police, an activism that has put him in close collaboration with organizations such as the Proud Boys, which have ties to white supremacists and advocate for taking up arms as opposed to the distant. Left. .
Newcomers to pro-Trump protests, “return to blue” protests say the social justice protests that have broken out in Portland since the possible murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis are motivated by the displeasure of violence. The defender of the right and the police killing of an anti-phascist suspected of his death make Oregon an over-edited polarization of the country in recent weeks that led to the election.
Trump refused Tuesday to convict white supremacist teams and white nationalists. When asked in his debate with Joe Biden to disallow the Proud Boys, a popular organization in Oregon, the president said the organization deserves to “take a step back and stay away” from the organization’s control. saw the comments, which Trump sought to recoil Wednesday, as an endorsement similar to the one he gave to white supremacists who marched in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017.
The riots in Portland and other cities this year have been a tough recruiting tool for organizations such as Proud Boys, Patinsurrection Prayer and Three Percenters. with antifa activists in Portland last year and who was recently photographed with a former Ku Klux Klan member.
The appeal of the far right is not as brutal as its slogans: people like Jerzy who show up at rallies are not dressed in camouflage or AR-15, they say they do not tolerate violence or racism, but they must resist what they see. as a worrying liberal and anti-American tide. They are angry and disillusioned, feeling that their voices are drowned out through the country’s demographics and identity of conversion.
Jerzy, 66, who spoke on the condition of being known through her middle call to protect her business, embraces the American dream her father was looking for and sees Black Lives Matter as a Marxist organization.
Jerzy, a staunch supporter of the Second Amendment, carries a concealed gun and needs Portland to take strong action against protesters he considers child abuse. He said he is not racist and has no qualms about status in solidarity with Patriot Prayer.
“They call them a far-right organization, but they don’t, it’s a Christian organization that believes in God, as a circle of relatives and as a patriot,” he said.
Despite its progressive reputation, Oregon is a red state east of the Cascade Mountains, with a history of exclusion from black citizens until the 20th century. Extremist teams such as the Three Percents, who joined the armed take-in of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in eastern Oregon in 2016, the state a fertile recruiting territory.
They see “their task of interfering and imposing order,” said Cassie Miller, senior analyst at southern poverty law center.
Many classical conservatives felt besathed and open to excessive tactics even before this year’s riots. A nationally representative Organization of Republicans survey conducted in January through Larry Bartels, professor of political science at Vanderbilt University, found that little more than the respondents agreed that “The classic American lifestyle is disappearing so temporarily that we might have to use force to save it.
More than 40% agreed that “there will come a time when patriotic Americans will have to do themselves justice. “
The right temporarily discovered heroes amid the chaos of racial justice protests.
A Kyle Rittenhouse, the 17-year-old who said he had come to protest in Kenosha, Wisconsin, to protect business and was arrested and charged with murder for the shooting death of two unarmed men on August 25. -defense, shooting at them for trying to capture their AR-15 rifle.
Another Aaron “Jay” Danielson, a 39-year-old Patriot Prayer fan who police say killed through an antifa supporter in Portland on August 29 after a pro-Trump truck caravan of more than six hundred, adding Jerzy, collided with protesters left on the downtown wing. Danielson’s call is now popular in Rallies T-shirts in conservative communities around Portland.
Black Lives Matter activists occasionally appear. Howl and push fights followed, between members carrying Proud Boys rifles, which the Southern Poverty Law Center classifies as a hate organization and which includes a number of ethnic teams in its ranks. held a demonstration there on Saturday, but a large police presence helped prevent clashes.
Some of the rhetoric echoes republican existence – “law and order,” small government, fiscal disease – before turning to more excessive territory. At a rally in Salem, Oregon, on September 7, a speaker who embraced the QAnon conspiracy theory said Democratic leaders will be “massacred on the streets” for pushing what he called a “pedophile agenda” for LGBTQ rights.
It’s hard to gauge the duration of extremist teams or their expansion in recent months, but Amy Herzfeld-Copple, director of systems at the Western States Center, a Portland-based organization that tracks those teams, said they had a developing presence. it provided them with “opportunities for their political power” and “incited political, civil and democratic chaos” “.
Other experts said the message in favor of far-right police also attracted him to law enforcement, which normalized additional prospects that were once radical.
Rebecca Crymer, a common player at flag rallies in the Portland area, mentions that she is an extremist.
The 27-year-old American census officer considers himself “a type of Weeaboo anime,” in reference to enthusiasts obsessed with Japanese comics and video games. Raised in Hawaii, where his father retired as an Air Force colonel, Crymer registered at 18 as a Republican, but said he rejected Trump’s crude statements and voted for him reluctantly.
She moved to Oregon two years ago with her husband, an army recruiter who discovers Portland a complicated job to work with. When Crymer first appeared at a rally to wave the flag, other protesters looked at his piercings on his face, black blouses and skinny jeans. and accused her of being a left-wing infiltrator.
“I say, “No, I love America, ” he said.
She dispelled all remaining doubts when she joined the pro-Trump caravan that ended Danielson’s death, and throwing dog feces at her reinforced her determination for the cause.
He has a strong supporter of Trump, and endorses his positions on law enforcement and the Second Amendment as the country is more violent, he said.
“I don’t have a gun, but now I have one, ” said Crymer, with a container of dough hanging in his front pocket.
At the heart of the far-right message is the concept that the United States is facing an existential crisis. This perspective is less difficult to provide as crises multiply: coronavirus, civil unrest and wildfires.
Carol Robinson, 73, a retired receptionist from a working-class family, did not vote for Trump or Hillary Clinton in 2016, but has since been drawn to Trump’s positions on “law and order” and military spending. When the protests began, convinced that Black Lives Matter is a socialist motion and that the police’s complaint is unwarranted. “The police are hated by almost everyone by a few bad cops,” he said.
Robinson joined his first rally in favor of the police in June. He waved a back-the-blue flag in Portland twice a week outside the Multnomah County Justice Center. Participants write messages of blue paper hearts and paste them into the building, only to see them ripped off. other people who resent the police.
She plans to vote for Trump and vote for Republicans in November.
Times editor Melissa Etehad in Los Angeles contributed to the report.