In a post-Trump Oregon, experts watchful for partisanship, violence
Americans held their breath as President Joe Biden prepared to take the oath of office.
The end of the Trump era that oath marked felt balanced on a knife s edge, years of social and political tension manifested in a militarized Washington, D.C., and state capitols vigilant for violence. Still, the day s climax was entirely peaceful, almost boring.
But if the nation s wounds didn t tear open Inauguration Day, neither were they miraculously healed.
Participants in and watchers of Oregon politics expect the political and activist divisions exacerbated by the past four years to simmer and, on occasion, boil over in the years ahead. At the Capitol in Salem, it could mean partisanship and political stunts. There and elsewhere, it also could mean political violence and continued factional skirmishes.