Portland may be weirder after the November 3 election, when the candidate who describes herself as “I am Antifa” faces off against incumbent Democratic Mayor Ted Wheeler, whose condo was set on fire this week by Antifa.
“I’m not the person setting the fires,” said Antifa activist Sarah Iannarone (eye-ANNE-uh-rhone, she/her pronouns). “And I’m not the person here to tell them how to protest. I’m just a working-class mom without the safety net of inherited wealth, which is why I’m occupying Ted Wheeler’s $840,000 condominium until Portland votes me into the mayor’s office.”
“That’s my first qualification for being mayor at this critical time,” she said, adding that accepting any election result that keeps her out of City Hall would be “dangerous for our democracy.”
“Criminal activity is illegal, and I condemn arson, obviously. But nobody controls a social movement, and squatting in the mayor’s abandoned condo after it was set on fire is neither illegal nor violent,” Iannarone said. “We need to understand these protests are part of a healthy democracy. Peaceful protests, in my opinion, might not necessarily be moving the conversation forward.”
We reached out to Mayor Wheeler’s office for a comment, but he said he was too busy moving out of his $840,000 condo to reply.
