• by Richard Whitman , Columnist, July 20, 2020

It sounds like a movie trailer for a political thriller, complete with baritone narrator and heart-pounding music — like the kind you expect from a Jason Bourne film.

“This is how it starts,” the narrator intones. “A president out of control as polls forecast his downfall.”

“In a small city far from the Beltway, shadowy men, no badges, no identification, deputized by a rogue attorney general snatch so-called enemies of the state off the streets.”

Oh wait, I’ve seen this movie before, still living it in fact. That small city is Portland, Oregon, where federal agents were let loose to smack around peaceful protesters.

The “trailer” is the latest political ad from The Lincoln Project. It goes on to recount in some detail the thuggery that went on in Portland, noting that your town could be next, because Trump doesn’t believe in the right of peaceful protest -- or most things related to a democracy, for that matter.

“This is How it Starts,” is the ad’s title and refrain. It refers to how the end of freedom starts unless people go to the polls in November and vote Trump out.

I wish Biden’s people would start making ads this compelling.