Living Behind Enemy Lines, Tale #2: “Tolerant” Neighbors Spew Hatred

Take Note: Joanna’s Liberal/Marxist neighbor is so in love with fascism that she paid hundreds of dollars for a sign to promote hatred toward her neighbors and destruction of her city. Will she change her mind when the mob burns down HER house?

This article is second in a series.  At the end of “Living Behind Enemy Lines: Tale #1,” I asked my subscribers to send me their experiences.  Here is Joanna’s experiences when she lived behind enemy lines in Portland, Oregon:

“I saw some of our friends (neighbors) parade down our street, on the 4th of July (2020) no less, chanting the names of George Floyd and Briana Taylor.  Kids were riding their bikes with their fists on the air while their parents carried BLM and resist signs and defund the police signs. I was so disgusted! I yelled out to them:  ‘Where’s your flag!?!’ Not a single person wore red, white or blue.  It was alllllll black.  In that moment, my daughter turned to me and said mom, they’re going to think you’re racist!!  She was 10 at the time.  That was probably the moment I knew we HAD to get out of Portland.  Let me be clear: Our friends were part of one of the daily ongoing protests throughout the city, that would start and stop in various locations, not the violent riots that took place in the evenings.  The daytime protests turned into the BLM/Antifa riots as evening approached.”

Fourth of July 2020: Residents of Portland & burbs endured nightly terrorism like this for five months.

JOANNA’S NEIGHBORS COULD NOT CONTAIN THEIR HATRED

Joanna, an educated stay-at-home mother in her 40s, had long known she & her husband, Steve,* were political minorities living in the historic Irvington District of Portland, Oregon, close to downtown: approximately 10% registered Republicans and 90% registered Democrats & Non-Affiliated voters, who mostly vote for Democrat candidates.  They did not notice any animus towards them during the 2008 McCain/Obama election nor when Romney challenged Obama in 2012.  Joanna felt comfortable discussing politics with her neighbors.

In 2016, especially after Trump became the GOP nominee that summer, Joanna’s neighbors started expressing hatred toward Conservatives & Republicans.  Her kids were very young then and her husband travelled a lot for work, so Joanna sought out fellowship in many groups.  She was involved in several social groups: mothers’ groups, neighbors’ groups, and people at the park.  The hatred became very apparent, very early, through horrible comments about Trump or conservatism in general. It was a difficult time for her. This, despite the fact that virtually every Democrat assumed Queen Hillary would win in a landslide, and the polls backed them up.

Joanna’s neighbors were not tolerant of others’ voting rights.

Eventually, it got to the point where Joanna had to just come right out and express that she was planning to vote for Trump.  [Portlanders assume everyone is a Liberal.]**  Joanna did not start out as a Trump supporter, but quickly she came to support him because of the way the Republican Party tried to oust him. That is when she knew the DC Swamp was real and plagued both parties.

Things got really ugly, really fast, in Joanna’s neighborhood.***  She started noticing, throughout this upscale neighborhood of older homes, a massive movement: resistance to everything without a full understanding of the issues themselves, without studying the underlying data and without trying to understand the facts.  Everything was surface-oriented, emotionally driven, and simply a repeat of media talking points. Yard signs popped up everywhere in 2016 and were still on proud display in 2020 when Joanna & her family escaped.  

The neighborhood hate fests started at random corners and then proceeded down a set path and ultimately ended at one of the inner city parks.  [Portland has a lot of parks!]  Irving Park, six blocks from Joanna’s house, was a hot spot for protest gatherings.  Steve biked there during one gathering.  No one was masked, it was a total party atmosphere, BLM signs everywhere.  Sheer madness!  Joanna got caught up in a protest just going for a jog, suddenly hearing chants, coming up to a street full of people of all ages, including children, so many children screaming hate toward their neighbors.  For days, weeks and months on end people gathered with signs at a corner soliciting honks for Blacks Lives Matter violence, or Defund the Police, etc.  Random protests sprouted up.  These Useful Idiots actually believed there was systematic racism in Portland.

These neighbors were so full of hate they actually paid someone to paint “Stop Trump” on their house.

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JOANNA’S NEIGHBORS PROMOTED VIOLENCE

Joanna could no longer have an honest conversation with most of her friends and family.  Once, when there was a conversation about race, she mentioned the violence and destruction by Antifa and BLM rioters in downtown Portland.  The sentiment expressed by her neighbors was that violent protests and movements are sometimes necessary to accomplish real change.  [The 2020 domestic terrorists had no “change” in mind other than indiscriminately hurting other people and destroying civil dialogue.]  Joanna did not entirely disagree with that logic. After all, there could be a time, she reasoned, when she felt liberty and freedom were at such risk that there might be a need for protests and movements wherein Americans had to resort to violence or destruction.  She does not condone such actions, but she could understand why it might finally get to that point.

That said, Joanna believes, that if people really cared about helping black Americans, they would aim their efforts toward addressing core issues such as increased educational opportunities to improve reading and math skills in black youth, or the importance of the nuclear family in the black community.  She said these changes, among others, should be sought at the local level and through the Oregon legislative body, not with violence that put people and businesses at risk. That solves nothing.

The violence certainly did not help real black lives. Joanna said she had a long list of ideas, but that few of her neighbors wanted to discuss them. The only solution she heard ad nauseam was to defund the police.  THAT, in Joanna’s opinion, was the worse solution ever and would only serve to undermine the so-called efforts to help black people!!

Joanna knew they could never put out a yard sign because that would result in a rock through their window and/or graffiti on their house or garage, MUCH like the experiences in Tale No. One, SEE BELOW.  She was forced to tell her kids to lay low or else they might get singled out in school.  Her children learned so much from watching adults who claim to be tolerant, being totally intolerant. 

Joanna and her family moved to a burb outside Knoxville, Tennessee while the 2020 riots were still raging. They love it there!

I WANT YOUR “LIVING BEHIND ENEMY LINES” STORIES

Democrats/Liberals living in areas dominated by Republicans/Conservatives feel a lot more comfortable than vice versa.  Conservatives have a “live & let live” attitude and do not bully Liberals.  Liberals have little respect for those holding different views and often feel free to bully & harass their Conservative co-workers, neighbors, etc.  Conservatives jokingly call this “living behind enemy lines.”   

I want to hear your stories about living behind enemy lines.  How do your “left-wing” neighbors treat you?  What do you do to protect your safety and your sanity?  Do you pretend to be a Liberal in order to keep your job?  Did your Democrat friends & colleagues call you names and abandon you when Trump won?  Has someone called the police because your house flies an American flag?  Do you have a “Karen” for a neighbor? I want to hear your stories of survival: amusing stories, scary stories, disgusting stories, anything you want to tell me.

Please send your story directly to me at Diane@PeninsulaPatriots.com. This is a ProtonMail address which is encrypted, secure from the thought police. I will protect your privacy: I just need your first name, the town’s name, the state’s name and your story of living behind enemy lines.

LIVING BEHIND ENEMY LINES: TALE #1

As I am saying goodbye to my beloved Solara, I am remembering what it was like to live behind enemy lines: We lived in West Linn, a suburb of Portland, Oregon, until December 2020. This is a Blue Metro Area in a Blue State. Beginning in the 1990s only reckless Oregonians dared to put any type of “conservative” or GOP bumper sticker on their cars. If…

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*Steve was a lifelong democrat, from a family of lifelong democrats.  He changed his voter registration to Independent in 2020, and now considers himself a Republican.

**One characteristic of a Liberal/Democrat is arrogance and extreme self-centeredness: they think they are the only people on earth. They live in protected bubbles which cannot be penetrated with facts & logic.  

***Joanna’s neighbor said: “If Trump wins, we’re going to move to India,” where her husband immigrated from.  Ha!  This neighbor was still screaming from the porch of her Portland home when Joanna and family moved out before the 2020 election.

The author, Diane L. Gruber, is a First Amendment advocate who writes for Substack. She calls her Substack newsletter America First Re-Ignited.  

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