Portland Re-Emerges as Woke Zombie HQ

“Cancel culture” — now that’s a phrase most of us haven’t heard in a long time. Even as critical theory’s foot soldiers continue to entrench themselves in our institutions, waiting for the perfect opportunity to go over the top, it still seems like a relic of a bygone age.

But the era of social media shout-downs and career-ruining nothingburger scandals is still alive and well in Portland, Oregon. Consider the story of Braiden Bell, who had been hired as the new play-by-play broadcaster for the Portland Trail Blazers on October 1st. Within 24 hours of his appointment, the team fired Bell. His crime? An assortment of mildly offensive tweets about women and minorities posted to his Twitter account.

From 2012.

When he was 15 years old.

Bell is far from the city’s only victim. Lewis & Clark College jettisoned its 80-year-old “Pioneer” mascot into the sun, prompted in large part by complaints citing its “[inextricable] link to settler colonialism.” The university also rejected a Newfoundland (as in, the big, friendly dog) as a replacement mascot because this idea “ignored” the long indigenous presence on the Canadian island. Meanwhile, multiple private venues around the city have canceled performances and parades out of fear that there might be *gasp* Republicans involved.

It may be easy to dismiss this nonsense as simply Portland being Portland. But the kind of insanity that deems a dog a colonizer and liberty-oriented politics to be verboten doesn’t stay in one place.

After all, the city punches well above its weight in terms of its intellectual and social influence. While no TV show puts “Portland!” in big, bright letters (Portlandia notwithstanding), the city is right in the mix in developing some of the country’s worst ideas. Not only do the likes of Intel, Nike, and Adidas operate major offices there, but the city is home to a bustling animation industry, plenty of film and media outfits, and even many comic book writers. Oregon also has among the highest union membership rates in the country, and Portland is at the center of it.

The city’s gobbledygook seems to be at the heart of far too many bad ideas. Who pioneered the now-commonplace idea that we should bleed people progressives deem to be too rich compared to their employees dry with extra income taxes? Portland. When the country lit itself on fire for an entire summer in 2020, who burned longer than anyone else? Portland. And earlier this year, when a group of Jewish educators sued the National Education Association for failing to protect them from discrimination and harassment at their most recent conference, where was that conference held? Portland.

On the nonprofit front, Seeding Justice, a Portland-based organization, helped pioneer the model in which “equity” is the North Star. In other words, they were one of the first organizations to center social justice in everything they do. Their mission includes “cultural preservation and Native sovereignty, tuition equity for undocumented students, worker empowerment, and early funding for controversial ideas.”

Sound familiar? Major progressive donors like the Hewlett Foundation and George Soros’ Open Society Foundation now do the same thing. Whether they directly learned from Portland or not (both organizations have extensive infrastructure within the city), the city clearly acts as an incubator for ideas that eventually go mainstream. Within a few decades, what begins in Oregon can engulf the entire nation.

This is why Braiden Bell’s firing matters. One sportscaster’s fate does not make a national crisis, but this is unlikely to be a one-off circumstance. The cavalcade of cancellations that engulfed the nation during “peak woke” began with isolated instances like these. More importantly, they often began in places like Portland.

The good news is that Americans are tired of playing along. Instead of the ravenous rage mobs that supported every cancellation a few years back, most people reacted to Bell’s firing with confusion or alarm. Simply put, very few people want to recreate the Spanish Inquisition for every stupid joke, political disagreement, or instance of adolescent debauchery.

But Portland appears to have missed the sanity bus. In that city, tweets more than a decade old can sink a promising professional career, a big, fluffy dog can be offensive to indigenous memory, and the mere presence of a Republican can send organizations hurtling towards institutional collapse.

There is nothing wrong with laughing at Portland. In fact, I highly recommend it. But we should take what happens there seriously.