"You have seen how much power we have downtown and that the police cannot stop us from shutting down roads so please consider your decision wisely."

Said the anonymous email that caused Portland to cancel its Rose Festival Parade, WaPo reports.

Set to march in the parade’s 67th spot this year was the Multnomah County Republican Party, a fact that so outraged two self-described antifascist groups in the deep blue Oregon city that they pledged to protest and disrupt the April 29 event.

Then came an anonymous and ominous email, according to parade organizers, that instructed them to cancel the GOP group’s registration — or else...  200 people would “rush into the parade” and “drag and push” those marching with the Republican Party.

“We will not give one inch to groups who espouse hatred toward LGBT, immigrants, people of color or others,” it said....

So now that's all it takes to end freedom of expression in Portland. What a flimsy, pathetic place.

And it was only a threat to drag and push a specific set of people who were going to be present at a particular place and time. Do the police in Portland not know how to manage crowds? Let the parade happen, let the protesters arrive and protest, and deal with the situation as it unfolds. If you won't do that, you don't have a free society.

ADDED: The threat to shut down roads is particularly absurd to me after what I've seen in Madison down at the state capitol. When the protesters were coming, the police themselves would shut down the roads to make it easier on everyone. I've also seen the police here deal with situations where they knew antagonistic groups were going to be in the same place at the same time. There are techniques for this. You don't just give up and say now we can't assemble in groups anymore.