GOP portrayal of urban mayhem doesn't always match reality

At almost every turn at the Republican National Convention, speakers from the president on down portrayed American cities like Portland, Oregon, New York and Chicago as lawless Democratic wastelands that have been overrun with violence, looting and destruction that is forcing residents to flee for safer locales. In downtown Portland this week, tourists from Texas enjoyed gyros at a food cart, a couple from the suburbs soaked up the afternoon sun and a recent transplant from Indiana strummed an acoustic guitar outside a shuttered Apple store, in front of a mural that’s dedicated to Black people killed by police. “It’s a pretty day and we feel just perfectly safe as long as we’ve got our masks on,” said Benjamin Green, a warehouse forklift operator from Beaverton, Oregon.