Hello and welcome to the Americano podcast, a series of discussions about American politics, life and the Trump presidency.

And before we start this episode, I'd like to draw everyone's attention to our new Not the New York Times offer, which we're offering to encourage readers to subscribe to the Spectators'

US edition, which is excellent. I edit it. And the reason we're running the Not the New York Times offer

is because we are very unlike the New York Times. I don't know if you're aware of this, but the

famous newspaper, the most famous newspaper

of America has recently hounded out one of its best editors because the paper had published

a slightly controversial article.

The paper staff and bizarrely many of its readers now demand total conformity of opinion in

the opinion pages. We think that's very

boring and we want to tell America that the spectator is different. We are a magazine, not a

newspaper, and we take a very different approach to journalism. We've been around longer than the

times, in fact, 23 years longer to be precise, and we encourage our writers to disagree with each

other. We want arguments,

and we want people to disagree. It makes for much better reading. We also try not to take

ourselves too seriously, and unlike the Grey Lady, as the New York Times is known, we never

confuse the serious with the dull. We're new to America, and we want Americans to know what

we're all about, which is why

we're offering this special not the New York Times offer with 50% off the normal price. If you go to

spectator.us forward slash not dash NYT dash and you enter the code NOT NYT, you will get 50% off the Spectator's US edition.

Please take up the offer.

I'm joined today by Nancy Romerman, who is a journalist and author, and who is currently in Portland at the moment,

and we're going to be asking what on earth is happening in Portland?

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