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President Donald Trump tonight formally accepted the Republican Party nomination for a second term in the White House and asked Americans to give him four more years in power—or risk turning the entire nation into Portland.
Trump's acceptance speech featured an unflattering shout-out to this city, which the president said had defunded the police and thus replaced law enforcement with anarchy.
"Make no mistake: If you give power to Joe Biden, the radical left will defund police departments all across America," Trump said on the White House's lawn. "They will pass federal legislation to reduce law enforcement nationwide. They will make every city look like Democrat-run Portland, Oregon. No one will be safe in Biden's America."
The fixation with Portland is not a new feature of Trump's remarks.
The city's uprising against police killings of Black people is a feature of his stump speech. He has mentioned Portland's ostensible chaos regularly since deploying federal police here in early July to quell protests and property damage at the Mark O. Hatfield U.S. Courthouse. It is clear from his remarks that he watches with interest the videos of violence in Portland aired on Fox News and other cable television networks.
But the prominence with which Portland was featured on the nation's largest political stage showed that, for Trump and his acolytes, Portland has become a shorthand for lawlessness.
Protests are expected to continue for a 91st night tonight.
Related: How Angry Is Donald Trump at Portland This Week? We Updated the Presidential Rage-O-Meter.