The last few months have been a surreal exercise in the media subjecting Americans to propaganda that defies all common sense, reverses cause and effect, claims things that are fundamentally untrue, and relies on its captive locked down audience having the attention span of meth-addicted gerbils.

Case in point.

After months of violent protests in Portland, and a resulting DHS deployment to protect federal property from violent Black Lives Matter rioters, the media began insisting that the violence was caused by the DHS deployment and that it would stop once federal agents left. 

Once a deal was struck, the media, led by the Washington Post, the greatest source of fake news in the country, owned by the richest man in the country, began shouting that the violence had ended.

They lied.

A crowd of about 200 people, some wielding homemade shields, clashed with police early Friday in Portland, Oregon for the third consecutive night…

The demonstration with unrest came hours after the city’s Democratic mayor pleaded for demonstrators to stay off the streets, saying that those who barricaded the doors to a police precinct the night before and tried to set it ablaze were not demonstrators, but criminals.

But I thought it was all Trump’s fault. 

Mayor Ted Wheeler said the violent protesters are also serving as political “props” for President Donald Trump in a divisive election-season where the president is hammering on a law-and-order message. Trump has tried to painted a picture of the Portland protesters as “sick and dangerous anarchists” running wild in the city’s streets.

So it’s still somehow Trump’s fault that Portland is overrun by violent leftist thugs who tried to burn police officers to death in a police station.

 One officer was severely hurt by a rock, police said, but no additional details were provided.

An older woman who tried to stop the vandalism was hit with a bucket of white paint and then got into a shouting match with those in the crowd as one protester tried to wrap her in yellow police tape — a conflict caught on video. Another elderly woman using a walker was also captured on video trying to put out the fire with a fire extinguisher while a black-clad protester blocked her way.

Wheeler, who was tear-gassed several weeks ago with protesters as he stood with them outside the federal courthouse, warned the demonstrators Thursday that their actions are helping Trump in his bid for a second term.

“Don’t think for a moment that if you are participating in this activity, you are not being a prop for the reelection campaign of Donald Trump — because you absolutely are,” he said. “If you don’t want to be part of that, then don’t show up.”

This is the only argument that Democrats have been reduced to when trying to check the extremism of the leftists who have taken their party over. And it never works.

If you can’t argue from principles that, say, burning down police stations is wrong, arguing that burning police stations makes you look bad and helps elect Trump isn’t going to go anywhere. It’s the bleating of political cowards and the thugs know it.