We all know about "antifa" left-wingers shutting down campus speeches–but how about shutting down a parade?

That's exactly what's happened in Portland, Oregon/ The organizers of the 82nd Avenue of the Roses Parade, which for more than a decade has kicked off the city's annual Rose Festival, canceled this year's parade, scheduled for April 29, after receiving an e-mail from anarchist protesters threatening disruption and violence.

And do you know what the anarchists were upset about? The fact that Republicans would be marching in the parade!'

The Multnomah County Republican Party had been marching without incident since the initial 2007 parade, an event organized by the 82nd Avenue of the Roses Business Association designed to help give an upbeat facelift to a faded and crime-plagued Southeast Portland neighborhood. Then, according to the Portland Mercury, this is what happened:

An anarchist/antifa sent an email on Saturday to the business association putting on the parade about the Republicans in the March: "We promise there will be no harm to anyone but we will shut down and prevent them from marching using non-violent passive blocking of their movement," if the MCRP registration isn't revoked, the email said.

The emailer said if the MCRP is allowed to march, "then we will have two hundred or more people rush into the parade into the middle and drag and push those people out as we will not give one inch to groups who espouse hatred toward lgbt, immigrants, people of color or others. In case the message was not clear to you this is a sanctuary city and state and we will not allow these people to spread their views in East Portland."

"Those people" would be the Republicans, the party of Abraham Lincoln and Dwight D. Eisenhower.

And also the party of Donald Trump, whose face on a poster spattered with gobs of red paint, appears on a Facebook page of the Direct Action Alliance, one of the groups that sought to eliminate the GOP presence:

The fascists know that we'll keep shutting their marches down, they are now planning to march within other parades to protect their message of hate and white supremacy – it WON'T work. Nazis will not march through Portland….

Their Trump flags, their red MAGA hats and their hate group badges are all intended to normalize support for an orange man who bragged about sexually harassing women and who is waging a war of hate, racism and prejudice against our Muslim, Latinx, Black and Native neighbors.

Another group, Oregon Students Empowered, also called for protesters to "shut down fascism" on April 29 on a Facebook page.

The Republicans were naturally outraged and issued this statement:

The Multnomah County Republican Party (MCRP) has for many years participated in the Parade, and calls upon the Mayor, the Police Chief, and the District Attorney to take action against this criminal conspiracy to commit crimes of riot and disorderly conduct in violation of Oregon law. “Under former Mayor Charlie Hales,” said James Buchal, MCRP Chair, “the City allowed this cancer of lawlessness to grow to the point where its leaders are now bragging, like some sort of comic book characters, that ‘the police cannot stop us’. But this is no laughing matter. The participation of political parties in public events like the Parade is not only an American tradition, but also reflects the most fundamental constitutional rights of free speech and freedom of assembly.”

But this is Portlandia, and when it comes to choosing between black-clad, mask-wearing leftist thugs and a time-honored political party, we know what the choice will be.

Following threats of violence during the Parade by multiple groups planning to demonstrate at the event, we can no longer guarantee the safety of our community and have made the difficult decision to cancel the Parade and Carnival originally scheduled for Saturday, April 29 at 9:30am.

MCRP chairman James Buchal had earlier scoffed at the notion that the local GOP had aligned itself with fascists for the parade and promised that  "if any [marcher] pulls out a swastika or starts yelling at kids from behind our banner, we're going to get rid of him pronto. What [else] are we supposed to do?"