Wearing bike helmets and yellow T-shirts, America's mothers are confronting federal agents in combat gear to protect anti-racism protesters in Portland and, soon, other US cities where President Donald Trump has vowed to crack down.
Wall Of Moms groups have formed in at least six cities including New York and Chicago on Facebook in the four days since mainly white suburban moms in Portland started making human walls in front of demonstrators.
Carrying signs like "Feds stay clear. Moms are here", and "I'm so disappointed in you - mom", the Oregon women have been shoved and tear-gassed by agents. Some dads have joined too, bringing leaf blowers to blow away tear gas.
The movement seems to have had made an impression on President Trump.
Yesterday he moved to repeal a housing rule that he claimed would lead to the "destruction" of America's suburbs, continuing an aggressive push that coincides with his campaign's attempt to paint Democrats as angry mobs on the brink of upturning peaceful, mostly white neighbourhoods.
Mr Trump had telegraphed the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) move against the Obama administration's rule in recent tweets and comments that made thinly-veiled appeals to a key electoral constituency that has drifted away from him over the past four years: suburban white voters.
Trailing Democrat Joe Biden in the polls just over 100 days before the election, Trump has shed much of the subtlety behind his pitch to sceptical voters.
Increasingly, he is attempting to portray himself as the only barrier between them and chaos.
"The Suburban Housewives of America must read this article," Trump wrote Thursday on Twitter, linking to a 'New York Post' opinion piece by former New York lieutenant governor Betsy McCaughey that said Biden would ruin the country's bedroom communities.
"Biden will destroy your neighbourhood and your American Dream. I will preserve it, and make it even better!"
Political strategists say the overt appeals to racial fear and grievance are politically precarious at a time when much of the country is attempting to reckon with issues such as systemic racism and discrimination.
"There seems to be a complete lack of understanding why he's been getting drubbed in the suburbs," said Brendan Buck, a former top aide to former House speaker Paul Ryan and other Republican officials.
"Educated suburban voters are not interested in - and are actually repelled by - his fearmongering and these racial dog whistles."
Republicans lost control of the House in 2018 as millions of suburban voters repulsed by Trump abandoned the party to vote for Democrats, a trend Trump's re-election campaign has sought to avoid ahead of November by painting opponents as extremists.
That strategy has recently shifted to focus on housing, the latest issue Trump has seized on as he attempts to define Biden as a threat to "the American way of life".
But by promising to defend suburbia and restore a bygone era of suburban homogeneity, Trump may be on a futile mission to recapture the support of long-time Republican voters who say his presidency has driven them away from the party, said Amy Walter, national editor of the 'Cook Political Report'. Amid a deadly pandemic that has devastated the economy and in the wake of mass protests for racial justice, those voters are not likely to be moved by Trump's promises to defend the suburbs from outsiders, said Walter, whose organisation has shifted its predictions for several suburban congressional races toward Democrats in recent weeks.
"These voters have all but closed the door on Donald Trump," she said. "His response to Covid-19 and to the George Floyd protests really pushed them over to the other side.
"And he's not going to win back those suburbs of Houston, Dallas, Philadelphia or Orange County [Calif.] that Republicans lost in 2018."
The Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (FFH) rule Trump moved to eliminate Thursday was proposed by president Barack Obama in 2015 in an attempt to fight housing discrimination and segregation by requiring cities and towns to scrutinise their housing patterns for racial bias, publicly report the results and set goals for reducing segregation.
Conservatives criticised the rule as federal over-reach, and Trump's administration largely halted its implementation after he was elected.
The president thrust the largely dormant issue back into the headlines in recent days as he pushed a "law and order" message that critics say is reminiscent of the appeals to racial fear embraced by 1960s presidential candidates Richard Nixon and George Wallace.
During a "tele-town hall" aimed at Wisconsin voters this month, Trump said that Democrats could "eliminate single-family zoning, bringing who knows into your suburbs, so your communities will be unsafe and your housing values will go down."
During a recent White House event, he said: "People have worked all their lives to get into a community and now they're going to watch it go to hell."
Shaun Donovan, Obama's first HUD secretary who is now running for mayor of New York City, said Trump's approach to housing is part of "a very racist appeal" in the months before November.
"Like so many things with Trump, he really is bringing racism to the surface in a way that nobody would," he added.
Defending the Obama-era rule, Donovan said that for decades there were efforts to implement a provision in the 1968 Fair Housing Act that specifically used the phrase "affirmatively further fair housing" to mean that communities receiving federal HUD dollars had to do more than just not discriminate.
They had to take steps to promote integrated neighbourhoods, he said.
"The goal wasn't just racial integration, it wasn't enough to say we need to create diverse neighbourhoods; we needed to create neighbourhoods of opportunity - to really focus it for the first time on race and opportunity," he said.
"Part of this is, if you build more affordable housing in good neighbourhoods, that means the suburbs have to open up."
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| Women link arms at a protest against racism and police violence in Portland |
Wall Of Moms groups have formed in at least six cities including New York and Chicago on Facebook in the four days since mainly white suburban moms in Portland started making human walls in front of demonstrators.
Carrying signs like "Feds stay clear. Moms are here", and "I'm so disappointed in you - mom", the Oregon women have been shoved and tear-gassed by agents. Some dads have joined too, bringing leaf blowers to blow away tear gas.
The movement seems to have had made an impression on President Trump.
Yesterday he moved to repeal a housing rule that he claimed would lead to the "destruction" of America's suburbs, continuing an aggressive push that coincides with his campaign's attempt to paint Democrats as angry mobs on the brink of upturning peaceful, mostly white neighbourhoods.
Mr Trump had telegraphed the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) move against the Obama administration's rule in recent tweets and comments that made thinly-veiled appeals to a key electoral constituency that has drifted away from him over the past four years: suburban white voters.
Trailing Democrat Joe Biden in the polls just over 100 days before the election, Trump has shed much of the subtlety behind his pitch to sceptical voters.
Increasingly, he is attempting to portray himself as the only barrier between them and chaos.
"The Suburban Housewives of America must read this article," Trump wrote Thursday on Twitter, linking to a 'New York Post' opinion piece by former New York lieutenant governor Betsy McCaughey that said Biden would ruin the country's bedroom communities.
"Biden will destroy your neighbourhood and your American Dream. I will preserve it, and make it even better!"
Political strategists say the overt appeals to racial fear and grievance are politically precarious at a time when much of the country is attempting to reckon with issues such as systemic racism and discrimination.
"There seems to be a complete lack of understanding why he's been getting drubbed in the suburbs," said Brendan Buck, a former top aide to former House speaker Paul Ryan and other Republican officials.
"Educated suburban voters are not interested in - and are actually repelled by - his fearmongering and these racial dog whistles."
Republicans lost control of the House in 2018 as millions of suburban voters repulsed by Trump abandoned the party to vote for Democrats, a trend Trump's re-election campaign has sought to avoid ahead of November by painting opponents as extremists.
That strategy has recently shifted to focus on housing, the latest issue Trump has seized on as he attempts to define Biden as a threat to "the American way of life".
But by promising to defend suburbia and restore a bygone era of suburban homogeneity, Trump may be on a futile mission to recapture the support of long-time Republican voters who say his presidency has driven them away from the party, said Amy Walter, national editor of the 'Cook Political Report'. Amid a deadly pandemic that has devastated the economy and in the wake of mass protests for racial justice, those voters are not likely to be moved by Trump's promises to defend the suburbs from outsiders, said Walter, whose organisation has shifted its predictions for several suburban congressional races toward Democrats in recent weeks.
"These voters have all but closed the door on Donald Trump," she said. "His response to Covid-19 and to the George Floyd protests really pushed them over to the other side.
"And he's not going to win back those suburbs of Houston, Dallas, Philadelphia or Orange County [Calif.] that Republicans lost in 2018."
The Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (FFH) rule Trump moved to eliminate Thursday was proposed by president Barack Obama in 2015 in an attempt to fight housing discrimination and segregation by requiring cities and towns to scrutinise their housing patterns for racial bias, publicly report the results and set goals for reducing segregation.
Conservatives criticised the rule as federal over-reach, and Trump's administration largely halted its implementation after he was elected.
The president thrust the largely dormant issue back into the headlines in recent days as he pushed a "law and order" message that critics say is reminiscent of the appeals to racial fear embraced by 1960s presidential candidates Richard Nixon and George Wallace.
During a "tele-town hall" aimed at Wisconsin voters this month, Trump said that Democrats could "eliminate single-family zoning, bringing who knows into your suburbs, so your communities will be unsafe and your housing values will go down."
During a recent White House event, he said: "People have worked all their lives to get into a community and now they're going to watch it go to hell."
Shaun Donovan, Obama's first HUD secretary who is now running for mayor of New York City, said Trump's approach to housing is part of "a very racist appeal" in the months before November.
"Like so many things with Trump, he really is bringing racism to the surface in a way that nobody would," he added.
Defending the Obama-era rule, Donovan said that for decades there were efforts to implement a provision in the 1968 Fair Housing Act that specifically used the phrase "affirmatively further fair housing" to mean that communities receiving federal HUD dollars had to do more than just not discriminate.
They had to take steps to promote integrated neighbourhoods, he said.
"The goal wasn't just racial integration, it wasn't enough to say we need to create diverse neighbourhoods; we needed to create neighbourhoods of opportunity - to really focus it for the first time on race and opportunity," he said.
"Part of this is, if you build more affordable housing in good neighbourhoods, that means the suburbs have to open up."
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