Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler has rightly drawn harsh criticism for his handling of the Portland protests over the last two months and lackluster police reform efforts in the city — from my perspective, the accurate criticisms have been of his refusal or inability to reign in police violence and press for more meaningful restructuring of policing in the city. But even the mayor’s most strident critics should be appalled by President Trump’s comments about Wheeler after the mayor was tear-gassed last week while attending a protest outside Portland’s federal courthouse. As Talking Points Memo reports, Trump told Sean Hannity that, “He made a fool of himself. He wanted to be among the people so he went into the crowd and they knocked the hell out of him. That was the end of him. So it was pretty pathetic.” I would be surprised to learn that any previous president had celebrated physical violence against a political opponent in the way that Trump did here. We have all gotten used to the president’s slurs and denigration of rival politicians, but the celebration of actual state violence against a Democrat is far past any conceivable red line of what should be permissible in this country. This is textbook fascist politics, incompatible with not just American but any form of democracy.