Yesterday there was a march and protest in Portland. Our younger son and his wife work in the theater, which means that they are nearly always downtown on Saturdays. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is on stage at the Keller. The A.P. reported: “Flag-waving members of the Proud Boys and Three Percenters militia group began gathering late in the morning, some wearing body armor and helmets.” Proud Boys are designated as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. The white nationalist American Guard also said it would have members in Portland. Local news reported, “Steven Howard, a Vancouver resident who was the Imperial Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan in Mississippi, told KOIN 6 News he will attend the protest on Saturday.”

The tweeter-in-chief: “ ‘Major consideration is being given to naming ANTIFA an ‘ORGANIZATION OF TERROR’, the president wrote from his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey on Saturday morning. ‘Portland is being watched very closely. Hopefully the Mayor will be able to properly do his job!’ ” The actual marchers—such as Proud Boys, self-described as the all-male western chauvinists—are bigots, but the president didn’t say a word against them.

Portland mayor Ted Wheeler said of Trump’s tweet: “Frankly, it’s not helpful. This is a potentially dangerous and volatile situation, and adding to that noise doesn’t do anything to support or help the efforts that are going on here in Portland.”

The president expressed concern only about those protesting the protesters, Antifa, but it is the Proud Boys who threaten to return to Portland streets every month: “Sooner or later, [Portland mayor Ted Wheeler] will run out of money and his counterparts in government will no longer take him seriously. The path forward for Mayor Wheeler is simple, free your city from the grip of Antifa, take direct and meaningful action.”

In the mean time, police seized weapons from and arrested thirteen participants. None of these people represent Portland’s community. Only four minor injuries were treated and reported by medics on the scene, but it was a tough day for police officers.

“We receive criticism no matter what. It’s either too much, not enough, you arrested this group and not this group,” Portland Police Bureau spokeswoman Tina Jones said. “It seems like some people are keeping score, and that’s not what it’s about on the law enforcement side. One hundred percent, it’s about public safety.”

My husband and I worried about the police presence and their safety, ordinary shoppers and shop-keepers, working people, and the safety of our family. We worry because Trump has taken sides and fanned the flames of violence. Again.

We don’t think any of these extreme groups are representative of our nation.

An Op-Ed in The Washington Post reveals how a fake article by a fake “real live worker” calling himself Archie Carter, not only outwitted (biased) fact checkers to find publication but “sheds light on the way right-leaning commentators depend on the voice of an imagined white working class to legitimize and advance their own viewpoints — viewpoints that are often opposed to those of the real working class.”

Before the gunman killed 22 people, authorities believe he wrote, “I am simply defending my country from cultural and ethnic replacement brought on by an invasion.”

This polity — white working class, racist, xenophobic, misogynist, homophobic — is just as imaginary as Archie Carter.

We are better than that. A lot better. Most all of us descend from or are immigrants in the United States. We get it. The right, especially the reactionary extreme right we are seeing in Congress and in the White House and all over certain media outlets, is wrong about who Americans are and what we believe.

Working class people overwhelmingly voted for Hillary Rodham Clinton by a 10 point spread. “Reagan actually lost union and low-income households to Jimmy Carter.” Working people, actual middle class and working class people are not so racist, xenophobic, misogynist, and homophobic as the Right likes to believe.

Most Americans do not share these vile views. Most Americans find the Proud Boys Western Chauvinists, Patriot Prayer, KKK, and Antifa, who protested in Portland to be despicable. (We might even call them “deplorable.”) Most Americans are opposed to the hate speech we hear coming from the White House. Most Americans did not vote for him and continue to oppose him.

Yet, he still lies: “I got it approved. Veterans Choice,” Trump has claimed more than eighty times, of the program signed into law by Obama in 2014. Thousands of lies, lies every day, every time he tweets or talks. Such bizarre things come from him that it’s hard to joke about what he might do. Nothing is too outrageous. He would like to buy Greenland. Yes, really.

Political satire begins to sound reasonable. The Borowitz Report suggests that Denmark might offer to purchase the United States. Perhaps we could benefit from national health care, education, and reasonable compromise in pursuit of common goals? Heck, let’s give ourselves away. Isn’t that what we are doing already?

Denmark, come and get us!