Washington • They do things differently in Portland, but not because it is a foreign country, although many Americans might wish it were: At this moment, it is one national embarrassment too many. Rather, the tumults in Portland, which is a petri dish of progressivism, perhaps reveal something about Oregon’s political DNA. A century ago, the state was a bastion of reaction.
Recently in Portland, an "intersectional" feminist bookstore ("intersectionality" postulates that society's victims — basically, everyone but white males — suffer interlocking and overlapping victimizations), which appeared in the television series "Portlandia," closed. It blamed its failure not on a scarcity of customers but on an excess of "capitalism," "white supremacy" and "patriarchy.