One of the most horrifying symbols of national impotence during the first Trump administration wasn’t just the nationwide BLM riots or even the assault on the White House, but the sustained assault day after day by Antifa on the Mark O. Hatfield US Courthouse in Portland, and the helplessness of federal authorities to intervene.

Small pods of three to four protesters dressed in black circulated in the crowd, stopping every few minutes to point green laser beams in the eyes of agents posted as lookouts on porticoes on the courthouse’s upper stories. The agents above were silhouetted against the dark sky as dozens of green laser dots and a large spotlight played on the courthouse walls, projected from the back of the crowd.

Thirty minutes later, someone fired a commercial-grade firework inside the fence. Next came a flare and then protesters began using an angle grinder to eat away at the fence. A barrage of items came whizzing into the courthouse: rocks, cans of beans, water bottles, potatoes and rubber bouncy balls that cause the agents to slip and fall.