Thursday, October 1, 2026
I’m angry. I’m not mad at aphids or powdery mildew though; I’m riled up because last Saturday Donald Trump announced that he told Pete Hegseth “to provide all necessary Troops to protect War ravaged Portland, and any of our ICE Facilities under siege from attack by Antifa, and other domestic terrorists.”
Portland — The Rose City — had four protesters in front of its Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE ) facility on the day Trump made this demented comment about a “War ravaged" city.
In addition to roses, Portland is home to my Ulysses S. Grant High School memories. It’s the place where the girl next door, who I used to babysit, is now a successful artist and teacher. It’s the home of Powell’s Books, an immense independent bookstore. A piece of my heart is there.
Like Olympia, Portland had some crazy times in the wake of George Floyd’s death five years ago. Windows of downtown businesses were broken time after time. There were repeated episodes of far-left vandalism and violence. Here in Olympia, protesters even besieged and vandalized our mayor’s family home.
Today, both Portland and Olympia have calmed down. This year’s “No Kings” protests, for example, have been overwhelmingly peaceful.
Now, it’s the ICE arrests that are out of control and sometimes violent. Innocent people, including American citizens, are being swept up. An overwhelmed immigration judicial system, charged with deciding who stays and who gets deported, is clogged and sometimes criminally slow, leaving more people detained longer. It can also be criminally fast, deporting people in violation of their rights to due process.
Under these circumstances, it would be a shame if there weren’t protests at ICE facilities all over the country. Protesters embody our national conscience.
A second round of rage-bait came just a few days after Trump’s troops to Portland announcement, when he spoke to all the generals and senior officers of the U. S. military for 73 minutes. His speech was comparable in its display of dementia to Joe Biden’s fateful reelection debate speech, but Trump’s was more colorful and frightening.
“We should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military, our National Guard,” Trump said. He suggested that quelling urban protests could be an important part of their job descriptions.
Portland, Oregon, he repeated, “looks like a war zone. And I get a call from the liberal governor, sir, please don't come in, we don't need you. I said, well, unless they're playing false tapes, this looked like World War II. Your place is burning down. I mean, you must be kidding. Sir, we have it under control. I said, you don't have it under control, governor, but I'll check it and I'll call you back.
“I called him back, I said, you — this place is a nightmare. It's probably — it's certainly not the biggest, but it's one of the worst. It's brutal.”
Trump had reportedly recently seen video of Portland in the throes of 2020 racial justice protest violence. That’s not exactly fake news, but it sure is old and outdated news.
And FYI, Tina Kotek, Oregon’s governor, is not a “him.”
Imagining federal troops, authorized by Trump to use “full force” in downtown Portland or Olympia — or any other American city — made my fear and fury bubble up hourly, like Old Faithful, for several days. How far down this road to the abolition of democracy have we gone? How can we turn around?
Slowly, I remembered that my fear and anger are not going to change anyone’s opinions.
I reminded myself that many people are afraid of immigrants, afraid of losing what they want to think of as a traditional, white Christian nation, or afraid of losing a social and economic status that seems to be slipping away as prices never stop rising.
In a democracy, those opinions matter: the people who hold them were among the majority of voters who elected Donald J. Trump. We need to listen to them and find ways to open our minds to each other. We can’t reverse the direction of our national government without taking this step.
Immigrants and protesters are not, as Trump thinks, “the enemy within.” On the contrary, we should all be proud to be a nation of both indigenous and immigrant people. We should be proud that we have the right to peaceful protest.
The troops are not enemies within either. They didn’t choose this assignment, and it’s not what they signed up for.
Our most dangerous enemies within are within us: they’re our own fear and anger.
It’s taken nearly a week to get past the stomach-turning grief of seeing a city I love targeted by a feeble, deranged man trying to deploy the military to vanquish imaginary enemies.
The flame of my anger won’t go out, but it’s gone down. Now it’s time to direct that energy toward doing something productive.
We can all work to protect our immigrant neighbors and those who, to ICE officers, look like they might be immigrants. (ICE vehicles were driving around the downtown Olympia food bank recently; we don’t know what they’ll do next.) We can learn how to help by contacting the Washington Immigrant Solidarity Network.
And we can learn how complicated immigration policy is from this Bloomberg site. Somehow, sometime, we have to find compromises. Congress’s prolonged failure to pass a comprehensive immigration reform bill helped lead the way to this tumble into the abyss of extremism. Trump and his policy puppet-masters capitalize on it.
It’s up to all of us to think carefully, breathe deeply, and aim our energy and intentions toward the core ideas of our constitution: We live in a democracy. We recognize that all people are created equal and endowed with the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
It is our nation’s purpose to make progress toward living up to those ideals with every passing generation. Right now, that historic burden is on our shoulders.
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PeggyJoZim
Thank you Jill! I wholehearted agree with everything you wrote in your column. Mr. Trump has become a Dictator and it is up to all of us to recognize that and resist wherever and when ever we can. The latest ICE “storm trooping” a Chicago neighborhood is something we all need to see, hear, listen and demand better treatment. Really, tying the hands of children. It all makes me very, very sad.
Friday, October 3, 2025 Report this
Dorothygist
Bravo and thank you Jill. Portland and Olympia are full of compassionate people who also know how to have fun, celebrate each other and welcome diversity.
Friday, October 3, 2025 Report this
PegGerdes
Thank you, Jill Severn. Well said, and exactly what needs to happen. And We the People will continue to forcefully and peacefully protest and rally and push back until we see change.
Saturday, October 4, 2025 Report this
hptrillium
Thanks for writing what so many are thinking. We need to learn how to do nonviolent civil disobedience and resistance so that we will be prepared when the craziness comes to our town. We need to stand up and support each other with love for all.
Saturday, October 4, 2025 Report this
NewToOly
Thank you for writing about something that we all care about.. and that is: What in the world is happening to America? And thank you to The JOLT for publishing your opinion. Freedom of speech is one of the things we must keep fighting for.
Saturday, October 4, 2025 Report this
IleneP
Thank you for using your platform to give voice to what we see happening all across our country.
Free Speech is being curtailed, innocent people are being arrested, detained and deported and “Blue cities and States” targeted.
I urge everyone who feels like this has to stop, to get involved. Join us on Oct 18 at the Capitol for a peaceful protest to demonstrate we do not want to live in an authoritarian dictatorship.
Saturday, October 4, 2025 Report this
Holley
Thank you so much for writing this. I agree 100% and stand with the people who cherish our right to free speech, assembly and who want to protect innocent hard working people from racial targeting and imprisonment. I have been visiting women detainees at the NWIPC and the stories I’m hearing from detainees grabbed from their children and families break my heart. They face totally uncertain and often frightening forced deportation to countries they left for safety decades ago. Two women there are pregnant and receive no prenatal care.
I keep showing up to our Olympia demonstrations and will be there for The No Kings Rally on Oct 18. I pray that these massive rally’s across the country will be non violent. That we resist agitators that want us to act up. Let us be peacemakers in every way we can including being better listeners and Better Angels with our own neighbors who have fallen for the Authoritarian Administration’s lies.
Keep writing and publishing Jill. May we all have the courage to speak truth to power.
Holley Rauen
Olympia
Saturday, October 4, 2025 Report this
Boatyarddog
Thank you for your thoughts, so many agree to. A Leadership Change is Needed. Less than a year into this Insane POTUS Adminestration. The America I've Known is Struggling, and only by the Strokes of His Sharpie. I did not think it could be possiable to not have Political Protections in Place for these Rogue Adimnestrators. We must come together and Unify our Voices in Peaceful Prolonged Protest. Good will prevail.
Saturday, October 4, 2025 Report this
TheVirtualOne
No gardening in today’s column.
The law enforcement officers are being attacked by some of these so-called “protesters”. They have been targeted for doing their jobs. I have seen it with my own eyes. Shot at, rammed with vehicles, assaulted. They need protection and local authorities are not providing them with the level of security needed. Reporters, the very people who are practicing professionals of the first amendment, are being beaten, intimidated, and forced to retreat from their jobs.
There needs to be immediate action to get rid of any laws and policies that support illegal immigration. That means we have to stop giving sanctuary to illegal immigrants and direct them to apply for citizenship through the federal systems. Anything less is not acceptable. A good example of this would be the $150 million that was allocated by the Washington state legislature in the last session to provide health insurance benefits to non-citizens. That’s real taxpayer dollars that are being used to directly support 15,000 illegal immigrants. There are an additional 17,000 illegal immigrants waitlisted for that same benefit. Washington has become a welfare state, with 1 in 4 people on Medicaid, at a total cost of $21 billion per year. That’s 2 million people, with $13 billion being paid by the federal government and $8 billion by Washington state. Everyone is paying for this. That has got to stop. In addition, over $1 billion in federally funded projects have now been halted because of all these violations by our state government. Those are real jobs that our economy could have benefited from if the state leaders would not take these liberal policies. Reversing the previous administrations refusal to enforce this country’s immigration laws and protect our borders is now a messy affair. James Buchanan did something similar prior to the Civil War. He didn’t take seriously the attacks against the Union and terrorizing against blacks that took place. He did nothing. This is what happens when there is a vacuum of leadership in the previous administration. It comes to back to haunt us.
Sunday, October 5, 2025 Report this
Snevets
Thank you for this column Jill. No war ravaged sights, just folks out enjoying the beautiful Fall weather in one of the most wonderful cities in the country.
Portland like so many other cities in this country is experiencing the plights that the trump administration us inflicting on the hard working people that live there.
So typical of the trump administration to continue to blame the Biden administration when trump has now been in office almost 5 years and has not done ANYTHING but inflict pain &cruelty on our fellow human beings
So typical of the trump administration to use scenes from a different time of unrest to stir up their base.
Monday, October 6, 2025 Report this
WayTooOld
Thank you, Jill.
Saturday, October 11, 2025 Report this